In Italian the article, whether an articolo determinativo (definite article), an articolo indeterminativo (indefinite article), or an articolo partitivo (partitive article), has no independent lexical meaning in a sentence. It serves in various ways, however, to define the noun it is associated with, and with which it must agree in gender and number. If the speaker wants to say something about a dog (for example), he must first specify whether the statement is intended to refer to all class members (Il cane è il migliore amico dell'uomo.—Dog is man's best friend.) or a single individual (Marco ha un cane pezzato.—Mark has a spotted dog).

The article, along with other parts of speech, for example, aggettivi dimostrativi (questo cane—this dog), aggettivi indefiniti (alcuni cani—some dogs), or aggettivi qualificativi (un bel cane—a beautiful dog), performs the important function of determining the nominal group.