Scarcity and abundance with 'mancare di' and 'abbondare di'
In English, a project lacks direction, but a lake abounds in fish and a square teems with tourists. Each verb has its own construction: no preposition at all, then in, then with. Italian is much tidier. Verbs that describe a subject as missing something or overflowing with something introduce that thing with di: mancare di, abbondare di, brulicare di, pullulare di.
English speakers tend to trip over this in two ways. With mancare they copy the English direct object and drop the di. With the abundance verbs they reach for con or in, because that is what with and in usually become. Remember a single preposition and you have all of them.
The pattern is always the same. The subject is the person, place or thing that has too little or a great deal of something. The verb describes that state, and di introduces the missing or plentiful element.
- subject (what is lacking or full) + verb + di + the thing
The noun after di usually has no article. You say manca di esperienza and brulica di turisti, much as English says "lacks experience" or "teems with tourists" without the. Add an article or adjective only when you mean something specific: manca di una direzione chiara.
Rule of thumb: if the English sentence means "X has too little of Y" or "X is full of Y", Italian says X + verb + di + Y.
mancare di means "to lack" a quality or resource. It sounds slightly formal and evaluative, so you will often meet it in reviews, reports and judgements about people.
The less common verbs difettare di (to be short of) and scarseggiare di (to be running low on) follow the same pattern: la squadra difetta di fantasia, scarseggiamo di acqua.
abbondare di is the neutral choice for "to abound in, to be rich in". It often describes places and natural resources.
brulicare di and pullulare di are more vivid. They suggest crowds, swarms and constant movement, like English "to teem" or "to swarm with". They work with people, insects and animals, and figuratively with errors or ideas.
The abundance verbs can also be built the other way round. In that case the plentiful things become the subject and the place follows with in or a. Both sentences below are correct, but only the first uses di.
mancare has a second, very common construction that has nothing to do with di. Here the missing thing is the subject, and the person who feels the lack appears as an indirect object: mi manca, al progetto manca. This is also the construction behind "I miss you".
The typical mistake is to mix the two and write il progetto manca una direzione, with the deficient thing as the subject but no di. Pick one frame. Either the project is the subject (il progetto manca di...) or the direction is (al progetto manca...).
When a subject has too little or a great deal of something, Italian puts that something after di: mancare di esperienza, abbondare di risorse, brulicare di turisti, pullulare di insetti. Do not copy the English direct object after "lack", and do not translate "with" or "in" as con or in. The construction changes only when the missing or plentiful thing becomes the subject, as in mi manca or i pesci brulicano nel lago.