Breakdown of Gli storici cercano gli indici di quei vecchi libri.
il libro
book
vecchio
old
gli
the
quello
that
Questions & Answers about Gli storici cercano gli indici di quei vecchi libri.
Why is the plural of storico spelled storici instead of storichi?
For masculine nouns ending in -co, the plural spelling depends on where the stress falls in the singular word. If the stress is on the third-to-last syllable, like in storico (STOH-ree-co), the plural usually changes to the soft -ci sound without an h. If the stress were on the second-to-last syllable, like in fuoco, it would keep the hard c sound by adding an h (fuochi).
Why is there no word for 'for' after cercano?
The verb cercare inherently means 'to look for' or 'to search for'. It takes a direct object, so adding a preposition like per is a common mistake for English speakers. You simply look for something directly: cercano gli indici.
Why do we use quei instead of quelli here?
When quello is used as an adjective before a noun, it copies the pattern of the definite articles (the words for 'the'). Because vecchi starts with a single consonant, it takes the same pattern as the article i. Therefore, the plural form of quello becomes quei. You would use quegli if the next word started with a vowel or a consonant cluster like sp- or st-.
Since the singular is vecchio, why does the plural vecchi only have one 'i' at the end?