Breakdown of Gli storici cercano gli indici di quei vecchi libri.
il libro
the book
vecchio
old
gli
the
quello
that
di
of, from
cercare
to look for
lo storico
the historian
l'indice
the index (m)
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?
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