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mamanti

ahaṃ

pronoun; nominative singular with sandhi contraction + iti

1. ahaṃ (pron): I
2. mamanti (sandhi): 'mine'; 'belonging to me'
3. mamaṃ (pron): me (object); about me
4. mamaṃ (pron): to me; for me
5. mamaṃ (pron): mine; of me

Built from

• mama — stem · mine, my
  Possessive oblique stem derived from ahaṃ 'I' + possessive suffix -ma-; emphasizes personal ownership or belonging. Cognate with Sanskrit mama-, Latin meus (both from the same possessive formation).
• ṃ — ending · object case
  Accusative/oblique ending marking the possessive as the object or topic of the utterance; often retained before iti in emphatic fronting.
• iti — root · thus, so (quotative)
  Quotative particle introducing direct speech or emphasizing what precedes; from the demonstrative root *i- 'that' + enclitic -ti. English counterpart in 'thus'; frequently marks the boundary of reported or emphatic utterance in Pali.

Analysis. mamaṃ (possessive pronoun, oblique stem of ahaṃ 'I') + iti (quotative particle 'thus, so'); the possessive mamaṃ is fronted for emphasis before the quotative, a common pattern in direct address and exclamation: 'mine thus!' or 'mine (emphatic marker of speech)'.

Etymology. ahaṃ is an inherited Indo-European first-person pronoun; cognate with Sanskrit aham, Latin ego (through *egom), Greek ego (through *egom), English I (through *ik); the possessive stem mama- derives from the same root with the possessive suffix -ma-, parallel to Sanskrit mama- and Gothic meina-. The quotative iti ('thus') is from *i-ti, a demonstrative root (*i- 'that') + the anaphoric copular enclitic -ti.

Meanings from the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary; morphology and etymology by Claude.

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