Buenos Aires region of Argentina, and the whole of Uruguay. Vowels While there are only five graphic vowels in Neapolitan, phonemically, there are eight. Stressed vowels e and o can be either "closed" or "open" and the pronunciation is different for the two. The grave accent (à, è, ò) is used to denote open vowels, and the acute accent (é, í, ó, ú) is used to denote closed vowels, with alternative ì and ù. However, accent marks are not commonly used in the actual spelling of words except when they occur on the final syllable of a word, such as Totò, arrivà, or pecché, and when they appear here in other positions, it is only to demonstrate where the stress, or accent, falls in some words. Also, the circumflex is used to mark a long vowel where it wouldn't normally occur (e.g. sî "you are"). Consonants Digraphs and trigraphs The following clusters are always geminated if vowel-following. Grammar Definite articles The Neapolitan classical definite articles (corresponding to the English word "the") are la (feminine singular), lo (masculine singular) and li (plural for both), but in reality these forms will probably only be found in older literature (along with lu and even el), of which there is much to be found. Modern Neapolitan uses, almost entirely, shortened forms of these articles: Before a word beginning with a consonant: These definite articles are always pronounced distinctly. Before a word beginning with a vowel, l’ or ll’ are used for both masculine and feminine, singular and plural. Although both forms can be found, the ll’ form is by far the most common. It is well to note that in Neapolitan, the gender of a noun is not easily determined by the article, so other means must be used. In the case of ’o, which can be either masculine singular or neuter singular (there is no neuter plural in Neapolitan), the initial consonant of the noun is doubled when it is neuter. For example, the name of a language in Neapolitan is always neuter, so if we see ’o nnapulitano we know it refers to the Neapolitan language, whereas ’o napulitano would refer to a Neapolitan man. Likewise, since ’e can be either masculine or feminine plural, when it is feminine plural, the initial consonant of the noun is doubled. For example, consider ’a lista, which in Neapolitan is feminine singular for "list." In