ta'

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Danish

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Verb

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ta'

  1. Eye dialect spelling of tage.

Maltese

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Alternative forms

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  • t’ (used before vowels)

Etymology

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From older Maltese bita, mita, from Arabic مَتَاع (matāʕ, thing, possession). Compare Tunisian Arabic متاع (mtāʕ), Moroccan Arabic تاع (tāʕ), نتاع (ntāʕ), North Levantine Arabic تاع (tāʕ), Egyptian Arabic بتاع (bitāʕ), all used as possessive markers.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /taː/
  • Usually unstressed and then automatically shortened to /ta/.
  • Homophone: ta

Preposition

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ta’

  1. Expresses the possessive or genitive: of, 's
    il-qabar ta’ XmunSimon’s grave
    il-fehma tiegħuhis opinion (literally, “the opinion of him”)
    il-parti kbira tan-niesthe majority of people
    stejjer tal-waħxhorror stories (literally, “stories of horror”)
  2. Used to connect an attributive adverb with its noun.
    it-temp ta’ għadatomorrow’s weather
    il-ħajja ta’ kuljumeveryday life (literally, “the life of everyday”)
  3. Used to connect an attributive prepositional phrase with its noun (in this case more idiomatically restricted).
    id-dinja ta’ madwarekthe world around you (literally, “the world of around you”)
    ir-rabta ta’ bejnietnathe bond between us (literally, “the bond of between us”)
    nisa ta’ taħt il-21 senawomen under 21 years (literally, “women of under 21 years”)
    it-tlieta ta’ filgħoduthree a.m. (literally, “three of in the morning”)
  4. Used to form occupational nouns
    tal-ħanutgrocer
    tal-ħalibmilkman
    tal-ġoboncheesemonger
    tal-baħarseaman
    tax-xema’candlemaker
    taċ-ċiċriroasted chickpeas seller
    tal-biljettibus conductor
    tal-kagħakkagħak seller
    tal-karawettpeanut seller

Usage notes

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  • Pronominal inflections of ta’ are used as possessive determiners in Maltese. Alternatively, as in other Semitic languages, the pronominal suffixes may be added directly to the noun:
    • The use of ta’ is rare in cases of inalienable possession, especially with body parts and relatives; thus usually rasi (my head), ruħek (your soul), ommu (his mother). This is true even for most borrowed words in these semantic fields such as spallti (my shoulder), missierna (our father). Some forms are common, however, e.g. il-ħajja tagħha (her life) alongside ħajjitha.
    • For the bulk of the vocabulary, both ways are equally possible. Overall the construction with ta’ is preferred, but this is not true of all words, not even all borrowings; for example, pajjiżna (our country) is preferred over il-pajjiż tagħna. The use of pronominal suffixes remains at any rate much commoner in Maltese than in Modern Hebrew. That said, many words have no common pronominal form and only ta’ is used with them. This is true especially of infrequent words, recent borrowings, words in vowels other than -a, etc.

Inflection

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Inflected forms of ta'
Personal-pronoun-
including forms
singular plural
m f
1st person tiegħi tagħna
2nd person tiegħek tagħkom
3rd person tiegħu tagħha tagħhom
Definite forms
Xemxin Qamrin
taċ- · tad- · tan-
tar- · tas- · tat- ·
tax- · taz- · taż-
tal-

Derived terms

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Noun

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ta’ m

  1. family
    tagħhaher family