In Italian, masculine nouns exists whose inflectional
paradigm presents two plurals: the regular plural in -i
alternates with a sort of exception to the paradigm, i.e. a
feminine plural ending in -a. Please note that that this ending
is, really, the ancient fossilized suffix of the latin neuter
plural gender.
The sensible difference of the meaning of
the two plurals cannot be conducted to a general rule, even if often the
oppositions abstract vs. concrete, general vs. particular,
collective vs. single can be individuated. However, the cases has to be
examined one by one.
For the class of the nouns denoting parts of the body, it can be
said that the two plural forms
disambiguate the polisemy contained in the singular form: e.g.
braccio: i) parte del corpo; ii) ramo, diramazione
bracci: ii) rami, diramazione
braccia: i) parte del corpo
| numb=pl, gend=f/m | |||
| D e s c r i p t i o n | E x a m p l e s | ||
| nouns with two plurals | braccio/m, sg | ||
| bracci/m, pl braccia/f, pl | |||
| membro/m, sg | |||
| membri/m, pl membra/f, pl | |||
| filo/m, sg | |||
| fili/m, pl fila/f, pl | |||