Breakdown of L’attore saluta il pubblico con un inchino.
con
with
salutare
to greet
l'attore
the actor
il pubblico
the audience
l'inchino
the bow
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Questions & Answers about L’attore saluta il pubblico con un inchino.
Why is l’attore written with an apostrophe instead of lo attore?
Because Italian drops the masculine singular article lo before a word starting with a vowel (this process is called elision). So lo attore becomes l’attore to make pronunciation smoother.
What is the tense and person of saluta?
Saluta is the third person singular present indicative of salutare. It means “he/she/it greets.” Here it refers to the actor performing the action right now.
Why is il pubblico singular even though it refers to many people?
Some collective nouns in Italian, like pubblico (audience), are treated as a single entity, so they take a singular verb and singular article. English does the same with audience.
Could you say i spettatori instead of il pubblico? Are they interchangeable?
Both refer to watchers, but il pubblico is more general (the whole gathering or audience), while i spettatori specifically means the individual spectators or viewers. Choose i spettatori when you want to emphasize the people one by one; use il pubblico for the group as a whole.
Why is the preposition con used in con un inchino? Could you use in instead?
Con indicates the manner or means (how something is done): he greets with a bow. The preposition in usually expresses location, time, or state (e.g. in teatro, in cinque minuti), not the instrument/means of an action, so in un inchino would be incorrect here.
What does inchino mean? Is it a noun or a form of a verb?
Inchino is a masculine noun meaning a bow (the gesture). The related verb is inchinarsi (to bow). In the sentence, un inchino names the action used to greet.
Why is there an indefinite article un before inchino? Could it be omitted?
When you use con + a countable noun, Italian normally requires an article: con un inchino. Omitting the article (con inchino) sounds ungrammatical. If you want to refer to a specific bow, you could use the definite article: con l’inchino.
Could we rephrase the sentence using the reflexive verb inchinarsi?
Yes. You can say L’attore si inchina al pubblico, which literally means the actor bows to the audience. Here si inchina replaces saluta … con un inchino, and note you switch to the preposition a before al pubblico.