Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Vale [^_^]" <valevanni@m...>
"Vale [^_^]" <valevanni@m...>
Date:  Mon Feb 5, 2001  1:08 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Italian diction - col, del, nel


On Sun, 4 Feb 2001 08:47:40
Isabelle Bracamonte wrote:
>Vale (and others who teach diction) --
>
>How do Italian speakers (or, how do you teach, you
>professors) pronounce these contractions, if and when
>they come up:
These, like you said below, are locution obtained linking a simple preposition
(di, a, da, in, con, su, per, tra, fra) with an article.
In Italy they are called "preposizioni articolate".

About pronunciation, it's very simple: they are all closed.
According to the shorthand, you can leave them as you wrote them, with small
letters :-)

But, when you ask "if and when" I have a doubt on what do you mean:

1)Whether to use each of them, for example whether "dei" or "degli": it depends
on the article, so the problems is shifted to whether "i" or "gli". If someone
want to know, it's a rather long matter itself: we can afford it on another
thread.
Better not to put too many things togheter :-)

2)Whether to contract the locution or not: whether to use the expanded version
or the contracted one (con la or colla?)

For now I reply about this case.

>col, colla, colle
>del, dello, nel, nella, pel, pelle
I list all prepositions:

1)"di"="of": Mandatory: always to be contracted
di+il=del
di+lo=dello
di+la=della

di+i=dei
di+gli=degli
di+le=delle


2)"a"="to": Mandatory: always to be contracted
a+il=al
a+lo=allo
a+la=alla

a+i=ai
a+gli=agli
a+le=alle

3)"da"="from": Mandatory: always to be contracted
da+il=dal
da+lo=dallo
da+la=dalla

da+i=dai
da+gli=dagli
da+le=dalle

4)"in"="in": Mandatory: always to be contracted
in+il=nel
in+lo=nello
in+la=nella

in+i=nei
in+gli=negli
in+le=nelle

5)"con"="with": both forms are correct, but it's preferable to leave it
expanded.
In music it's easy to find both version, they can be interchanged for metric
reasons.
con+il=con il | col
con+lo=con lo | collo
con+la=con la | colla

con+i=con i | coi
con+gli=con gli | cogli
con+le=con le | colle

6)"su"="on": the contracted form is always correct, but (sometimes in poetry or
music and not with "il") it can be found expanded
su+il=sul
su+lo=sullo | su lo
su+la=sulla | su la

su+i=sui | su i
su+gli=sugli | su gli
su+le=sulle |su le

7)"per"="for": the expanded form is always correct, the contracted one is very
antiquated, hardly accepted. Today, you won't listen to anyone using it (in
opera, perhaps, it can be easily found!).
per+il=per il | pel
per+lo=per lo | pello
per+la=per la | pella

per+i=per i | pei
per+gli=per gli | pegli
per+le=per le | pelle

8)"tra" and "fra"="between": never contracted

Recapitulating:
Always contracted: di, a, da, in
Better contracted (except some case in poetry or music): su
Both correct, but preferably expanded: con
Always expanded (except ancient language): per
Always expanded: tra, fra


>nol
"non"+"il" has never to be contracted, because "non" is not a preposition, but
an adverb. Prepositions are only those that i listed before.

bye


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