English versus Italian

by torredifuoco

This doc is about the differences between two sub-sets of our beloved languages: English IFese and Italian IFese. I will focus on some grammar issues an Italian IF developer must face to translate successfully the TADS 3 library.


Character set

That isn't an issue. Just read TADS 3 documentation (.../doc/sysman/charmap.htm). If your OS is Windows, you must substitute "us-ascii" with "cp1252" in your source code (don't forget the library), and copy cmaplib.t3r into the TADS 3 executables folder. However, Italian IFese has seven more characters: à, È, è, é, ì, ò and ù. I wonder whether .t3 files compiled on Windows machines run well on Mac or Linux, i. e. they display accented characters. Wait, the README.txt file into the charmap folder says they do. I shouldn't need to add approximations mappings, if I use cmaplib.t3r: its sources include approximations.


Gender

In Italian, nouns are masculine or feminine. There's no neuter form.


Articles

Italian has more articles, both definite (determinativi) and indefinite (indeterminativi). They decline according to gender, number and first character(s) of the very next word (noun). First characters are divided into three groups (with little differences between masculine/feminine articles):

  • group A = next word starting with consonant (except s+consonant, z, x, pn, ps, gn, sc) or semiconsonant u/w (with stranger nouns)
  • group B = next word starting with s+consonant, z, x, pn, ps, gn, sc, semiconsonant i/j, semiconsonant u/w (with Italian nouns), not-dropped h
  • group C = next word starting with vowel, dropped h (only for masculine)

Italian Articles
SingularPlural
MasculineFeminineMasculineFeminine
ABCABCABCABC
Definiteillol'lalal'igliglilelele
Indefiniteununoununaunaun'deideglideglidelledelledelle

Indefinite plural articles can be replaced by qualche+singular noun or alcuni(masculine)/alcune(feminine)+plural noun. As you may notice, an Italian article resembles a well-known shortcut for "take inventory".


Prepositions

Similar to the English ones, but some of them agglutinate with articles to give "preposizioni articolate", which behave the same way articles do. Prepositions are: di (of), a (to, at), da (by), in (in), con (with), su (on), per (for), tra (between), fra (between).

Italian Prepositions
SingularPlural
MasculineFeminineMasculineFeminine
ABCABCABCABC
Definite articleillol'lalal'igliglilelele
Dideldellodell'delladelladell'deideglideglidelledelledelle
Aalalloall'allaallaall'aiagliaglialleallealle
Dadaldallodall'dalladalladall'daidaglidaglidalledalledalle
Innelnellonell'nellanellanell'neineglineglinellenellenelle
Concolcollocoll'collacollacoll'coicoglicoglicollecollecolle
Susulsullosull'sullasullasull'suisuglisuglisullesullesulle

Luckily, we may avoid to agglutinate "con", because those forms are used only with spoken language. Unfortunately, some prepositions are exactly alike nouns or verbs which may come in handy. Here is a short list:

  • dallo = give it (masculine direct object)
  • dalla = give it (feminine direct object)
  • dai = give
  • dagli = give (to) him/them
  • dalle = give them (feminine direct object) and give (to) her
  • nei = moles
  • collo = neck
  • colla = glue
  • cogli = pick up
  • colle = glues


Pronouns

They agglutinate with verbs more often than not. Pronouns decline according to number and gender of the implied noun. Verbs appear with four suffixes: -lo (singular masculine), -la (singular feminine), -li (plural masculine), -le (plural feminine). Some instances:

  • prendi lui = prendilo = take him, take it
  • prendi lei = prendila = take her, take it
  • prendi loro = prendili = take them
  • prendi loro = prendile = take them

We have a special case with some verbs, which accept -gli (singular masculine - but also plural masculine/feminine -, preposition implied) or -le (singular feminine - not plural as in the list above since it depends on context, namely the meaning of your sentence -, preposition implied) as suffix. I. e. prendere (to take), lasciare (to drop), dare (to give), dire (to say) and so on:

  • prendi da lui/loro = prendigli = take from him/them
  • prendi da lei = prendile = take from her
  • dai a lui/loro = dagli = give to him/them
  • dai a lei = dalle = give to her

Then we have some double agglutination (gli+lo, la, li, le = glielo, gliela, glieli, gliele):

  • prendi quello da lui/lei/loro = prendiglielo = take that (masculine) from him/her/them
  • prendi quella da lui/lei/loro = prendigliela = take that (feminine) from him/her/them
  • prendi quelli da lui/lei/loro = prendiglieli = take those (masculine) from him/her/them
  • prendi quelle da lui/lei/loro = prendigliele = take those (feminine) from him/her/them


Subject

We don't write the subject in our output as you do, unless it's a proper noun. I. e. "You open the door" translates into "Apri la porta" while "Bob opens the door" becomes "Bob apre la porta".


Numbers

Their spelling isn't straightforward as in English. We have some irregular forms. From 21 onwards the numbers which have 1 or 8 as units remove the last character (vowel) from the tens noun, whereas other numbers have i or a as last character of the tens noun if they are in the second ten or other tens, respectively. Numbers which end with -tre should be accented, i. e. ventitré (23). We agglutinate hundreds and thousands, besides tens. For thousands, singular is mille (1000) while plural has -mila as suffix, i. e. quattromila (4000).


Adverbs

Italian IFese has a shortcut that could be mixed up with a well-known adverb: no. Indeed it stands also for nord-ovest (north-west).


Follow the path

I dug into Riccardi's Infit 2.5 (Italian translation of Inform library v6.11) code to borrow some ideas.

He wrote a whole set of functions to help himself and authors with the output:

  • (genderandnumber) obj prints o, a, i, e according to gender and number of obj
  • (thatorthose) obj prints tu, quello, quella, quelli, quelle according to gender and number of obj
  • (cthatorthose) obj prints Tu, Quello, Quella, Quelli, Quelle according to gender and number of obj
  • (itorthem) obj prints te stesso, lo, la, li, le according to gender and number of obj
  • (citorthem) obj prints Lo, La, Li, Le according to gender and number of obj
  • (isorare) obj prints sei, è, sono according to person and number of obj
  • (cisorare) obj prints Sei, È, Sono according to person and number of obj
  • (whomorwhich1) obj prints l quale, lla quale, i quali, lle quali according to gender and number of obj
  • (whomorwhich2) obj prints il quale, la quale, i quali, le quali according to gender and number of obj
  • (artdi) obj prints di, d', del, dell', dello, della, dei, degli, delle, di te according to gender, number and first character(s) of obj
  • (arta) obj prints a, al, all', allo, alla, agli, alle according to gender, number and first character(s) of obj
  • (artda) obj prints da, dal, dall', dallo, dalla, dai, dagli, dalle according to gender, number and first character(s) of obj
  • (artin) obj prints in, nel, nell', nella, nei, negli, nelle according to gender, number and first character(s) of obj
  • (artsu) obj prints su, sul, sull', sulla, sui, sugli, sulle, su di te according to gender, number and first character(s) of obj
  • PrintInfinitive() prints the infinitive form of a verb
  • PrintPrep() prints the preposition that is linked to a verb

Then he defined some pronouns and adjectives (as constants), which are useful in every IFese, I think:

  • tutto, tutta, tutti, tutte (all)
  • ognuno, ognuna (every)
  • entrambi, entrambe (both)
  • me stesso (myself)


Links

Till now (February 2007) nobody translated the TADS 3 language-specific lib - over 17300 lines (I know, I know, there are many remarks), while the Inform language-specific lib (v6.11) is circa 1400 lines long. I'm not experienced, but I'd say it's a huge task, or maybe it takes a lot of patience and good planning too. I'd like to hear from experts, those who built TADS 3, and I bet I'm not alone. An essay on the matter or a whole manual like this - take a look, only 41 pages - would be fully appreciated.

I read Nizette's advice and yeah, I'll dig into the lib. Still I'm more an author than a developer. I need a few Words of Wisdom. I think an expert should take some time and explain to would-be translators what's to be done, the architecture of The Thing and its inner workings more in depth (with the purpose of translation in mind). Experts should provide some instances about how to overcome grammar issues, suggestion for good planning and most of all for how to avoid design blunders.

Max Bianchi
p.s. you can find me via three newsgroups: <rec.arts.int-fiction>, <rec.games.int-fiction>, <it.comp.giochi.avventure.testuali>.