Reconstruction:Proto-Tungusic/-sa

Note that the Manchu descendant could be from a derivative *-sa-l since the final -l drops in Manchu.

*-sa

1. Forms collective nouns.

   ‎*mō (“tree”) + ‎*-sa → ‎*mōsa (“forest, woods”)

2. Found in some of words with unknown function and obscured due to assimilation and not easily recognizable.

   ‎*xol + ‎*-sa → ‎*xolsa (“fish”)

   ‎*xiāl + ‎*-sa → ‎*xiālsa (“coal”)

   ‎*pul + ‎*-sa → ‎*pulsa (“blanket”)

   ‎*giram + ‎*-sa → ‎*giramsa (“bone, skeleton”)

   ‎*iā + ‎*-sa → ‎*iāsa (“eye”)

3. Forms adverbs related to time and day (like used to count periods of day etc), when combined with the consonant /*-l-/.

   ‎*ʒȫr (“two”) + ‎*-sa → ‎*ʒȫlse (“(for) two days”)

   ‎*xadū (“how much, many”) + ‎*-sa → ‎*xadūlsa (“how many days”)

1. This suffix is sometimes combined with preceding velar stop segments *-k-, *-g-, *-t- and *-n-.

   ‎*sile- + ‎*-sa → ‎*silekse (“dew”)

   ‎*ximan- + ‎*-sa → ‎*ximansa (“snow”)

   ‎*sēg- + ‎*-sa → ‎*sēkse (“blood”)

   ‎*sugʒa- + ‎*-sa → ‎*sugʒansa (“fish, salmon”)

• *-g-sa > *-k-sa
• *-l-sa
• *-n-sa
• *-sa-l

• Jurchenic:
  • Manchu: -ᠰᠠ (-sa) (or from < *-sal)

• Nicholas Poppe (1952) “Plural Suffixes in the Altaic Languages”, in Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher‎^[1], page 71
• Vovin, Alexander, Janhunen, Juha, de la Fuente, José Andrés Alonso (2023) The Tungusic Languages (Routledge Language Family Series), Abingdon: Routledge, pages 47-48, 52
• Benzing, Johannes (1955) Die tungusischen Sprachen. Versuch einer vergleichenden Grammatik (Abhandlungen der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse; 11) (in German), Wiesbaden: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz in Kommission bei Franz Steiner Verlag, page 69