This article discusses the grammar of the Western Lombard (Insubric) language. The examples are in Milanese, written according to the Classical Milanese orthography.
The phonetical characteristics of Insubric language are the halving of consonants, the voicing of intervocalic consonants, the transformation of Latin "u" into Insubric /y/, Latin short "o" into /œ/ø/, partial transformation of long "o" into /u/, the falling of final vowels except "a", loss of Latin suffix "re" of infinitive, suffix "i" for 1st person, partial falling of intervocalic "d", partial transformation of "a" into "o" when followed by "l" and another consonant, the transformation of Latin groups "pl", "bl", "fl", "gl" into "pi", "bi", "fi", "gi" (read: dj) and of group "ct" into "c" (read: tsh), the nasalization of vowels followed by "n" or its transformation into a velar nasal, the falling of final "l" and "r" when followed by a long vowel, the distinction of vowel length, the partial transformation of intervocalic "l" into "r". The etymology of the words is very often derived from Latin. An uncommon feature for a Romance language is the extended use of idiomatic phrasal verbs (verb-particle constructions) much in the same way as in English. E.g. "trà" (to draw, to pull), "trà via" (to waste, to throw away), "trà sù" (to vomit, to throw up), "trà foeura" (to remove, to take away); "mangià" (to eat), "mangià foeura" (to squander). Unlike most Romance languages, Western Lombard has vowel quantity oppositions. Examples are:
The base vowels of Western Lombard language are: /a/ (c.m.o. "a"), /e/ (c.m.o. "e"), /ɛ/ (c.m.o. "e"), /i/ (c.m.o. "i"), /o/ (c.m.o. "o"), /ɔ/ (c.m.o. "o"), opener and closer /œ/ (c.m.o. "oeu"), /u/ (c.m.o. "o") and /y/ (c.m.o. "u").
The most frequent word order is subject–verb–object, but all the other orders are possible when there isn't any ambiguity: the inversions are commonly used to emphasise the first word. Examples are:
Like the Italian language, when a proclitic pronoun is used, however, this comes before the verb and the auxiliary:
The singular third person of the verb is preceded by a proclitic word ("el" for masculine subject, "la" for feminine subject: identical to definite articles) that remind the subject; the singular second person of the verb is preceded by a proclitic word ("te"). There might be, but it's optional, other proclitic words, like "a" in all the persons, or "i" in the plural third person:
As noted before differently from to Italian, the personal pronoun is always followed by the subject pronoun:
However, similarly to Italian, in Lombard the personal pronoun can be dropped. Unlike Italian, whenever this happens the subject pronoun must not be dropped:
The Insubric definite article derives from a Latin distal demonstrative, ille.It can vary according to the gender (feminine or masculine) and number (singular or plural) of the noun. The definite article takes the following forms:
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| masculine | el | l'| rowspan="2" valign="center" | i|-! feminine| la|} Like the, the Insubric definite article is used with a noun referring to a specific item when both the speaker and the audience know what the item is. It is necessary in the following cases:
Besides, definite article is used in front of proper nouns:
Western Lombard is a synthetic fusional language. Indefinite articleThe Insubric indefinite article is analogous to the English indefinite article a/an. Like a/an, the Insubric indefinite article is used with a noun referring to a non-specific item, or to a specific item when the speaker and audience do not both know what the item is; so, ho spaccaa ona cadrega rossa ("I broke a red chair"). Unlike a/an, the Insubric indefinite article has a plural form, often translated as some but usually simply omitted in English; so, gh'hinn di liber laggiò ("There are some books over there" or "There are books over there"). The indefinite article takes the following forms:
Inflection of nouns and adjectivesMost of the masculine nouns and adjectives terminate without suffix. This is valid both for the singular and the plural form.Examples are:
Most of the feminine singular nouns and adjectives are formed by adding an "-a" as a suffix. The plural, instead, is the same than the masculine form.
Variants
El fidanzaa ("the fiancé") → La fidanzada ("the fiancé") Veduu ("seen", masc.) → Veduda ("seen", fem.)
El corno ("the horn") → I corni ("the horns")
El canton ("the corner" or "the canton") → I cantoni ("the corners" or "the cantons")
El tett ("the roof") → I tecc ("the roofs"), unless -ett is vezzegiativ
El cavall ("the horse") → I cavaj ("horses")
El bagain ("the little boy") → I bagaitt ("the little boys") but, El cammin ("the pathway") → I cammin ("the pathways")
La nevoda ("the granddaughter" or "the niece") → I nevod ("the granddaughters" or "the nieces")
La linia ("the line") → I lign ("the lines")
La cadrega ("the chair") → I cadregh ("the chairs")
La lengua ("the tongue") → I lengov ("the tongues")
Carina ("nice", fem. sing.) → Carinn ("nice", plur.)
La nòtt ("the night") → I nòcc ("the nights")
La Scendra ("the ash") → I scender ("the ashes") NounsEvery Insubric noun has a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. There is no case inflection. Articles and adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they refer to. Usually, masculine nouns are unmarked whilst feminine nouns carry the suffix "-a"; the plural is unmarked, like the masculine feminine. Thus, the most common declension paradigm for Western Lombard names is the one that follows:
Gender inflectionThe grammatical gender of a noun referring to a human usually corresponds to the noun's natural gender (i.e., its referent's sex or gender). For such nouns, there will very often be one noun of each gender, with the choice of noun being determined by the natural gender of the person described; for example, a male writer is a scrittor, while a female writer is a scrittora. Alike other Latin languages, a plural noun that refers to both males and females is masculine. AlterationAs in Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, in Western Lombard altered nouns are nouns with particular shades of meaning. They are divided into diminutives, "vezzegiativ" (diminutives with kindness and sympathy nuance), augmentatives, and pejoratives. PronounsPersonal pronounsWestern Lombard features a sizeable set of pronouns. Personal pronouns are inflected for person, number, case, and, in the third person, gender. Personal pronouns are normally dropped in the subject, as the conjugation is usually enough to determine the grammatical person. They are used when some emphasis is needed, e.g. son lombard ("I am Lombard") vs. mi son lombard ("I [specifically, as opposed to others] am Lombard").
Possessive pronouns
VerbsWestern Lombard verbs express an action or a state of being of a given subject, and like verbs in most of the Indo-European languages, Insubric verbs undergo inflection according to the following categories:
Verbs in the finite moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional) are conjugated to agree with their subjects in person (first, second, or third) and number (singular or plural). As in Italian, the subject may be tacit (Insubric is a null-subject language). Auxiliary verbs are combined with past participles of main verbs to produce compound tenses. For most main verbs the auxiliary is (the appropriate form of) avè ("to have"), but for reflexive verbs and certain intransitive verbs the auxiliary is a form of vess ("to be"). The participle agrees with the subject when the auxiliary is vess. Forms of vess are also used with the past participles of transitive verbs to form the passive voice. Unlike other Romance languages, in Western Lombard it does exist the negative form of the imperative. Insubric has four conjugations:
Unlike other Neo-Latin languages, Lombard language presents a characteristic probably inherited from the prolonged past contact – Sprachbund – with Germanic languages and dialects such as Allemannic, this is the presence of Phrasal Verbs / Compound (linguistics):
AdverbsModal adverbsAn adjective can be made into a modal adverb by adding -ment (analogous to the English "-ly") to the ending of the feminine singular form of the adjective. E.g.:
Adjectives ending in -r or -l simply add -ment:
In other cases, a periphrasis is used instead:
There are also some cases of adverbs that are typically Insubric:
Adverbial phrase are really common in Western Lombard:
Adverbs of space
Adverbs of time
PrepositionsWestern Lombard prepositions link two related parts of a sentence. In word order, they are placed in front of a noun in order to specify the relationship between the noun and the verb, adjective, or other noun that precedes it. The basic Insubric prepositions are:
Süra, sürevia and süta are prepositions and, rarely, adverbs: the corresponding adverbs are de süra, de sürevia and de süta. The basic prepositions de, a and su can be combined with an article (only el and i) to create an articulated preposition:
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