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Hi everybody and welcome to my show. My name is Gabi and today we're going to speak about the Italian adjective.
The adjective is a part of a speech that expresses the attributes of quality, quantity, et cetera, of the person or thing indicated by the noun to which it refers. It also agrees with the gender and number of that noun.
There are three possible endings for adjectives in the masculine singular, and then for the feminine and plural of adjectives they are formed by simply changing the final ending of the masculine singular.
| Masc. Sing. | Femm. Sing. | Masc. Plu. | Femm. Plu.
1° gruppo | -o (caro) | -a (cara) | -i (cari) | -e (care)
2° gruppo | -e (triste) | -e (triste) | -i (tristi) | -i (tristi)
3° gruppo | -a (egoista) | -a (egoista) | -i (egoisti)| -e (egoiste)
MASCHILE SINGOLARE
-co (greco – stàtico)
-go (largo)
-scio (liscio)
-io i when stressed (pìo)
–io i when it is not stressed (gàio)
«bello» before nouns beginning with a vowel (bell’albero), with s + consonant, z-, gn-, ps- (bello sport, bello psicologo…) or far away from the position of the noun (il cane è bello) «bel» before all other nouns that begin with a consonant (bel cane)
rosa – blu – (il maglione rosa)
FEMMINILE SINGOLARE
–ca both if the accent is on the penultimate syllable and if it is on the antepenultimate (Greca – stàtica)
-ga (larga)
-scia (liscia)
–ìa (pìa)
–ia (gàia)
«bella» (bell’isola, bella spiaggia, bella ragazza, la casa è bella…)
rosa – blu – (la felpa è blu)
MASCHILE PLURALE
–chi if the stress is on the penultimate syllable (antìchi) –ci if the stress is on the antepenultimate syllable (stàtici)
–ghi (larghi)
-sci (lisci)
-ii (pìi)
-i (gài)
«belli» or far away from the position of the noun (i fiori sono belli, belli questi pantaloni…) «begli» before nouns that begin with a vowel (begli alberi), with s + consonant, z-, gn-, ps- (begli sport, begli psicologi…) «bei» before all other nouns that begin with a consonant (bei cani)
rosa – blu – indaco (i pantaloni indaco)
FEMMINILE PLURALE
–che in ogni caso
–ghe (larghe)
–sce (lisce)
–ie (pìe)
–ie (gàie)
«belle» (belle cose, belle isole, belle psicologhe)
rosa – blu – indaco (le orchidee rosa)
Good. Now, agreement of adjectives. The adjective always agrees with the noun to which it refers. And this is nothing new. But what if there is more than one noun?
If the nouns have the same gender, then the adjective maintains the gender and takes the pearl number.
For example:
La maglia e la gonna di Maria sono belle.
Il duomo di Milano e il Colosseo romano sono belli
Now, the position of the adjective, this is important. In Italian, the position of the adjective is not fixed, therefore it can be found before and after the noun to which it refers. Now, the position, however, can completely change the meaning of the sentence.
For example, adjectives that express physical characteristics such as tall, old, or new respect their physical meaning when they follow the noun they refer to, but they take on a completely different meaning if they proceed it. So I'm going to give a few examples:
Un dirigente alto is a senior executive who happens to be tall, okay? So notice that we would say alto after the noun. So it's a man of tall height who holds a role in management, right? While in the second example un alto dirigente is a is just a senior executive, that is, a man who holds a high level position in a company.
Now, second example, un amico vecchio, it's a friend of advanced age. In other words, a friend who happens to be old while un vecchio amico is an old friend, a friend I have known for a long time, maybe from childhood, but not necessarily somebody who's old un auto nuova is a new car, as in a brand new car. While if i say voglio comprare una nuova auto That would mean that I want to buy a new car as in a newer car, a newer version, right? Than the car that I already have. Okay? So just another car.
Now, un buon insegnante is a good teacher, as in a competent teacher, right? A teacher who teaches well, and then un insegnante buono is a teacher who happens to be a good and kind person.
Now, our last example un pover'uomo is an unfortunate man, a man with no luck. And then if I say un uomo povero that we refer to a man who happens to be poor. Okay?
Ci sono, poi, degli aggettivi che vanno sempre dopo il nome. Si tratta di quelli che indicano: nazionalità
so there are adjectives that always go after the noun. For example, those who refer to nationality.
So if I say la capitale inglese, so the English capital city, right? I would be speaking about London. So notice that I place the adjective after the noun. So that's for nationalities also for apartenenze ad una categoria an adjective belonging to a certain category.
And then, so for place and position as well, we would say la mano sinistra , we would not say la sinistra mano. Okay? Now for color, form and material, that would be colore, forma, materia: un rosa bianca. So a white rose; una tovaglia tonda. So that's a round tablecloth. Okay? So remember that in these cases you would place the adjective after the noun. Now, I want you to write the plural forms of the following adjectives:
Immerso
Fanatico
Critico
larga:
Forte:
blu:
fiammingo:
pazzesco:
Okay? So just try to write the plural forms, both in masculine and feminine of those adjectives right there. Okay? Now I'm going to read out a small fairytale, plenty of adjectives, which I would like you to translate into English, okay? So I'm going to read it slowly, and so I would want you to try to translate it into English and try to learn it by heart as well.
Here we go:
Pulcinella e sua moglie sono molto poveri. Abitano in una brutta casa, vecchia e fredda, vicino al mare. Non hanno niente da mangiare. Non hanno soldi. Pulcinella allora prende una vecchia canna, un secchio vuoto e va a pescare. Dopo un poco di tempo Pulcinella prende un pesce grandissimo, è felice ma il pesce gli dice: - Non mangiarmi! Io sono un pesce magico. Lasciami libero in mare e io ti darò tutto quello che desideri. Pulcinella butta il pesce in mare e torna a casa. La moglie vede il secchio del pesce vuoto e si arrabbia. Sulla tavola ci sono due piatti vuoti. - Cosa mangeremo adesso? – grida la moglie di Pulcinella. All’improvviso i piatti non sono più vuoti, sono pieni di spaghetti caldi e saporiti: il pesce magico ha mantenuto la promessa.
There you go. So I want you to write, try to write it down. Try to learn it by heart and try to translate it into English, okay?
Now we have come to the second part of our episode called the science of language. So today we are going to continue with the paper that we started a couple of episodes ago. So, I want to refer back to the fact that as you could see, the key controversy is always whether we have a special form of computation that deals with language alone, and if that new mechanism is biologically encoded.
So we were talking about this in our last episodes. We were trying to see whether language it's just a special form of computation in the brain and if that mechanism is actually encoded in your biology, right? So whether that is a biological thing, okay?
Now, the radically usage-based complex adaptive system view of language states that language is not shaped by any domain specific factors, but rather by processes of human interaction along with domain general cognitive processes. In other words, as I have pointed out before, whether language is more a socially and culturally constrained phenomenon rather than merely a biological one.
So now we are referring back to the same kind of thing, the same kind of overarching question. So we're asking whether language is not just shaped by a domain specific factor, but it's rather built or construed along domain general cognitive processes, right? So in other words, whether it is a social and culturally constrained phenomenon or is a biological one. Now there is likewise a debate around the fact that many cognitive adaptations are not specifically for language, but for communication more generally, right?
So now according to studies on language development in ontogeny, including atypical development and on the genetic basis of language, by Ambridge and Lieven, language can neither be completely domain general, nor an entirely modular system. And modular approaches in general have also become more complex so that there is more overlap with non modular views of cognition.
Okay? So in other words, again, as studies make progress or make headway in the two different main approaches that is usage-based approaches and biolinguistics approaches, we've realized that they're coming closer together, right? So overall, this more recent biolinguistic view on modularity is therefore much more in line with usage-based approaches, which is what I just mentioned. And it is also consistent with and informed by neuroscientific evidence that linguistic processing might recruit other neural circuits for sequence processing, forming associations, work in memory and others. Okay? So that's also an important part right here.
We need to understand or we need to find out whether there's specific adaptations only for language or whether there's more sort of like wide cognitive capacities that recruit other neural circuits for sequence processing, forming associations, working memory and others. So there might be an interaction between the two. That's my guess.
Now, in other words, both approaches are starting to come together, okay? An important argument in favor of domain specificity, however, in generative linguistics has been structural dissimilarities between the operations assumed to be at work in universal grammar and what has been described for other cognitive domains.
Okay? So there seems to be a discrepancy right there. There's a difference right there. They say that there are structural dissimilarities between the operations that seem to be happening in the brain , in universal grammar, in the frame of universal grammar as opposed to those described for other cognitive, more general cognitive domains.
But then again, the number of operations that are assumed to be part of a language faculty has been reduced substantially in current biolinguistic approaches compared to the early days of generative grammar. So again, both views seem to be approaching. So in every front there seems to be a consensus that both approaches are starting to come together. For example, it has been noted that FLN, so the faculty of language in its narrow sense is limited to recursion, which is supposed to be a uniquely human and domain specific adaptation.
But what is recursion? Recursion is the repeated sequential use of a particular type of linguistic element or grammatical structure. However, Chomsky argued that optimally recursion can be reduced to merge. So I explained merge in the last episode too. We said what it was. And now in contrast to the view of recursion as domain specific for language emergentist approaches have suggested that recursion arises from combined activities of memory, lexicon, discourse and role activation.
Biolinguistic and usage-based approaches agree that there is a suspicious specific linguistic capacity and that this capacity has biological foundations. The point of contention is what exactly these biological foundations entail, and to what degree they are specific to language.
So pretty interesting stuff. Now, MacWhinney 2015, writing about the mechanisms of language emergence stresses the importance of a cognitive mechanism of composition and explicitly remarks that the emphasis in universal grammar minimalism on the merge process is compatible with emergentist accounts. However, MacWhinney also stresses that compositionally is not a feature specific to language, but it's also required for non-linguistic tasks such as basic action processing for example.
This is a possible divergence between usage-based approaches and biolinguistics. However, as merge is often seen as a mechanism for combining concepts as well, we do see broad compatibility between usage-based approaches and biolinguistics acknowledge merge like mechanism to operate in non-linguistic tasks such as action processing or concept formation and human hierarchical processing as well.
So you see, merge is a concept that can be taken into account in other fields, right? The fact that is a mechanism that combines different concepts as well. So it's not just a linguistic thing, but it goes beyond the linguistic fields, right? So in non-linguistic tasks such as action processing or concept formation and human hierarchical processing as well. So there are other domains beyond language in which we could use the concept of merge.
Now, language is not only biological because the human brain, the language ready brain is one important aspect, not only for of biolinguistics or for biolinguistics, but also for evolutionary approaches to language more generally. Other important questions regard the evolution of the language ready social settings. So there is questions regarding the interactional, non-genetic and cultural processes that give rise to language and linguistic structure.
So as we can see, the, the language ready brain isn't just important for language, but it also goes beyond the domain of language, right? So now this is how these two approaches seem to be coming together, okay? We're going to leave it for now. We're going to be talking about the last part of the paper or the last parts of the paper in our in our next episode. For now, thank you very much for having put up with me and I hope to see you next time. Don't forget to subscribe. Bye-bye