Maquiritari

Prefix

y-

1. Marks the third person for nouns and postpositions with an initial vowel
2. Marks the first person for nouns, postpositions, and verbs’ transitive objects and non-derived intransitive subjects

References

• Cáceres, Natalia. Grammaire Fonctionelle-Typologique du Ye'kwana.

Middle English

Alternative forms

• i-
• ȝe-

Prefix

y-

1. Used with past participle conjugations to form past participles (this prefix does not occur independently).

Derived terms

Descendants

• English: y-, a-, i- (obsolete)

Usage notes

• Not productive in Modern English.
• This prefix represents a common Germanic collective prefix, as well as a perfective prefix which was used to form past participles. Already by the Old English period such participles could be used with or without it, and as it passed into Middle English forms y-, i-, and ȝe-, it became less productive. The prefix was later adopted as a conscious archaism by some writers such as Edmund Spenser, who prepended it to existing past participles.

See also

• ẏ, Middle English abbreviation for þe
• Middle English, y- (prefix) is often confused with ye (pronoun) or with þe (the) or ye (article, definite) and the thorn þ due to typographic variation:
  • ȝe- / y- is pronounced /ɪ/, consistent with the Old English pronunciation of ge- as /je/, /jə/ and is a verbal prefix dropped in modern English.
  • In Middle English, the article ye or y^e is pronounced thē, thə and is effectively an alternate spelling of þe (the).