1. Lesson One – Primma Lezzióne.

['primm lt'tsjon]

The noun and the definite article.

Neapolitan nouns are either masculine, ommo ['mm] (man), libbro ['libbr] (book); feminine, femmena['fmmn] (woman), casa ['kasa] (house); or neuter (these are recognizable because of the doubling of their first consonant in the singular after the article), ‘o ffierro [o 'ffjrr] (iron), ‘o ppane [o 'ppan] (bread).

Definite articles (the)

‘o	[o]	masculine singular
‘o	[o]	neuter singular (it causes the doubling of the initial consonant of the following noun)
‘a	[a]	feminine singular
‘e	[e]	masculine plural
‘e	[e]	feminine plural (it causes the doubling of the initial consonant of the following noun)
ll’ (or l’)	[ll]	before masculine or feminine nouns beginning with a vowel

Note: In older Neapolitan can be found the forms: lo/lu/‘u (and even el and il) (‘o), la (‘a); le/li (‘e).
The older forms survive in some areas. For instance, in Hirpinia the masculine singular is «lo» and the neuter is «ro» (also causing the doubling), the feminine singular is «la». In Lucanian there is a masculine «lu/u» and a neuter «ru» (also causing the doubling), , the feminine singular is «la».
There is an exemple of a feminine treated as a neuter in the apparently feminine noun «‘a rrobba» (doubling of the initial consonant). (DeBlasi & Imperatore, 1998).

Indefinite articles (a/an)

nu	[nu]	masculine singular
na	[na]	feminine singular
n’	[n]	feminine and masculine singular nouns beginning with a vowel

Note: Sometimes written as ‘nu and ‘na (the apostrophe refers to the existence in the original Latin of a letter "u" that has been lost [unum, compare Spanish: uno], it may be safely omitted). In older Neapolitan the forms uno (no) and una (na) can be also found. There is no plural definite article in Neapolitan.

Plurals

Plurals are not indicated, usually, by a modification of the last letter in a word, as it is the case in Italian, or adding an s as in Spanish, French, Catalan, or English. As we have seen, the last vowel is generally pronunced indistinctly, then other ways are used to mark the plural. One way to determine if a word is singular or plural is to look at the article, or the word may have various modifications, like the doubling of the first consonant (feminine plural), seen above, or a change in a non-final consonant, e.g., ’o nepote/’e nepute (the nephew/the nephews), ’o signore/’e signure (the mister/the misters), ’o pesce/’e pisce (the fish/the fishes), etc. Another possibility is a change in the way the consonant in the final syllable is pronunced, e.g., ll‘amico/ll‘amice (the friend/the friends), ’o fungo/’e funge (the mushroom/the mushrooms), etc. There are other ways to mark the plural, even though less common, e.g., ’o rre/’e re (the king/the kings), ’a città/’e ccittà (the town/the towns), etc.

The verb to be.

Essere ['ssr]		to be
Ndicativo presente/ Present tense.	pronunciation	English equivalent
(io) songo/so’	('i) 'song/'so	I am
(tu) sî	(tu) 'si:	you are (singular)
(isso/essa) è	('iss) '	he/she is
(nuje) simmo	('nuj) 'simm	we are
(vuje) site	(vuj') 'sit	you are (plural, or treated as singular when addressing somebody formally)
(lloro) songo/so’	(llr) 'song/'so	they are

The subject pronoun in Neapolitan is frequently omitted, even when no other subject of the verb is expressed. This is possible because the part of the verb itself often conveys which person is indicated. Songo (or its shortened form so‘) means I am (or they are), simmo means we are, and so on. When the pronoun is used it is to give emphasis or to avoid ambiguity.

Formal and informal ways of addressing people.

Notice in Neapolitan the formal way of addressing a person is using the 2nd person plural (vuje).
In some areas (Lucania, for instance) to address a person the 2nd person singular (tu) is used in all cases.
(see next example).

Interrogation.

A question is expressed simply by intonation (a rising intonation)

e.g., (vuje) site napulitano You are Neapolitan
(vuje) site napulitano? Are you Neapolitan?

Punctuation.

Similar to English, with the following exceptions:

Sometimes a dash is used to indicate and mark off dialogue (but it is not used exactly like inverted commas in English, because it is usually used only at the beginning of dialogue).

Inverted commas, written ‘ ’ , “ ” or « », are used, however, for quotations and for monologues.

Capital letters are used less frequently in Neapolitan than in English. They are used for proper names of persons and places, but not for the related adjectives or nouns:

Napule Naples
napulitano Neapolitan, ’o nnapulitano Neapolitan [language], ’o napulitano Neapolitan [person]

Capitals are not used either, in Neapolitan, for the pronoun io (I), for the names of days or months, nor for titles, unless abbreviated:

’o primmo viernarí d‘aústo / 'o primmo viernarí âústo ('e aústo --> âústo)= the first Friday in August
’a signora Esposito = Mrs. Esposito
Sig. Esposito = Mr. Esposito