Words without a topic III in Italian

Halfway down the list sits allargare, to widen, and it is worth stopping there, because it is not one word but a mould that this page uses four times. Italian does not turn an adjective into a verb by adding something at the end. It wraps the adjective, putting a prefix in front and a new ending behind, both at once. Largo, wide, takes a- and -are and comes out as allargare, to make wide. Corto, short, gives accorciare, a few lines further down. Il filo, the cutting edge, gives affilato, the still-sharp knife of another entry. La paura, fear, takes im- instead and gives impaurire, to frighten the dog. Neither half of the frame can be dropped: the prefix alone is not a verb, and the ending alone is not one either. English has a suffix for the same job, « -en », and it looks just as neat until you try to stretch it. « Widen », « shorten » and « sharpen » are fine; past a handful of short plain adjectives the language gives up and reaches for « make ». So the frame around allargare is worth seeing once, because it keeps working where the English ending stops.