Combined Clitics with Imperatives

The Italian imperativo is the place where combined clitics show their most distinctive surface: long, single-word forms like dammelo, fammelo, dimmelo, daglielo, portamela, diteglielo, mandategliela. Each of these is one verb plus two clitics fused into a single written word — and to produce them correctly you have to apply, in order: the vowel-shift rule, the merging rule for glie-, the consonant-doubling rule for truncated imperatives, and the gli- exception that blocks doubling. This page walks through every one of those rules in the imperative environment and shows how they combine.

It assumes you are already comfortable with the basic combined-clitic forms (me lo, te la, ce ne, glielo). If those are still shaky, read the me lo / te lo family page and the glielo morphology page first.

The big picture

Combined clitics with the imperative split into three behaviours by person:

Each of these behaviours has wrinkles, and the affirmative tu/noi/voi case has an extra layer of orthographic complication around truncated imperatives (da', fa', di', sta', va'). The rest of the page works through them.

Affirmative tu / noi / voi: combined clitic attaches as one word

With the three "informal" imperatives — tu, noi, voi — the combined clitic attaches to the end of the imperative and the whole thing is written as one continuous word. No space, no hyphen, no apostrophe in the middle.

The stress of the original imperative does not move. Pòrta keeps the stress on the first syllable, and portamelo keeps it there too — pòrtamelo, with the me and lo as unstressed appendages. The same applies to scrìvigliela (stress on scri-) and mandategliéla (stress remains on the te of mandate, the original imperative ending).

The consonant-doubling rule with truncated imperatives

Italian has five truncated tu imperatives — short, apostrophized forms — that double the initial consonant of any single-syllable clitic that attaches to them. With combined clitics, the doubling applies to the first clitic in the block (the indirect one), not the direct one.

The five truncated imperatives are:

When you attach a combined clitic to one of these, the first consonant of the indirect clitic doubles:

The most frequent forms in real conversation are dammelo, fammelo, dimmelo, daccelo, diccelo and the irreplaceable idiom vattene ("get out of here," from va' + te + ne).

The phonological reason for the doubling is that the truncated imperative ended historically in a consonant (da' from dai/da; di' from dici) that was lost in writing but preserved in speech as a slight gemination. When a clitic attaches, that latent gemination resurfaces and the consonant is genuinely pronounced doubled.

The exception: glie- does NOT double

This is the rule that catches every learner at least once. The combined clitics starting with glie- (glielo, gliela, glieli, gliele, gliene) do NOT trigger consonant doubling when they attach to a truncated imperative.

The phonological reason is straightforward but instructive. The string gli in Italian is a single palatal lateral consonant /ʎi/ — not a sequence of /g/ + /l/ + /i/. Italian gemination prefers simple stops and fricatives (/p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/, /l/, /r/, /f/, /v/, /s/) and resists doubling complex consonants like /ʎ/, /ɲ/, /ʃ/, /ts/, /dz/. So when a truncated imperative meets gli-, the doubling rule simply does not apply: there is nothing clean to double.

The same exception holds for the bare clitic gli: dagli, fagli, digli — never daggli or figgli. Glielo inherits this property because it begins with the same /ʎ/ sound. (See the direct-object placement page for the bare-gli case.)

Negative tu imperative: two equally correct placements

The negative tu imperative has the form non + infinitive (e.g. non dare, non fare, non dire). With combined clitics, this morphology produces two equally correct placements — the same alternation that holds for single clitics.

• Combined clitic attached to the infinitive (with the final -e dropped): Non darmelo, non farmelo, non dirmelo, non darglielo.
• Combined clitic before non + infinitive, written separately when not glie-: Non me lo dare, non me lo fare, non me lo dire, non glielo dare.

There is a slight stylistic tendency: with reflexive combined clitics (non te ne andare) the preposed form sounds slightly more colloquial; with non-reflexive ones (non dirmelo), the attached form is slightly more frequent in spontaneous speech. But both are fully grammatical, and individual speakers swing freely between them.

Formal Lei imperative: clitic precedes

The formal singular Lei imperative — used in shops, with strangers, in professional contexts — is morphologically the third-person singular subjunctive (dia, faccia, dica, vada, stia). It behaves like every other finite verb in Italian: combined clitics go in front of the verb, not attached to it.

This means:

• The non-glie families (me lo, te la, ce ne, etc.) sit in front as two separate words: Me lo dica.
• The glie- families merge as one word and sit in front: Glielo dica.
• No doubling, no apostrophe between the clitics, no enclisis.

The reasoning is mechanical: tu/noi/voi imperatives are unique morphological forms, and Italian historically attaches clitics to them. The Lei imperative is borrowed from the congiuntivo presente, which behaves like every other finite verb in Italian — clitics in front.

Loro imperative (rare in modern Italian)

The formal plural Loro imperative is essentially absent from modern spoken Italian; even formal writing has largely shifted to using voi for plural address. When Loro is used (in extremely formal contexts — hotel announcements, the language of the law), it patterns like Lei: clitics precede as separate words.

In modern Italian, this would almost always be replaced by Diteglielo pure (voi imperative) or simply paraphrased.

Putting it all together: a worked example

Take the verb dare ("to give"), the indirect-direct combination "to him + it" (glielo), and walk through every imperative form:

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

1. Affirmative tu, noi, voi imperatives → combined clitic attaches as one word: dammelo, fammelo, dimmelo, daglielo, portatemelo, diciamoglielo.

2. Truncated imperatives (da', fa', di', sta', va') double the initial consonant of the indirect clitic when a combined clitic attaches: dammelo (m doubles), daccelo (c doubles), dittene (t doubles).

3. The glie- exception: combined clitics starting with glie- never trigger doubling. Daglielo, faglielo, diglielo — single g, single l. The /ʎ/ sound resists gemination.

4. Negative tu imperative → either attached to the infinitive or before non + infinitive: Non darmelo / Non me lo dare. Both correct.

5. Formal Lei imperative → clitic precedes the verb: Me lo dica, Glielo porti, Se lo prenda. Two words for non-glie families, one word for glie-.

6. The Loro imperative is virtually extinct in modern Italian; when used, it patterns like Lei (preposed clitic).

The full system fits in eight lines: attach + double for affirmative tu/noi/voi, with the gli- exception; either-or for negative tu; precede for formal Lei. Once you have drilled the high-frequency forms (dammelo, dimmelo, fammelo, daglielo, diglielo, vattene), the rest follows by analogy.

For the placement of combined clitics with modal verbs (Te lo voglio dire vs Voglio dirtelo), see combined clitics with modals. For the broader pattern of single-clitic attachment to imperatives, including the doubling rule for dammi, dimmi, fammi, see Imperativo: clitic attachment rules.