3121
In one of the Bleach anime ending songs, "Hanabi" has the [following
line](http://www.3131.info/%E3%81%84%E3%81%8D%E3%82%82%E3%81%AE%E3%81%8C%E3%81%8B%E3%82%8A/HANABI/):

> 繋ぎゆく この想い 愛しき 君

"itoshiki" seems to come from "itoshii", but how does this -ki form of
i-adjective work? I found a few other adjectives that have -ki forms, e.g.
幼き{おさなき}, 素晴らしき{すばらしき}, 古き{ふるき}, 良き{よき} etc but that's about it.

Is this form productive? Is it selective, i.e. only some i-adjectives can have
this form? Or has it become archaic, and thus only limited to those that
survived into present Japanese?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-09-13T05:32:13.307
3120
2011-09-13T06:10:45.227
112
question
grammar i-adjectives
How does -ki form of i-adjectives work? (e.g. 愛しき)
The `-ki` ending is the archaic rentaikee (adnominal form). It used to be
standardly used in relative clauses/attributive uses of an adjective. The
change from `-ki` to the present `-i` is called i-ombin. Today, this is used
only when the writer wants to use the archaic form for some literary effect
such as in literature, lyrics, poems, etc.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-09-13T06:10:45.227
3121
2011-09-13T06:10:45.227
3120
answer