On Nov 2, 2007, at 12:14 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:
I think your client and his Italian friend are absolutely right.
To me, "poco rit" sounds completely natural and "rit poco" sounds
weird and awkward. I'm not a native speaker, but I'm moderately
familiar with Italian and I see absolutely nothing wrong with "un
poco ritardando".
But isn't the instruction actually an imperative, rather than a
noun phrase? The English instruction wouldn't be "a little slowing
down" -- it would be "slow down a little."
"Slowing down a little" is how I would translate it. They just do
the word order differently in Italian. There are countless phrases
from Italian (or other romance languages) which will sound wrong in
English if translated literally without changing word order.
I don't see why you expect the instruction to be in imperative form.
This one is definitely not imperative in Italian. I don't think it's
a noun phrase either. Yes, "un poco" is a noun, but it looks to me
like it's acting adverbially here, modifying "ritardando", which is a
present participle acting as an adjective. Exactly as in "slowing
down a little".
mdl
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