Question 1

How is the passive voice formed in the past tense here with sono stati esposti?

Accepted Answer

To form the passive voice in a compound tense like the passato prossimo, you take the passato prossimo of the auxiliary verb essere (which is sono stati here) and add the past participle of the main verb (esposti, from esporre).

Question 2

Why do both stati and esposti end in -i?

Accepted Answer

In passive sentences formed with essere, all past participles must agree with the subject in gender and number. Since the subject, capolavori (masterpieces), is masculine plural, both the auxiliary's participle (stati) and the main verb's participle (esposti) take the masculine plural -i ending.

Question 3

What is the infinitive form of esposti?

Accepted Answer

It comes from esporre (to exhibit or to expose). Verbs ending in -porre have irregular past participles ending in -posto. Since it must agree with the masculine plural subject here, esposto becomes esposti.

Question 4

Why is the plural of autentico spelled autentici without an h?

Accepted Answer

For most adjectives ending in -co with the stress on the third-to-last syllable (au-TEN-ti-co), the masculine plural changes to a soft ch sound, spelled -ci. If the stress were on the second-to-last syllable (like antico), it would usually take an h to keep the hard k sound (antichi).

Solo capolavori autentici sono stati esposti qui.

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