The Subject in Italian

This post is about the subject and its properties in the Italian language. Even though most people have an intuitive grasp of what the subject is, it is somewhat difficult to define explicitly. In fact, various linguistic schools of thought differ in how they analyze it. In this article I will present a general description of the subject in the Italian language that is based on some general observations.

1. The origins of the subject

The concept of the subject was first postulated in Ancient Greek grammar, where it was called ὑποκείμενον (hypokeímenon), meaning “that which lies under”. The Ancient Romans translated it into Latin as subiectus, from which the Italian soggetto and the English subject derive. The term has remained a fundamental part of Western grammar ever since.

2.What the subject is not

Before we try to understand what the subject is, it can be helpful to see what the subject is not:

2.1) The subject is not always the agent

One definition often used in traditional grammar, especially at school, is that the subject is the expression referring to the performer of the action described by the verb.

This is often the case, as in

• Giovanni corre. (Giovanni runs.)

• Maria mangia la pasta. (Maria eats pasta.)

• I bambini giocano. (The children play.)

“The perfomer of the action” is what in linguistics is called the AGENT, which is a semantic role. The subject, though, is not a straightforwardly semantic concept, as it can correspond to different semantic roles:

• Anna ha subito un furto. (Anna was robbed.) Here Anna is the PATIENT (She undergoes the action).

• Mio cugino è uno studente. (My cousin is a student.) Here my cousin is the THEME (He neither performs nor undergoes any action).

• Francesco ama la musica. (Francesco loves music.) Here Francesco is the EXPERIENCER (He experiences a state of mind).

It has to be noted, though, that when there are both an AGENT and a PATIENT, the subject of an active clause almost always refers to the AGENT

2.2) The subject is not always the topic

Another definition that is often used is that the subject is what the sentence is about.

This is also often true as in

• - Che ha fatto Chiara? (What did Chiara do?)

  - Chiara ha superato l’esame di storia. (Chiara passed the history exam.)

Or in

• - Che ha fatto Andrea? (What did Andrea do?)

  - Andrea ha rotto la finestra. (Andrea broke the window.)

“What the sentence is about” is what in linguistics is called the “topic”. Most sentences have an information structure that can be divided into a “topic” (tema), which provides less dynamic information which is used to understand the rest of the statement, and a “comment” (rema) which provides the most dynamic information and is a commentary on the topic. The Topic can be the subject, as in the above examples, or it can be something else, as in:

• L’esame di storia, l‘ha superato Chiara. (It is Chiara who passed the history exam.) Here l’esame di storia (the object) is the topic.

• La finestra, l’ha rotta Andrea. (It is Andrea who broke the window.) Here la finestra (the object) is the topic.

2.3) The subject is not always given information

A concept related to that of topic vs. comment is that of given vs. new information. A piece of information is given if it’s either part of the recipient’s knowledge, verifiable from context or part of the preceding statements, otherwise it’s new. The subject can either be given as Marta in the answer

• - Dov’è Marta? (Where’s Marta?)

  - Marta è a casa. (Marta is home.)

Or it can be new, as Marta in the answer (with stress placed on Marta)

• - Chi è a Casa? (Who’s home?)

  - Marta è a casa. (Marta is home)

3.What the subject is

Now that we have clarified what the subject is not, let’s define its key properties.

3.1) The subject is an argument of the predicate

The nucleus of the clause is the predicate, the expression that describes a situation, event or action.
Arguments are those constituents that refer to participants in such situation, event or action and are either obligatory or licensed (i.e. acceptable with only certain kinds of predicates).
They are opposed to adjuncts, which are optional constituents.

The subject is an argument, and it’s sometimes defined as the first argument of a verb i.e. the most salient of the arguments that the verb has.

In the following examples arguments are underscored and adjuncts are in italics.

• Oggi Matteo ha regalato un libro a Sara per il suo compleanno. (Today Matteo

gave Sara a book for her birthday.)

If we remove the adjuncts oggi and per il suo compleanno the sentence is still grammatical:

• Matteo ha regalato un libro a Sara. (Matteo gave Sara a book.)

If we instead try to remove arguments like un libro and a Sara the result is ungrammatical:

• *Oggi Matteo ha regalato per il suo compleanno. (Today Matteo gave for her birthday.)
  

Omitting the subject in Italian, unlike in English, doesn’t result in an ungrammatical sentence, because Italian is a pro-drop language i.e. a language where the subject can be left unexpressed:

• Oggi ha regalato un libro a Sara per il suo compleanno. (Today he/she gave Sara a book for her birthday.)

Nonetheless, the subject is still considered an argument because:

• It refers to a participant in the event described by the predicate.

• It can still be understood to be present even if not pronounced and can be recovered from context.

• Unlike adjuncts, the subject requires licensing, i.e it can only go with certain verbs. The verb “bisogna”, for instance, licenses a subjective clause (a sentence that acts as a subject) but doesn’t license a subject like “Matteo”
  

• Bisogna che Laura ci aiuti. (Laura needs to help us.) is grammatical
  *Bisogna Matteo. (Matteo is needed.) is ungrammatical
  

• Adjuncts like oggi, on the other hand, can go with such a predicate:

  Oggi Bisogna che Laura ci aiuti. (Today Laura need to help us.)

3.2) The subject agrees with the predicate

One of the easiest ways to recognize the subject in Italian is to find the constituent that agrees with the predicate. The predicate agrees in person and number with the subject when it is in a finite mood (a mood that allows expression of person).

Let’s take a sentence like

• Elisa ama la musica. (Elisa loves music.)

We can say that Elisa, which is singular, is the subject because the verb ama is in 3rd person singular but if we swap Elisa with Alcune ragazze (some girls), which is plural, the verb changes into 3rd person plural

• Alcune ragazze amano la musica. (Some girls love music.)

On the other hand, if we swap la musica, which is singular, with le opere di Verdi (Verdi’s Operas), which is plural, the verb still stays in 3rd person singular, so we know that la musica is not the subject

• Elisa ama le opere di Verdi. (Elisa loves Verdi’s operas)

In some cases, the subject also agrees in gender:

With unaccusative verbs (verbs that take “essere” as an auxiliary verb) in compound tenses

• - Roberto è caduto. “Roberto fell.”

  - Alessia è caduta. “Alessia fell.”

With passive verbs

• - Roberto è stato premiato. (Roberto was rewarded.)

  - Alessia è stata premiata. (Alessia was rewarded.)

And with copulative verbs

• - Roberto è simpatico. (Roberto is nice.)

  - Alessia è simpatica. (Alessia is nice.)

3.3) The subject has an unmarked position

Languages can be classified by the order in which the constituents appear in the clause. In Italian some word orders are marked, and others are unmarked. Clauses with unmarked word order are perceived as neutral and can be used in most communicative contexts.

The unmarked word order of Italian clauses is SV (Subject - Verb) or SVO (Subject - Verb – Object) except with clauses with unaccusative verbs and passive clauses, including those with si passivante, where the unmarked order is VS instead.

So, a sentence like

• Tommaso ride. (Tommaso laughs.)

Is SV and so it’s unmarked. It can therefore work as an answer to the question Che succede? (What’s happening?)

A sentence like

• Ride Tommaso. (It’s Tommaso who laughs.)

Is VS and so it’s marked: Tommaso is perceived as the focus i.e. the sentence sounds like an answer to Chi ride? (Who laughs?)

Sentences like

• È arrivata Lucia. (Lucia has arrived.)

• Sono stati commessi alcuni errori. (Some mistakes were made.)

• Si vedono molte persone. (Many people are seen.)

Are also unmarked even though the order is VS since they’re unaccusative, passive and si passivante respectively.

Let’s now turn to the sentence

• Lorenzo ama Daniela. (Lorenzo loves Daniela.)

If it doesn’t have special stress, we can tell which is the subject (Lorenzo) and which is the object (Daniela) only because we know that Italian has SVO word order.

Interrogative clauses need special attention:

In the sentence

• Giuseppe guarda un film. (Giuseppe watches a movie.)

Giuseppe, the subject, is just before the verb guarda. If we want to ask “What does Giuseppe watch?” the subject can’t stay in that position.

• *Che cosa Giuseppe guarda? is ungrammatical. The interrogative phrase che cosa must stay close to the verb so the subject must be in a different position as in

• Che cosa guarda Giuseppe?

An exception is causal interrogatives, usually introduced by perché (why). In this type of question, the subject can stay in its position just before the verb.

So, a sentence like

• Rachele è felice perché ha superato l’esame. (Rachele is happy because she passed the exam.)

Can turn into

• Perché Rachele è felice? (Why is Rachele happy?)

3.4) Subject pronouns have nominative case

Case is the grammatical category that can be marked on nouns, adjectives and determiners to show their syntactic or semantic function within a phrase or a clause.

Not all languages have case inflection. Latin used to have a six-case inflection but most romance languages, like Italian, have only kept it with pronouns.

For example

io (I) is the nominative form of the first person singular personal pronoun, the one used when the pronoun is the subject or predicative complement

me (me) is the oblique form, the one mainly used when the pronoun is the object or the complement of a preposition.

So, in

• Io vedo te. (I see you)

Io, the subject, has nominative case, while te, the object, has oblique case

While in

• Tu vedi me. (You see me.)

Me, the object, has oblique case, while tu, the subject, has nominative case

4.The subject in infinitive clauses

After explaining what the subject is, I’ll now describe how it works in Infinitive clauses. These are clauses that have an infinitive verb as the main verb. They are almost always subordinate clauses. We will only deal with infinitives that are objects of the main verb.

4.1) Control verbs vs. raising verbs

When it comes to the subject in infinitive clauses, the most important distinction is that of control verbs (verbi a controllo) vs. raising verbs (verbi a sollevamento).

Let’s take the two sentences

• Gabriele desidera cantare. (Gabriele wants to sing)

• Gabriele sembra cantare. (Gabriele seems to sing)

Even though they appear to have the same structure they differ in significant ways.

Let’s go back to the concept of arguments, which refer to participants in the events described by the predicate.

In Gabriele desidera cantare we have:

1. cantare, which requires an AGENT, the one who sings, which is obviously Gabriele.

2. desidera, which requires two arguments: one referring to a THEME, the thing wished, which is cantare, and one referring to an EXPERIENCER, the one who whishes, which is Gabriele.

So, Gabriele, which is the subject of desidera, is a semantic argument of both desidera and cantare, i.e. he is the one singing and the one wishing.

In Gabriele sembra cantare, we have

1. cantare, which requires an AGENT, the one who sings, which is obviously Gabriele.

2. Sembra, which requires one argument: the one referring to a THEME, the situation that seems, which is Gabriele cantare.

So, Gabriele, which is the subject of sembra, is a semantic argument of cantare only, i.e. he is only the one singing but not the one “seeming”. What seems is not “Gabriele”, but rather “that Gabriele sings”.

Verbs that take infinitives can be divided into:

1. Control verbs: verbs like desiderare that have subjects that are also their semantic argument. They include desiderare (to want), amare (to love), odiare (to hate) etc.

2. Raising verbs: verbs like sembrare that have subjects that are not their semantic argument. There is only a few of them, including sembrare (to seem), apparire (to appear), risultare (to appear)

There are two tests to check if a verb that takes an infinitive as an object is a control verb or a raising verb:

1. With raising verbs, you can rewrite the sentence with the verb taking only a subordinate clause and moving the original subject in the subordinate clause:

• Gabriele sembra cantare (Gabriele seems to sing) > Sembra che Gabriele canti (It seems that gabriele sings)

This is impossible with control verbs:

• Gabriele desidera cantare (Gabriele wants to sing) > *Desidera che Gabriele canti (It wants that Gabriele sings)

2. If the infinitive has an object, try to make it the subject of the main verb in a passive construction. If the meaning is the same, you’re dealing with a raising verb, otherwise you’re dealing with a control verb

Claudia risulta guardare la televisione. (Claudia appears to watch television.) > La televisione risulta essere guardata da Claudia. (The television appears to be watched by Claudia.) > Same meaning = risultare is a raising verb.

Claudia odia guardare la televisione. (Claudia hates watching television.) > La televisione odia essere guardata da Claudia. (The television hates being watched by Claudia.) > Different meaning = odiare is a control verb.

4.2) Causative construction

The Italian causative construction consists of a causative verb, either fare (make) or lasciare (let), that takes an infinitive clause as a complement. Depending on how the subject and the other arguments of the infinitive function, there can be three kinds of causative constructions:

1. Causative verb + intransitive verb. In this case the subject of the intransitive verb becomes the direct object of the causative construction.

   • Filippo ride. (Filippo laughs.) > Noemi fa ridere Filippo. (Noemi makes filippo laugh.)

We can see that Filippo is the direct object since we can swap it with the pronoun lo: Noemi lo fa ridere.

1. Causative verb + active transitive verb. In this case the subject of the active transitive verb becomes the indirect object of the causative construction and the direct object of the active transitive verb keeps its form as direct object.

   • Filippo aiuta Gaia. (Filippo helps Gaia.) > Noemi fa aiutare Gaia a Filippo. (Noemi makes Filippo help Gaia.)

We can see that Gaia is the direct object since we can swap it with the pronoun la: Noemi la fa aiutare a Filippo.

We can also see that a Filippo is the indirect object since we can swap it with the pronoun gli: Noemi gli fa aiutare Gaia.

3. Causative verb + passive transitive verb. In this case the subject of the passive transitive verb becomes the direct object of the causative construction, and the phrase introduced by da keeps its form as phrase introduced by da.

   • Gaia è aiutata da Filippo. (Gaia is helped by Filippo.) > Noemi fa aiutare Gaia da Filippo. (Noemi makes Filippo help Gaia.)

We can see that Gaia is the direct object since we can swap it with the pronooun la: Noemi la fa aiutare da Filippo.

4.3) Perception verbs

In Italian some perception verbs take a direct object and an infinitive verb as complements in such a way that the direct object also acts as the subject of the infinitve.

In

• Michele ha visto Giorgia guidare una moto. (Michele saw Giorgia driving a motorbike.)

We can see that Giorgia, which is the subject of guidare, also acts as the object of ha visto since we can swap it with the pronoun l’:

• Michele l’ha vista guidare una moto. (Michele saw her driving a motorbike.)

Clauses like these are often called Accusativus Cum Infinitivo, meaning “accusative and infinitive” in Latin, a language where this construction was widespread.

5.Expression of the subject

Let’s now have a look at the way indefinite subjects are expressed in Italian and the way the subjects can be omitted.

5.1) Indefinite subject

There are many ways to express an indefinite (i.e. generic) subject in Italian:

1. Si impersonale, as in

   In Italia si guida a destra. (In Italy they drive on the right.)

2. Verb in 2nd person singular, with the subject usually omitted, as in

   In Italia trovi molte gelaterie. (In Italy you can find many ice cream shops.)

3. Verb in 1st person plural, with the subject usually omitted, as in

   In Italia abbiamo venti regioni. (In Italy we have twenty regions.)

4. Verb in 3rd person plural, with the subject usually omitted, as in

   In Italia vanno a scuola di sabato. (In Italy they go to school on Saturdays.)

5.2) Omission of the subject

As we can see from the previous examples the subject in Italian can be omitted, and the clause will still be grammatical. This is because Italian is a null subject language, or pro-drop (pronoun-dropping) language. Languages can be classified as either null subject (pro-drop) languages, like Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, or obligatory subject (non-pro-drop) languages, like English, French or German.

So, in Italian you can have

• Io sono Italiano. (I’m Italian.)

or

• Sono italiano. (I’m Italian.)

Whereas in English you can’t have *am British.

Also, Weather verbs don’t take subjects as in

• Piove. (It rains.)

Whereas in English you can’t have *rains.

In fact, in Italian unmarked clauses the subject is omitted. When it’s included it’s usually to have some kind of marked clause:

• Preparo la cena. (I make dinner.) is unmarked

• Preparo io la cena. (It’s me who makes dinner), with the stress on the subject io, is marked, and the subject is the focus

5.3) History of pro-drop in Italian

When it comes to the regional languages of Italy, we find that the ones spoken in the north are non-pro-drop languages, while those spoken in the center and the south are pro-drop languages. One exception is the dialect of Florence, Tuscany, where the subject is obligatory.

Italian, though, was developed from Florentine, so the fact that it’s a non-pro-drop language may seem puzzling. Florentine started evolving into a non-pro-drop language from the 13th to the 15th century. In some examples from the 14th century, we can see that:

• The subject was expressed where in Modern Italian it wouldn’t be, as in

Tu avevi quinci sù una giovinetta che tu tenevi a tua posta (You had here above a young girl whom you kept for your own.) (Boccaccio, Decameron VIII, 6, 53)

• A clitic (unstressed) subject pronoun, i’, was used as in
  

Io non so ben dir com’i’ v’intrai (I cannot well explain how I entered.) (Dante, Inferno, I, 10)

• an expletive (meaningless) subject pronoun was used before a verb taking a subjective clause as complement as in

Egli convien ch’e’ muoia (It is necessary that he dies.) (Boccaccio, Decameron III, 8, 15)

This last property is found in English as in
It is good that you’re here.

But whereas in Old Italian it would be

Egli è bello che tu sia qui. (It’s good that you’re here.)

In Modern Italian it’s

È bello che tu sia qui. (It’s good that you’re here)

In the 14th century, though, the process was not complete and there still were many cases of omitted subjects. When grammarians, Pietro Bembo in particular, started to codify Italian in the 16th century at the time when the “questione della lingua” debate was taking place, they took the “three crowns” of Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio as ideal models to imitate. Nonetheless Bembo thought that the widespread presence of the pronoun “egli” at the beginning of sentences was a stylistic choice: he thought that it was just an elegant way to start a sentence and that it played no structural function and so he decided that Italian would not have obligatory subjects. From this period Italian started to gradually diverge from the actual spoken language of the people of Florence and because of that today the two are not identical.

Sources:

R. Simone, Enciclopedia dell’italiano 2011

G. Salvi – L. Vanelli, Nuova grammatica italiana, il Mulino, 2004.

G. Berruto – M. Cerruti, La linguistica: un corso introduttivo, Feltrinelli 2011