[Title]  The character of the distinctive affix ‑i and the question of the category of
distinction in the Chuvash language

In the article, the "distinctive suffixes" of the Chuvash language -i,
-χi, and -sker, as well as the third person possessive suffix -i /-ĕ expressing definiteness, are
investigated on the basis of grammatical literature. The author agrees with
some Chuvash scholars that regard the "category of distinction" as problematic
but considers "distinctive suffix" to be an appropriate name for the suffix ‑i, which combines the characteristics of
 the Turkic distinctive suffix *-ki and the definite possessive suffix.
 The author also discusses the absence of
‘marking definiteness’ among the functions of the possessive suffixes in
Chuvash grammatical tradition.