The partitive article in plural
The partitive article in the plural (dei, degli, delle) denotes an indefinite quantity and thus represents the plural of the indefinite article.
Indefinite article
- Corso d'italiano A1.1, Grammatica, Unità 2
The indefinite article (it. l’articolo indeterminativo) in Italian must be adapted to the gender, masculine or feminine. Also, you need to pay attention to the first letter of the word that follows it. Let’s learn the rules of the indefinite article in Italian.
The indefinite article in Italian
| un cane | a dog |
The indefinite article is used to refer to something unknown or something you are mentioning for the first time. In Italian, nouns and articles have two genders, masculine and feminine, and the article must conform to this. It is also important to pay attention to the first letter of the following word.
Look at the table with the rules:
| MASCULINE | ||
| before consonant | un cane | a dog |
| before vowel | un amico | a friend |
| before s+consonant, z, x, y, gn, ps | uno zio | an uncle |
| FEMININE | ||
| before consonant | una casa | a house |
| before vowel | un‘isola | an island |
Is there no plural?
Basically, in Italian, as in English, there is no plural of the indefinite article. However, in Italian the so-called partitive article is used to indicate an indefinite quantity, and thus represents a kind of plural of the indefinite article. This is usually not translated in English.
| dei cani | – dogs |
More on this topic in our lesson on the plural partitive article
Esercizio
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Masculine and feminine
In Italian there are two genders and three nouns classes: O, A and E nouns, like gatto, casa and cane.
Definite articles
The definite article is adjusted for gender (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural).
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