(compravano, ‘they bought’, cantavano, ‘they sang’), the future (compre-
ranno, ‘they will buy’, canteranno, ‘they will sing’), etc.
gender not the same thing as the actual sex of a living creature, grammat-
ical gender is arbitrary; in Italian, all nouns are either masculine or feminine,
even if they denote inanimate objects, e.g. il libro [m], ‘the book’, la casa [f],
‘the house’, etc.
infinitive the form in which verbs are usually given in word lists etc., e.g.
vendere, ‘to sell’, dormire, ‘to sleep’.
noun the name of a thing, person, place, animal, plant, idea, e.g. the green
door; John is skinny; love is a wonderful thing; I love cats and roses.
number a feature of nouns, pronouns and any words that agree with them
(notably, in Italian, adjectives, articles and verbs) which shows whether there
is just one, or more than one, of the thing or person in question. If there is
one, then the noun, pronoun, etc. is singular, e.g. the mobile; a child; I/she/he/it;
if there is more than one, then the noun, pronoun, etc. is plural, e.g. the
mobiles; the children; we/they. In Italian, the form of the word usually makes
it clear whether it is singular or plural, but in English it is often impossible to
tell from the word on its own, e.g. one sheep; fifty sheep; Jim, you are brilliant;
you are all brilliant.
object the noun or pronoun affected by the action of the verb:
a direct object is directly impinged on by the action, e.g. I sent a letter; the
dog drank its water; you’ve shut the door; she cooked it; I love him;
an indirect object is the thing/person to or for which/whom the action is
performed, e.g. I sent a letter to Jim; I gave her a CD [i.e. a CD to her]; he
built a snowman for Catherine; I made her a puppet [i.e. a puppet for her].participle a form of the verb that ‘participates’ in characteristics of both
verb and adjective, i.e. it both indicates an action and describes something:
the present participle in English ends in -ing, and is used descriptively even
with verbs in a past tense, e.g. she’s running; Wayne was shouting;
the past participle in English (as in Italian) is mostly used to form the
present perfect tense, e.g. the frog has jumped in; she’s run away; it can also
be used purely as an adjective, e.g. it’s small but perfectly formed; that’s a
torn handkerchief.passive a passive verb is the opposite to an active one. Here is an active
verb: ‘Kylie drew that cartoon’; in this sentence, the thing that has something
done to it (the cartoon) is the object of the active verb. Now here is the same
idea expressed with a passive verb: ‘That cartoon was drawn by Kylie’; in this
sentence, the thing that has something done to it is actually the subject of the
passive verb. Many ideas can be expressed both actively and passively, e.g.
188 Glossary