Getting Around Italian on a Few Bites - Italy for Tourists - page 94

A Bite of Italian Structure
There are a few rules you have to keep in mind, about the structure of the Italian lan-
guage:
A) The basic form is:
SUBJECT (not always necessary*) + VERB (the action that is happening) + OBJECT
* Italian is a “null-subject language”, i.e. a language whose grammar permits an inde-
pendent clause to lack an explicit subject. Null-subject languages express person , num-
ber , and/or gender agreement with the referent on the verb, rendering a subject noun
phrase redundant. Especially the subject “IO” (“I”) is often dropped because the suffix
of the verb tells you who is the subject, e.g. “IO PARL O - TU PARL I ” (I speak - you
speak ) is already conjugated to show if it's “I” or “you”, and so on. Thus, you can just
say “PARLO ITALIANO” instead of “IO PARLO ITALIANO”, and people clearly un-
derstand that the subject is “IO”. (Anyway it is not a mistake if you say it). You can
also say it if you want to emphasize the subject, e.g., IO PARLO ITALIANO, (I SPEAK
ITALIAN) stresses the fact that it is me who can speak Italian, not you or the friend of
mine.
B) ADJECTIVES GENERALLY FOLLOW THE WORD THEY ARE DESCRIBING:
Red pen = PENNA ROSSA
C) You can use the POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE together with the ARTICLE:
ARTICLE + POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE + SUBJECT + ADJECTIVE
My red pen = LA MIA PENNA ROSSA