ABSTRACT

Nouns are generally used together with definite or indefinite articles (in English the, a) and/or adjectives (describing physical or other characteristics), which provide information about the entity or concept. Together they form a group of words called the noun group as in the two examples shown below:

una (article) grande (adjective) casa (noun) a big house la (article) ragazza (noun) inglese (adjective) the English girl

Although the noun group may contain other elements (for example, adverbs, prepositional phrases), in this chapter we will only look at the three basic elements of noun/article/adjective, analysing them one by one. In Italian the three components of the noun group also have to be considered as a ‘whole’, in which the three components ‘agree’, so we will also look at how the three elements are used together.