-itë adjectival ending, often attached to nouns with the sense of "having X" or "having the quality of X" (VT49:42)
Quenya
-ite
suffix. {habit or special association with the verbal action}
-itë
suffix. adjectival ending; [with verbs] capable of doing, generally (and naturally) doing
-itë
having x
[?it/itē] kestallen, tuluvanye
if you ask me, I shall come
cé
conjunction. if
iqui
conjunction. if
iqui
conjunction. if
mai
if
mai (2) conj. "if" (PE14:59 cf. VT49:20; possibly obsoleted by #1 above; for "if", Tolkien later used qui)
que
conjunction. if
qui
if
qui conj. "if" (VT49:19)
qui
conjunction. if, when
qui
conjunction. if
quí(ta)
conjunction. if
talaitë
footed
talaitë adj. "footed" (VT49:42); cf. attalaitë
it(ë) Speculative
adverb. if
talaitë
adjective. footed
A suffix for adjective formation, dating all the way back to Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s. When used with verbs, it has the more specific meaning “capable of doing, generally (and naturally) doing”, as in active cenítë “able to see” vs. passive cénima “visible, able to be seen”, both from cen- “to see”. The verbal use of this suffix was first described in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from 1948 (PE22/111), and was described again in Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969 (PE22/155).
When used with a verb, the suffix was preceded by the base vowel of the verb: i, e, a, o, u. This produced various diphthongs, and in the case of ei usually had [[q|[ei] becoming [ī]]]. The basic examples Tolkien gave were tirítë “watchful, vigilant, ✱apt to watch”, cenítë “able to see”, caraitë “active, busy, ✱apt to do”, coloitë “capable of bearing, tolerant (of), enduring”, and yuluitë “drinking (as a habit), ✱aquatic”.
Conceptual Development: As a general adjective suffix, there was a variant ᴱQ. -voite that was quite common in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, also appearing in ᴹQ. hanuvoite “✱masculine” in The Etymologies of the 1930s (Ety/INI), but not thereafter. In Tolkien’s earlier writings, -itë had no specific verbal function, and ᴱQ. -alka, -elka, -olka was the suffix meaning “able to” in notes on The Qenya Verb Forms from the 1920s (VT14/33). This earlier verbal suffix also varied in form depending on the base vowel of the verb.