Western Lombard grammar

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:

• pas [paːs] ("peace") vs. pass [pas] ("step" or "mountain pass")
• ciapaa [t͡ʃaˈpaː] ("caught" or "got", masc.) vs. ciapà [t͡ʃaˈpa] ("to catch" or "to get").

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:

• Mi voo a scoeula. "I go to school."
• Voo a scoeula, mi. Again, this sentence means "I go to school" but in this case, the act of going to school wants to be emphasised.

Like the Italian language, when a proclitic pronoun is used, however, this comes before the verb and the auxiliary:

• Lù la ved. "He sees her".

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:

• Luu el suguta a cantà. "He keeps singing."
• Lee la và in gesa. "She goes to the church."
• Ti te set ingles. "You are English."

As noted before differently from to Italian, the personal pronoun is always followed by the subject pronoun:

• Mi a voo a scoeula. / * Mi se voo a scoeula.
• Ti te set ingles.

However, similarly to Italian, in Lombard the personal pronoun can be dropped, anyhow, differently from Italian, whenever this happens the subject pronoun mustn`t be dropped:

• A voo a scoeula. / Se voo a scoeula.
• Te set ingles.

Most of the masculine nouns and adjectives terminate without suffix. This is valid both for the singular and the plural form. Examples are:

• El milanes ("the milanese") → I milanes ("the milanese people")
• L'amis ("the friend") → I amis ("the friends")

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.

• La milanesa ("the milanese woman") → I milanes ("the milanese women")
• L'amisa ("the girlfriend") → I amis ("the girlfriends").

Every 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:

For exceptions, see Insubric grammar#Variants

Western 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:

• Tense: past, present or future.
• Mood: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative, infinitive, gerundive or participle.
• Aspect: perfective or imperfective.
• Voice: active or passive.

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:

• The first conjugation class consists of all verbs with infinitives ending in "-à".
• The second conjugation class consists of all verbs with infinitives in "-è" (included the verb avè, "to have").
• The third conjugation class consists of all other verbs terminating with a consonant (included the verb vess, "to be").
• The fourth conjugation class consists of all verbs with infinitives in "-ì".

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):

• Fa föra – To do in / To eat up / To squander.

• Dà denter – To trade in / to bump into.

• Catà sü – To pick up (literally as in English).

• Borlà giò – To fall down (literally as in English).

• Netà sü / Lava’ sü – To wash up (literally as in English).

• Trà sü – To throw up (literally as in English).

• Trà vìa / Sc`jacá vìa – To throw away (literally as in English).

• Sàrà sü – To lock up (literally as in English).

• Dà vià – To give away (literally as in English).

• Setáś giò – To sit down (literally as in English).

Western 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:

To make the basic preposition in an articulated one, the articulated form of the preposition de must be used: in + el forms in del, in + la forms in de la, and in + i forms in di.

Insubric grammar has some geographical mutation. The main sections can be:

• Milanese grammar
• Southwestern Lombard grammars
• Brianzoeu, Comasco-Lecchese, Varesino and Ticinese grammars
• Alpine Lombard grammar

• Andrea Rognoni, Grammatica dei Dialetti della Lombardia, Oscar Mondadori

• Course in Insubric (Milanese grammar) in Italian  · in English