[Originally posted on 06/17/18 on the Duolingo Italian for English speakers forum by CivisRomanus]
Disclaimer
This article targets medium-advanced learners who are already acquainted with clitic pronouns; learners at an early stage might find it difficult.
Other parts available:
part II
Listening to a conversation, you may have often heard sentences such as:
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La partita (noi) la vedremo alla televisione. = We’ll watch the match on television.
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I pacchi (io) li ho spediti ieri. = I have shipped the parcels yesterday.
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Le vacanze Maria le passa in campagna. = Mary spends the holidays in the countryside.
instead of the plain construction:
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(Noi) vedremo la partita alla televisione.
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(Io) ho spedito i pacchi ieri.
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Maria passa le vacanze in campagna.
and you may have likely wondered what is the object (la partita, i pacchi, le vacanze) doing in that position, i.e. at the beginning of the sentence, and why is the relevant clitic pronoun (la, li, le) also redundantly added before the verb.
This construction is extremely common in the spoken language, but it is seldom mentioned in grammars or language courses, so it can be easily confusing.
In order to understand how it works, first a few words should be spent on two concepts, the theme and the rheme, which not all learners may be familiar with.
The subject is the part of the sentence that performs the action expressed by the following verb; instead, the theme is the main topic of the message conveyed by the sentence. So while ‘subject’ is a grammatical concept, ‘theme’ is a semantic concept.
In some cases, the subject and the theme coincide:
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The cat [subject] is sleeping on the chair.
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The boy [subject] picked an apple from the tree in the garden.
Here “the cat” and “the boy” are not only the subject, as they perform the action (“to sleep”, or “to pick apples”), but they are also the theme, as the message conveyed by the first sentence is about “the cat”, while the message conveyed by the second sentence is about “the boy”.
The remaining part of the sentence, which includes all the rest of the information, is called the rheme:
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The cat [theme] is sleeping on the chair. [rheme]
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The boy [theme] picked an apple from the tree in the garden. [rheme]
In some sentences, though, the theme (i.e. the main topic) is not the subject of the sentence, but its object, either direct or indirect.
This can happen if the theme has already been mentioned in a previous sentence, or in the conversation, or is already known to the listener.
For instance, after having mentioned several people, one can say:
- Speaking of Peter, I saw him this morning.
or
- With regard to Peter, I saw him this morning.
Clearly, the main topic (theme) of the sentence is “Peter”, who is the direct object of the sentence, because he receives the action of being seen: “I saw him (= Peter) this morning”.
In order to say “Speaking of Peter…”, Peter must have already been mentioned in the conversation, or the listener must know him already; otherwise the listener would likely ask: “Who is Peter?”
So “Speaking of Peter…” acts as a theme marker, i.e. a sort of label or tag that informs the listener about the main topic of the message about to be spoken. It always stands at the beginning of the sentence, followed by the rest of the information (the rheme), which is the new part, i.e. what the listener does not know already:
- Speaking of Peter [theme marker], I saw him this morning [rheme].
The listener already knows who Peter is (theme), but does not know that the speaker saw him (rheme), until the sentence is spoken.
Note that in the rheme, the direct object (“Peter”) is no longer mentioned by his name; an object pronoun is used (“him”), in order to avoid a repetition (“Speaking of Peter, I saw Peter this morning”).
Using the theme marker, the direct object (“Peter”) stands at the beginning of the sentence; this is called a left dislocation of the object, meaning that the object, which normally stands after the verb, has been shifted towards the left; its place is then taken by a pronoun (“him”).
It is also called a preverbal object, i.e. an object that stands before the verb (not after the verb, as usual).
In Italian, the speaker can inform the listener about the theme by using the same expressions as in English:
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Speaking of [theme]… = A proposito di [theme],…
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As far as [theme] is concerned,… = Per quanto riguarda [theme],…
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With regard to [theme],… = Riguardo a [theme],… or In quanto a [theme],…
For instance:
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A proposito di Piero, (io) l’ho visto stamattina. = Speaking of Peter, I saw him this morning.
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In quanto a Piero, (io) l’ho visto stamattina. = With regard to Peter, I saw him this morning.
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Riguardo a Piero, (io) l’ho visto stamattina. = With regard to Peter, I saw him this morning.
But much more often, the theme marker is shortened down to the theme alone (i.e. the object), and the comma is also dropped. This simplification usually causes the sentence to be translated into English with the plain construction, i.e. without the theme marker:
- Piero (io) l’ho visto stamattina. = I saw Peter this morning. (no theme marker in English)
but the literal translation is: “(speaking of) Peter, I saw him this morning”, which does have the theme marker.
Also the Italian rheme includes a direct object clitic pronoun (lo), which replaces Piero, because repeating it would sound awful (Piero io ho visto Piero stamattina).
Therefore, the opening sample sentences:
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La partita (noi) la vedremo alla televisione. = We’ll watch the match on television.
-
I pacchi (io) li ho spediti ieri. = I have shipped the parcels yesterday.
-
Le vacanze Maria le passa in campagna. = Mary spends the holidays in the countryside.
literally translate as:
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(Speaking of) the match, we’ll watch it on television.
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(With regard to) the parcels, I have shipped them yesterday.
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(Speaking of) the holidays, Mary spends them in the countryside.
in which La partita, I pacchi, Le vacanze, act as short theme markers, while the apparently redundant clitic pronouns la (“it”), li (“them”), le (them”, feminine) are needed for replacing the direct object nouns in the rheme part. For this reason, in the Italian grammar such pronouns are called pronomi clitici di ripresa (“resumption clitic pronouns”), as they ‘resume’ or retrieve the dislocated noun.
A few more examples (with the plain translation):
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Il giornale (io) lo leggo più tardi. = I’m going to read the newspaper later on.
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La pizza (loro) la mangiano spesso. = They often eat pizza.
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Le sue sorelle (noi) le conoscevamo bene. = We used to know well his/her sisters.
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I biglietti (voi) li avete comprati? = Did you buy the tickets?
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Il tedesco (lui / lei) lo parla? = Does he/she speak German?
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Questi cartelli (io) non li capisco. = I don’t understand these notices.
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La birra (tu) non la bevi? = Don’t you drink beer?
It is also possible to use a theme marker when the theme is the subject of the sentence:
- Speaking of Peter [theme marker], he has returned from his trip [rheme].
In this case there is no dislocation, because the subject keeps its straightforward position, i.e. at the beginning of the sentence, before the verb.
In Italian too it is possible to say:
- In quanto a Piero [theme marker], (lui) è tornato dal suo viaggio [rheme].
But if we shorten down the theme marker:
- Piero [theme marker] (lui) è tornato dal suo viaggio [rheme].
Since in Italian the subject pronoun (lui) is usually unspoken (and in this case it is ALWAYS unspoken, because it comes immediately after the noun it refers to), this construction is no longer distinguishable from the plain sentence:
- Piero [subject] è tornato dal suo viaggio. = Peter has returned from his trip.
So in Italian the construction with the theme marker is only used when the theme is an object.
How to do this with indirect objects is mentioned in the second part of the article.
Selected comments on original post
Thank you Civis, and special extra thanks as you stayed up half the night to give us this help.
That’s what I used to think. But now I am sure he uses the quiet of the night to come up with the ways to torture us.
And he is very good at it. Respect! 😀
You are quite simply an outstanding human being for all that you contribute to this course. You have helped me immeasurably, via your forum comments, on my journey which began only as long ago as my streak shows – it is my marker. I joined DL in 2014 and, after studying French intensively for 3 years, I was able to complete the Italian tree in just over a month. This is not to say that I have come even within a whisker’s breadth of understanding all the idiosyncrasies of your beautiful language.
Mille grazie per tutto il tuo aiuto!
As usual, a lot of info, many thanks. I would have never put a sentence like the ones above together on my own. Had to read this twice. Goes to show what little knowledge I have of the Italian language. Hopefully things will start to make more sense to me, not giving up. Wonder what a convo between you and Dante would be like. Great post. Thanks again.
Wonder what a convo between you and Dante would be like.
It would be a duel, more than a conversation. 😀
In Dante’s days I would have spoken my own dialect, and this is what he wrote:
“Since Romans maintain that they should rank in first place, in this purge and eradication [of the many Italian dialects] we justly place them before others, claiming that they should not be taken into consideration about any work in dialect. We should actually say that the Roman idiom is not a dialect, but rather an awful way of speaking, the most horrible among all the Italian dialects; this should not surprise anyone, as they appear the most disgusting also because of the vileness of their manners and their habits.”
[De vulgari eloquentia – Book I, XI, 2]
My apologies on the dumb question, did not know that about Dante. Not the first time I have heard about discrimination in Italy, it is an ugly thing and happens all over the world. I have heard stories from my family about how the north thinks/feels/used to think/used to feel about things, it’s sad. My family comes from Napoli and Puglia. Anyways, always look forward to your posts and your answers.
The hard feelings that Dante had towards Rome were likely due to his clash with pope Boniface VIII, which led him to be exiled from his hometown (lest being captured and put to death), just a couple of years before he wrote the essay about Italian dialects.
I see. I forgot that he was exiled, and hunted. My knowledge of Dante is only that he wanted to get away from classical latin(it was dead in his mind) and wanted to switch to vulgar latin, seeing how only the rich and the church spoke classical. So, he wrote the divine comedy in his Florentine dialect(language), but also added in new words, and borrowed some from Sicilian. right?
His work was so popular it basically became the blueprint for standard Italian seeing how all of Italy was speaking diff. dialects(languages), so people could find a common ground. Only problem was the schooling systems were not so good hundreds of years ago to help spread it. Enter the radio and rai.. bingo, ‘standard’ all over. Am I on the right track?
I only brought up Dante because you have this vast knowledge and seem to not struggle with anything. When I said “Wonder what a convo between you and Dante would be like”, it was more like a time travel thing haha. Two smart minds meeting.
he wanted to get away from classical latin
Yes, his idea was that the vulgar language was less artificial and somewhat nobler than Latin because it was the first language that everybody learnt naturally after having been born, as opposed to being learnt later in life, and being restricted to a small elite of cultured people. His concept of an ideal vulgar language was not a blend of all the many dialects spoken regionally, but a refined idiom, developed by means of a literary approach. Men of letters and poets would have gradually cleansed it from any rough dialect word, in order to become a common language, spoken by everybody.
This happened in practice only six centuries later, when media such as the radio, the cinema and most of all the TV were implemented. The one big achievement of the television in Italy is to have taught a common national language to people who were barely able to understand each other speaking their own dialects.
Thank you GiorgioYianni!
I too had thought of posting a video about Alberto Manzi.
Up to the 1960s illiteracy used to be another enormous problem, that was partly solved thanks to the TV and to this extraordinary teacher who taught over 1.5 million adults to read and write. Most of them were elderly people who had never attended school before.
Duolinguists 