Teaching and learning Italian word-formation patterns

A knowledge of word-formation patterns can have considerable benefits on competence in a second language. A dynamic view of the lexicon can reveal recurring patterns in the vocabulary of a language, representing a useful tool to improve receptive fluency. Unfortunately, reflections on wordformation are not often considered an essential part of second language teaching, and grammar books often tend to take morphological processes for granted. However, while native speakers can make use of word-formation rules to construct new words out of the already existing ones, the same cannot be said of foreign learners, who lack native intuitions on productive mechanisms. This chapter aims to give an overview of the main wordformation patterns in Italian, organizing them in relation to the different parts of speech. Importance is given to their productivity, semantic regularities, and specialisations, allowing learners to familiarize themselves with a regular system rather than considering words as isolated linguistic objects.