Professor Dave again, let’s talk pronouns.
Earlier we learned about the direct object pronouns, lo, la, li, and le.
These are called as such because they substitute direct objects with transitive verbs.
Just to quickly review, these are used as follows.
Now that could mean that the person eats pizza, in general, or it could mean that they will
eat the specific pizza in front of them at the moment.
In such a sentence, the direct object will directly receive the action from the subject
through the verb.
Because of that, a verb taking a preposition cannot use them.
Fortunately, we have the pronoun “ne”, as well as “ci”, which we will discuss
later, for all such situations.
This new pronoun, “ne”, is invariable, which means it can be used to substitute masculine
nouns, feminine nouns, singulars, or plurals.
It may sound too good to be true, but ne will always remain ne.
Now we just need to understand when to use it.
Ne will be used in the presence of the prepositions “di” and “da”.
We have already seen several verbs requiring the preposition “di”.
When answering a question using these verbs, ne will be needed, because lo, la, li, and
le are not allowed.
Beyond this, we have other verbs which take “di”.
Next we look at prepositional phrases containing “da”, which means from there.
These will be found with verbs of direction.
And lastly, there are expressions of quantity.
Given that “mangi la pizza” actually refers to eating the entire pizza, any smaller portion
of that pizza will require “ne”, because this pronoun expresses a partitive.
And you sure did, as it’s all gone.
Just remember that the presence of the word tutto, tutta, tutti, or tutte, will exclude
the use of “ne”, because tutto, which means all, doesn’t describe a partitive
but rather an entirety.
And that’s what we need to know about the pronoun “ne”.
Let’s check comprehension.