Tag Archives: neapolitan

Napuletano Preposition/Article Combinations

I’ve been compiling these from the songs and classical poetry I’ve been reading lately, and I figure that they should be put all in one place for reference.

The most used prepositions in turn-of-the-century Napuletano (Neapolitan, or Southern Italian) are:

Napuletano Italian Meaning & Notes:
d’ / ‘e di “of”, d’ in front of vowels, ‘e everywhere else.
a a “to,” triggers doubling of the next consonant.
da / ‘a da “from”, often just as da
‘n in “in,” usually prefixed on the word it precedes (e.g. ‘nciello).
ncoppo su “on”

These combine with the definite articles:

  • ‘o – masculine
  • ‘a – feminine
  • ‘e – plural
  • ll’ – preceding a vowel

And these combinations are are completely different from Standard Italian:

‘o ‘a ‘e ll’
sing. pl.
d’/’e d”o d”a d”e ‘e ll’ (same as sing.)
a ô â ê a ll’ (same as sing.)
da/’a da ‘o da ‘a da ‘e ‘a ll’ (same as sing.)
‘n dint”o dint”a dint”e dint’all’ dint’ali’
ncoppo ncopp”o ncopp”a ncopp”e ncopp’all’ ncopp’ali’

For da/’a, very often (especially in older Napuletano) it will provoke the article to keep its l (e.g. da lo, da la, da le, da ll’).

Other prepositions in Napuletano follow similar patterns too, such as pe, nfino, etc. and I’ll update this article here with more later.