ta'

ta'

1. Eye dialect spelling of tage.

• t’ (used before vowels)

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.

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

ta’

1. Expresses the possessive or genitive: of, 's

   il-qabar ta’ Xmun ― Simon’s grave

   il-fehma tiegħu ― his opinion (literally, “the opinion of him”)

   il-parti kbira tan-nies ― the majority of people

   stejjer tal-waħx ― horror stories (literally, “stories of horror”)

2. Used to connect an attributive adverb with its noun.

   it-temp ta’ għada ― tomorrow’s weather

   il-ħajja ta’ kuljum ― everyday 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’ madwarek ― the world around you (literally, “the world of around you”)

   ir-rabta ta’ bejnietna ― the bond between us (literally, “the bond of between us”)

   nisa ta’ taħt il-21 sena ― women under 21 years (literally, “women of under 21 years”)

   it-tlieta ta’ filgħodu ― three a.m. (literally, “three of in the morning”)

4. Used to form occupational nouns

   tal-ħanut ― grocer

   tal-ħalib ― milkman

   tal-ġobon ― cheesemonger

   tal-baħar ― seaman

   tax-xema’ ― candlemaker

   taċ-ċiċri ― roasted chickpeas seller

   tal-biljetti ― bus conductor

   tal-kagħak ― kagħak seller

   tal-karawett ― peanut seller

• 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.

ta’ m

1. family

   tagħha ― her family