Description:

The preposition 'y' is distinct from the third person singlular absolutive indefinite article 'y', which is always distinctly articulated in High Common.

The preposition 'y' is an almost contentless preposition that simply says that its object and its referent are associated in some way. It was pronounced and written out in Old Common, but even in the Early Period, began to be reduced to nothing, i.e., it was omitted. By the late middle period, it was almost entitely unused. Modern High Common considers y to be a legitmate word that can be used, but omitting it is considered good style.

The object of y is in the nominative case.

An example of its use is in one of the possessive constructions, where the reference to y is the thing which is possessed and the object of y, in the nominative case, is the possessor. So, to say 'the child's dog' one could write:

Na paluh y na pocuk.

However, a modern Common speaker or writer would generally always express it as:

Na paluh na pocuk.

Modern grammarians do, however, refer to these 'null preposition' structures as 'y' structures. This is an extremely common idiom in Common, and so you will see this referenced.