What is the plural of the Sicilian word "pezzonovante", meaning "big shot"?

Hello Dominicsayers and thank you for your question.


The plural of the word "pezzonovante" is pezzonovanti.

Source:

Guidelines to Form a Plural Noun in Italian. 
http://home.wanadoo.nl/~mvgompel/nouns_it_en.html

Nouns and How to Make Them Plural
http://www.gwc.org.uk/Italian/nouns.html

Search criteria: Italian grammar rules


I hope this helps.

Best Regards,
Bobbie7-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by dominicsayers-ga on 06 Dec 2002 01:20 PST

I only ask because it is a compound word (literally "90-calibre" I
believe).

I wondered if the "pezzo" part should be pluralized as well as the
"novante", i.e. "pezzinovanti"

---

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 06 Dec 2002 11:18 PST

Hello again Dominicsayers,

I did a search for pezzonovante on the .it (Italy) domain and there
were no results.
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&q=pezzonovante+site%3A.it&btnG=Google+Search

For pezzonovanti – no results
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&q=pezzonovanti+site%3A.it&btnG=Google+Search

No pages were found containing "pezzinovanti".
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&q=pezzinovanti+site%3A.it&btnG=Google+Search


I then did some more research on the plural forms of compound nouns
and here is a website that has a extensive chart of irregular compound
nouns in the plural form and a number of rules to follow for different
types of compound words. However, pezzonovante is not included in this
chart.

PLURAL FORM OF COMPOUND WORDS
Compound words may result from the combination of different parts of
speech and may have irregular plural forms.
http://www.locuta.com/epl_compo.htm

If we just follow the rules for regular nouns, pezzonovante would be
pezzonovanti in the plural form.


I located a number of references for pezzonovante:

“Pezzonovante is one word, it means 90 caliber -- a big gun or big
shot.”
http://davenet.userland.com/1996/06/10/hosingthehoaxes

Here the word pezzonovante is referred to as pezzonovante in its
plural form as well.
 
“Pezzonovante - grandes líderes do submundo, inimigos não declarados.”

In English, some nouns have singular and plural alike such as sheep,
deer, cod and trout.

http://members.tripod.com/cpbn/bbn/bgiovanni/giovanni_organizacao.htm

Here is a list of nouns used exclusively in the plural form.
Pezzonovante is not included here either.
http://www.locuta.com/epl_solo.htm


Search terms used:
compound words plural in Italian

Best regards,
Bobbie7-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 06 Dec 2002 11:33 PST

Please take a look  here at these newsgroup postings. The derivation
of pezzonovante is discussed at length.

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?q=pezzonovante&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search