honorific or diminutive (this is a compounding element that brings a reverential sense and sometimes a diminutive sense to a noun with which it is combined) (see Karttunen)
-TZIN-TLI; compounding element with honorific or diminutive sense; pl: -TZITZINTIN; vocative -TZINE ~ -TZE (stress on E) Although necessarily bound, this behaves in a manner distinct from suffixes and postpositions. It has its own absolutive suffix, and it forms the plural by reduplication of itself plus the addition of the plural suffix -TIN; ICHCA-TL ‘sheep’ ICHCATZIN-TLI, ICHCATZITZIN-TIN ‘sheep (pl.).’ If the item it compounds with does not take an absolutive suffix, then the compound does not either, and -TIN is omitted in the plural; ILAMA ‘old woman,’ ILAMATZIN, ILAMATZITZIN ‘old women’ (Cf.8r). Personal names with –TZIN often do not take the absolutive suffix. C is consistent in contrasting this bound -TZIN-TLI with the noun TZĪN-TLI base, foundation, buttocks by vowel length. T, Z, and X all have long vowels in both, and this seems to be generally true of modern Nahuatl. B, with only a single attestation of TZĪN-TLI, has a complex and possibly transitional pattern for -TZIN-TLI. In B word-final -TZIN (in possessed forms and where absolutive -TLI is omitted) is never attested with a long vowel. It is as though the general rule which shortens word-final long vowels was extended to the vowel of –TZIN in spite of the final -N. Where -TLI is present, the vowel of –TZIN is marked long in about half the attestations. The I of the full vocative –TZINE is never attested with a long vowel, and in the special possessed honorific form NOPILTZINTZINE ‘my lord,’ the vowel of the second TZIN is specifically marked short twice, while the vowel of the first TZIN is marked long in four out of six attestations. In all other constructions, including -TZINCO, -TZINHUĀN, -TZITZINTIN, and -TZINTLE, the vowel of -TZIN is marked long in more than half the attestations and unmarked for length in the others. Aside from the special case of NOPILTZINTZINE, the vowel of -TZIN is never specifically marked short. This suggests that -TZIN-TLI and TZĪN-TLI were originally homophonous and that differentiation of them has been a local phenomenon. In C the differentiation is lexical; -TZIN-TLI has a short vowel and TZĪN-TLI has a long one. In B it appears that shortening applies to -TZIN exceptionlessly in word-final position, while the length of the vowel is ambiguous if it carries stress itself or precedes the main stressed syllable. A glottal stop is sometimes attested between –TZIN and the element with which it compounds, as in ACHIHTZIN< ACHI. This is generally true when -TZIN is added to possessed forms of kinship terms, as in ĪCIHUĀHUAHTZIN ‘his wife’