embraces a new way of looking at grammar – seeing it not as the ultimate goal, but
as the tool with which we construct a dialogue or a piece of writing.
Modern Italian Grammar is specifically designed to be accessible to the English reader
not brought up in the Italian tradition of grammar and language analysis. It is
unique both in its combination of the formal grammar reference section and the
guide to usage organised along functional lines, and because it has been compiled
by an English mother-tongue teacher of Italian and an Italian native speaker, working
closely together.
It is the ideal reference text to use with newer language courses, for both beginners
and advanced learners.
The course books and textbooks published over the last two decades are based on
the principles of the communicative approach to language learning, which recognises
that the objective of any language learner is to communicate, to get one’s message
across, and that there can be many different ways of doing this, rather than a ‘right’
way and a ‘wrong’ way.
The communicative approach emphasises language functions rather than structures.
Traditional reference grammars present language by structure, making them inaccessible
to learners who have no knowledge of grammatical terminology. Modern Italian
Grammar presents language by function, with examples of usage and full explanations
of how to express specific functions in Part B. At the same time it retains the
traditional presentation of language by structure in Part A, which illustrates language
forms and grammatical systems in a schematic way: word formation and morphology,
verb conjugations, tenses, use of conjunctions and verb constructions.
The language functions included have been based on the communicative functions
listed in Nora Galli de Paratesi’s Livello Soglia (1981), itself based on J.A. van Ek’s
The Threshold Level (1975), the statement of key language functions supported by
the Council of Europe. We have expanded them to provide a richer variety of examples
more suited to our target readership. The division into functional areas also
takes account of general linguistic notions, which can occur in more than one function;
these include notions such as presence or absence, time and space, cause and
effect. Notions and functions are integrated throughout Part B, while the structures
illustrated in Part A are accessed through extensive cross-referencing.
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