-итай
Mongolian
Etymology
Inherited from Classical Mongolian ᠊ᠲᠠᠢ (-tai, ornative suffix), from Middle Mongol ᠲᠠᠢ (tʾy /tai/), ᠊ᠲᠠᠢ (-lʾy /-tai/, feminine singular ornative suffix).
-и- (-i-) was a stem-final vowel kept pronounced in some agglutinative structures, and could be somehow considered as an anaptyxis.
Pronunciation
- (Khalkha) IPA(key): [ɪ̆.ʰtæː] (causing umlaut of a preceding non-reduced +RTR vowel)
- Hyphenation: -и‧тай
Suffix
-итай • (-itaj) (to stems ending in -хь (-xʹ), -дь (-dʹ), and -ть (-tʹ), supplanting their silent final -ь (-ʹ))
- (still productive) Forms the ornative form.
- даахь (daaxʹ, “frizzy hair”) + -итай (-itaj) → даахитай (daaxitaj, “have/has/having frizzy hair”)
- задь (zadʹ, “nutmeg”) + -итай (-itaj) → задитай (zaditaj, “have/has/having a nutmeg/nutmegs”)
- Forms the comitative case.
- даахь (daaxʹ, “frizzy hair”) + -итай (-itaj) → даахитай (daaxitaj, “with frizzy hair”)
- задь (zadʹ, “nutmeg”) + -итай (-itaj) → задитай (zaditaj, “with a nutmeg”)
Inflection
| back vowel | front vowel | |
|---|---|---|
| unrounded | -итай (-itaj) | -итэй (-itej) |
| rounded | -итой (-itoj) |
Alternative forms
- -тай (-taj)