A Comparison With Italian
There are few differences between standard Italian and Milanese syntaxes that have to be considered. The comparison is made easy by the fact that Milanese speakers are also speakers of standard Italian.
- More vowels occur in Milanese than in Italian. Milanese uses /ø/ and /y/ in addition to the 7 Standard Italian vowels, and it uses vowel length.
- Almost every polysyllabic Italian word ends in a vowel. Conversely, words ending in consonants are very common in Milanese. As a consequence, many paroxytone Italian words are oxytone in Milanese. An example is the infinitive of verbs: In Italian, chiamare "to call" with stress on the second "a" is equivalent to Milanese ciamà.
- While most Italian subject pronouns derive directly from their Latin counterparts, Milanese subject pronouns derive from Latin accusative pronouns. As a result, Milanese subject pronouns resemble Italian object and dative pronouns: mi (Italian mi), ti (Italian ti), lu (Italian lui), lee (Italian lei), numm (Italian noi), viálter (Italian voi), lór (Italian loro).
- Subject pronouns are doubled in the 2nd- and 3rd-person singular. Singular "you are" ("thou art"; Italian tu sei) is ti te seet in Milanese. The first pronoun (ti in ti te seet) is the actual subject pronoun and is optional. The second pronoun (te in ti te seet), which is normally a dative pronoun, reinforces the subject and is compulsory. The 2nd-person verbal suffix -t derives from Latin "te", as well. So there are three subject pronouns a verb.
- Negation follows the verb in Milanese, while in Italian negation precedes the verb. For example, Italian non sei "you are not" is equivalent to Milanese ti te seet no or ti te seet minga. Minga is an alternative negational adverb (probably derived from Latin mica "crumb"), various forms of which are common in other Italian dialects and also in colloquial Italian, with non
mica for reinforcing negations. French pas and Tuscan punto are examples of negations using words originally designating something small. Minga and no are about equally common in Milanese and are usually interchangeable, though one may be more euphonious in one sentence than the other. For slight differentiation, minga may deny the presence of countable things, whereas no simply negates, such as mi vegni no "I won't come" versus mi vegni minga "I really don't want to come and I won't" and gh'èn hoo minga "I have nothing (no money)", that is, "I'm poor" versus gh'èn hoo nò "I have no money with me".
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