Appendix:Italian nouns

Italian nouns are usually considered as having not a proper inflection system, having only the nominative case, however, they can be inflected by gender and by number.

Italian nouns have two grammatical genders (masculine and feminine) and two numbers (singular and plural).

Except for some loanwords as würstel from German, computer from English and gilet from French, all Italian nouns have a suffix to distinguish between genders and numbers.

Generally Italian nouns which have both masculine and feminine genders are inflected as in the following tables:

but dio (“god, deity”)/dei (“gods, deities”)/dea (“goddess”)/dee (“goddesses”), or

or, as signore (“gentleman”)/signori (“gentlemen”)/signora (“gentlewoman, lady”)/signore (“gentlewomen, ladies”),

or, as sci (“ski, skiing”)/sci (“skis”)/scia (“trail”)/scie (“trails”),

Words penultimate stressed which ends by -io (except -glio and -gnio) (pronounced IPA^(key): /jo/):

Govern rank nouns, some profession nouns, and leone, as their translations in English, are inflected as in the following tables:

for govern rank nouns as principe (“prince”)/principessa (“princess”), conte (“count”)/contessa (“countess”), presidente (“president”)/presidentessa, ..., but re (“king, kings”)/regina (“queen”), some profession nouns, dottore (“doctor”)/dottoressa and professore (“professor”)/professoressa, and leone (“lion”)/leonessa (“lioness”), or

for profession nouns as attore (“actor”)/attrice (“actress”), direttore (“director, manager”)/direttrice (“female director, manageress”) and presentatore (“presenter”)/presentatrice.

Other examples of nouns with irregular gender "inflection" are marito (“husband”)/mariti (“husbands”)/moglie (“wife”)/mogli (“wifes”), uomo (“man”)/uomini (“men”)/donna (“woman”)/donne (“women”)

Both masculine singular nouns ending by -o or by -e have a plural by -i.

Masculine nouns penultimate stressed ending by -io pronounced IPA^(key): /jo/ (except -glio and -gnio) have plural by -i or (dated since half of the XX century) -î or -ii, both pronounced IPA^(key): /ji/.

Masculine singular nouns ending by -e have a truncated form (rare in familiar speech, more common in polite speech), for example signore/signor (“gentleman, mister”)/signori (“gentlemen, misters”)/signora (“gentlewoman, lady, miss”)/signore (“gentlewomen, ladies, misses”).

Feminine singular nouns ending by -a have a plural by -e.

Feminine singular nouns ending by -e have a plural by -i.

Are invariable by number nouns ending by stressed vowel (stresses in monosyllable nouns may be implied) (re (“king”), re (musical note), tè (“the”), età (“age”), caffè (“coffee”), città (“city”), gru, grù (“crane”), sci (“ski”), virtù, ...), nouns ending by -i (analisi (“analisys”), brindisi (“toast (salute type)”), ...) or by -ie (serie (“series”), specie (“species”), ...) (except -glie), masculine nouns ending by -a (boa, cinema (“cinema movie”), gorilla, koala, ..., but problema (“problem”)/problemi (“problems”)), feminine noun ending by -o (auto (“car”), dinamo (“dynamo”), foto (“photo”), radio), nouns (mainly loanwords from germanic languages or from French) ending by consonant or semiconsonant, some masculine bisyllabic noun ending by -o (euro).

Depending by the etymology, nouns with a c or a g in the last syllable may have a gradation in the written form to avoid apophony in the pronunciation.

Examples are micio (“cat”)/mici (“cats”)/micia (“female cat”)/micie (“female cats”), amico (“friend”)/amici (“friends”)/amica (“female friend”)/amiche (“female friends”), bosco (“wooded area”)/boschi (“wooded areas”), ceco (“Czech person”)/cechi (“Czech persons”)/ceca (“female Czech person”)/ceche (“female Czech persons”), cuccia (“house for dog(s)”)/cucce (“houses for dog(s)”), fuga (“escape, leak, leakage”)/fughe (“escapes, leaks, leakages”).

Italian nouns can be altered using suffixes, not all the Italian nouns have standard alterations.

The table below lists Italian words that have irregular plurals. Not included are words that follow any of the following rules:

1. Words that end in a that change the final vowel to e (eg, casa)
2. Words that end in cia that change this ending to ce (eg, goccia)
3. Words that end in co or ca that change these endings to chi or che, respectively (eg, buco and forca)
4. Words that end in e that change the final vowel to i (eg, cane)
5. Words that end in gia that change this ending to ge (eg, spiaggia)
6. Words that end in go or ga that change these endings to ghi or ghe, respectively (eg, ago and riga)
7. Words that end in i that do not change in the plural (eg, sci)
8. Words that end in io that change this ending to i or ii (eg, microscopio, which becomes microscopi, and zio, which becomes zii)
9. Words that end in io pronounced IPA^(key): /jo/ that change with ending i (pronounced IPA^(key): /i/) or (rare, correct but virtually unused since half of the XX century) î (pronounced IPA^(key): /ˈji/, which is correct, but unused and sounds weird to native speakers since half of the XX century) (eg, polinomio, which becomes polinomi or polinomî)
10. Words of Greek origin that end in ma or ta that change these endings to mi or ti, respectively. (eg, diploma and dentista)
11. Words that end in o that change the final vowel to i (eg, topo)
12. Words of one syllable that do not change in the plural (eg, re)
13. Words stressed on the final syllable, which do not change in the plural (eg, caffè)
14. Words of foreign origin that do not change in the plural (eg, yacht)
15. Short forms, which do not change in the plural (eg, auto)
16. Symbols or letters, which do not change in the plural

• Wikipedia article on hypercorrection (which includes information on some incorrectly formed plurals)