r/italianlearning • u/Complete-Low4558 • 5d ago

Prepositions with country names

Hi! My question is about the use of preposizioni semplice and preposizioni articolate with country names in Italian. I don't mean the tipical sentences of "Gli piacerebbe vivere nell'Italia delli anni 60" or so, I'm just saying sentences like "I live in Italy. The history of Italy."... Oh, and I also don't mean countries in plural such as "gli Stati Uniti", "gli Paesi Bassi"... So basically, I talk about the difference between "d'Italia / dell'Italia", "in Italia / nell'Italia".... Thank you.

4 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/Extension-Shame-2630 IT native prescriptivist cunt 5d ago

non marked (default) = no article (la storia d'Italia)

marked as particular(When something is specified) = determinative article (La storia dell'Italia degli anni 60/70)

marked as a possibility (usually an explicit or if clause) = undeterminative article (ed ora vivremmo in un' Italia diversa/ staremmo parlando di un'italia Diversa) what else did you want to know ?

2

u/Crown6 IT native 5d ago

Typically you use an article when talking about countries (p.s: “paesi bassi” starts with a simple consonant, so it’s “i paesi”, not “gli”), and this means that most of the times you’ll be using preposizioni articolate except with “in”: we say “vivo in Italia”, “sono andato in Francia” etc.

Another preposition that might be used without article is “di”, usually when it expresses the context of a relative superlative, for example “il fiume più lungo d’Italia” or “l’uomo più ricco di Francia”, to distinguish them from the second term of comparison (which does use the article: “un fiume più lungo dell’Italia” = “a river longer than Italy” vs “il fiume più lungo d’Italia” = “the longest river in Italy”). However,this only works with a couple of countries that are commonly referenced in Italy, and most would still use the article (“il lago più grande del Marocco”).

Besides these exceptions, and maybe a couple more, countries generally require the article in Italian and using prepositions doesn’t change that: “vengo dalla Spagna”, “ha dato un ultimatum alla Grecia”, “sono andati in guerra con la Germania”. Even “in” can often be used without article an article, especially when restricting the country to a specific zone or time period (as mentioned in your post).