Page 22 - verbo italiano

12 / Webster’s New World 575+ Italian Verbs

Table 4 (continued)
Infinito passato Past Infinitive
aver parlato essere andato having talked having gone
Gerundio passato Perfect Gerund
avendo parlato essendo andato having talked having gone
* The trapassato remoto is rarely used today.

THE PAST PARTICIPLE

The English past participle is used to form the compound tenses (“he has worked,”
“he had worked,” and so on). The regular past participle is formed by adding –ed to
the verb (“watched,” “liked”). Some verbs have an irregular past participle (“gone”
from “go,” “seen” from “see”). In Italian, as in English, the past participle is used
to form the nine compound tenses as well as to form the passive voice with essere
or as an adjective. The past participle may also be used as a noun:

Abbiamo comprato la casa. We have bought the house.
(compound)
Siamo andati al cinema. We have gone to the cinema.
(compound)
La casa è stata venduta. The house has been sold. (passive)
Il negozio è chiuso. The store is closed. (adjective)
Gli scritti di Dante. The writings of Dante. (noun)

The Italian regular past participle is formed by dropping the infinitive endings
–are, –ere, and –ire and adding –ato, –uto, and –ito as shown in Table 5.

Table 5 Forming the Past Participle
Verb Group Infinitive Past Participle
–are parlare (“to talk”) parlato (“talked”)
–ere ricevere (“to receive”) ricevuto (“received”)
–ire finire (“to end”) finito (“finished”)

Some verbs ending in –cere add the ending –iuto when forming the past participle
in order to keep the soft sound of the infinitive, as for example, conoscere (“to
know”), conosciuto, and piacere (“to like”), piaciuto.
The past participles of all –are (with the exceptions of fare, which has a past parti-
ciple of fatto) and most –ire verbs are regular and follow the above pattern.
The vast majority of –ere verbs have irregular past participles, and the irregular-
ity must be memorized. Below is a list of commonly used –ere verbs that have an
irregular past participle:

Verb Past Participle
bere (“to drink”) bevuto (“drunk”)
chiedere (“to ask”) chiesto (“asked”)
chiudere (“to close”) chiuso (“closed”)
decidere (“to decide”) deciso (“decided”)
dipingere (“to paint”) dipinto (“painted”)