MATSEC AM Italian flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

raddoppiamento fonosintattico

Syntactic gemination: the initial consonant of a following word is lengthened after stressed monosyllables (è, ho, da) and some polysyllables, e.g., è vero [ɛvˈvero]; it is a standard feature of Italian phonology.

minimal pairs in Italian

Pairs of words distinguished by one phoneme, often vowel openness or consonant length: pèsca/pésca, bòtte/bótte, fato/fatto, pala/palla. Aural exams test these distinctions.

Lei form

Formal second-person address using third-person verb forms and pronouns (Lei parla, Le posso aiutare?). Used with strangers, superiors, and in formal contexts; contrasts with informal tu.

syllable-timed rhythm

Italian is syllable-timed: stressed and unstressed syllables take roughly equal time, giving a steady rhythm. English is stress-timed. This affects listening segmentation and pronunciation accuracy.

definite articles: lo, gli

Lo and gli precede masculine nouns beginning with s+consonant, z, gn, ps, x, y, and vowel-initial nouns use l' (l'amico, gli amici). Il and i are used elsewhere.

false friends: attualmente, eventualmente

Attualmente means 'currently' (not 'actually'); eventualmente means 'possibly' (not 'eventually'). Other traps: fattoria 'farm', morbido 'soft', educato 'polite'.

passato remoto

Literary and historical narrative tense with stress on the ending: parlò, parlarono; irregulars fu, furono, ebbe, disse, dissero. Common in novels, history, and fairytales.

periodo ipotetico

Conditional sentence: reality (se + indicativo), possibility (se + congiuntivo imperfetto + condizionale presente), impossibility (se + congiuntivo trapassato + condizionale passato).

combined pronouns glielo, gliela

Indirect object gli/le combines with direct object lo/la/li/le to form glielo, gliela, glieli, gliele: Glielo do 'I give it to him/her'. Common in reading passages and written production.

accento grafico

Written accent obligatory on oxytones (città, caffè, però, più) and ambiguous monosyllables (dà, dì, è, sì, né, sé, tè). Distinguishes words like e/è and si/sì.

apostrophe and elision

Apostrophe marks elision before vowel-initial words: l'uomo, un'amica, quest'anno. No apostrophe before consonant-initial words; truncation without apostrophe in quel, buon, sant'.

past participle agreement

With essere, the participle agrees with the subject (Maria è andata). With avere, it agrees with a preceding direct object clitic (Le ho viste). Otherwise invariable.

congiuntivo present endings

-are verbs: -i, -i, -i, -iamo, -iate, -ino (che io parli). -ere/-ire: -a, -a, -a, -iamo, -iate, -ano (che io venda, che io parta).

imperfetto vs passato prossimo

Imperfetto describes background, habitual actions, or ongoing states; passato prossimo reports completed events. Contrast: Leggevo quando è arrivato.

double consonants

Consonant length is phonemic and must be written: anno/ano, fatto/fato, palla/pala, carro/caro, nonno/nono. Errors change meaning and are penalised in accuracy tasks.

Scuola siciliana

13th-century Sicilian School at Frederick II's court produced the first Italian vernacular poetry and the sonnet form, later adopted by Petrarch and the dolce stil novo.

Divina Commedia structure

Dante's poem in terza rima has three cantiche: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. Virgil guides through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice through Paradise. Completed around 1321.

Petrarch's Canzoniere

Petrarch's collection of vernacular lyrics, mostly sonnets, addressed to Laura. It fixed the sonnet model for European poetry and shaped the Renaissance lyric tradition.

Decameron

Boccaccio's 14th-century collection of 100 novelle told over ten days by ten young people fleeing the 1348 plague. Foundational work of Italian prose narrative.

I promessi sposi

Manzoni's historical novel, final version 1840–42. Its linguistic revision based on Florentine usage promoted a unified literary Italian and made it the foundational Italian novel.

Risorgimento dates

Italian Unification: Kingdom of Italy proclaimed 17 March 1861; Rome annexed 1870. Cavour, Garibaldi, and Mazzini were central figures.

Italian Republic referendum

The referendum of 2 June 1946 established the Italian Republic; the Constitution came into force on 1 January 1948. 2 June is celebrated as Festa della Repubblica.

Pirandello and Svevo

Pirandello (Nobel 1934) wrote Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore (1921); Svevo wrote La coscienza di Zeno (1923). Both explore identity, memory, and unreliable narration.

vowel phonemes /ɛ/ and /ɔ/

Open-mid vowels occur in stressed syllables and distinguish words: è /ɛ/, ò /ɔ/ versus close-mid /e/, /o/. Regional variation exists, but examiners expect consistent distinctions.

discourse markers

Allora, quindi, comunque, insomma, cioè, and dunque structure spoken Italian and signal transitions, conclusions, or reformulations. Their absence makes speech sound stilted.

indefinite articles uno, un'

Uno before s+consonant, z, gn, ps, x, y (uno studente, uno zio); un' only before feminine vowel-initial nouns (un'amica). Un and una elsewhere.

connectives in reading

Tuttavia, pertanto, quindi, inoltre, invece, benché, affinché signal contrast, consequence, addition, or concession. Tracking them clarifies argument structure in passages.

congiuntivo triggers

Required after verbs of opinion, doubt, emotion, and impersonal expressions (penso che sia, è possibile che venga), and in relative clauses with indefinite antecedents.

passato prossimo with essere

Intransitive verbs of motion, change, and state (andare, venire, nascere, morire, essere, stare) take essere; the participle agrees with the subject: Sono andata.

written register features

Formal Italian prefers passato remoto in narrative, congiuntivo in subordinate clauses, explicit connectives, and avoids colloquial ellipsis. Register consistency is assessed in production tasks.

Orlando furioso

Ariosto's chivalric epic (1516, revised 1532) in ottava rima, blending Carolingian and Arthurian material. A key work of the Italian Renaissance.

Machiavelli's Il principe

Written 1513, published 1532. A political treatise on acquiring and maintaining power, famous for the maxim that the end justifies the means and for its realist analysis of statecraft.