Pizzonese/Nouns and articles

Pizzonese
a Western Abruzzese dialect of the Neapolitan language continuum
•
Grammar
Alphabet and pronunciation
Nouns and articles
Adjectives • Pronouns
Conjugation of esse’, to be
Conjugation of havè, to have
Interrogatives • Adverbs
Prepositions • Conjunctions
Vocabulary
Common verbs • Lexicon
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Noun gender

There are two genders of Pizzonese nouns: masculine and feminine, unlike in Neapolitan which also has a neuter case. They take the following articles:

Indefinite article (a)

• na in front of a singular feminine noun that begins with a consonant
• nu in front of a singular masculine noun that begins with a consonant
• n’ in front of (any) singular noun that begins with a vowel

Definite article (the)

• If the word is feminine, the first letter must be doubled
• In the case of masculine nouns the doubling may occur also, in front of the consonants z-, b-, br-, v-, and g-.
• le in front of a noun, masculine or feminine, singular or plural, that begins with a vowel

Singular

• la in front of a feminine noun that begins with a consonant
• glie in front of a masculine noun that begins with a consonant

Plural

• le in front of (any) plural noun that begins with a consonant (feminine nouns double the consonant)

Notes

• Masculine nouns generally end in -e
• Feminine nouns generally end in -a
• As in Neapolitan, nouns beginning with a- tend to be feminine
• †Nouns in the feminine plural feature initial consonant doubling like in Neapolitan

Plurals

A given noun's gender is not as clearly evident in Pizzonese as it is in Italian or even in Neapolitan. Most masculine nouns end in -e, most feminine nouns end in -e. Not all nouns change endings in the plural, ultimate vowel sounds do not change most of the time when forming plurals (unlike Italian), so they are useless in determination. Feminine nouns tend to double the first consonant when they are plural. The best way to determine the gender of a noun is by its article or by the endings on any modifiers it may have, for example: gle retratte, masculine; la bettiglia, feminine; le retriétte masculine plural; le bbettiglie feminine plural.

The plural is sometimes formed by changing the body of the word itself (as in Neapolitan). This primarily happens in words already ending in -e and -a to begin with, for example gle vuaglióne becomes le vuagliune and la canzóna becomes le canzune. With many nouns though, they stay the same in both the singular and the plural, as in lu/le quetiéglie, both masc. singular and masc. plural.