Here is what people who have studied Pali says about iti or ‘ti.
‘ti & iti clauses – Quotation, Speech & Thoughts
Verbs of saying, telling, asking, naming and also knowing & thinking, are usually indicated with ‘iti’; which gets abbreviated just to: ‘ti. The particle ‘ti signifies that the word or phrase preceding it should be placed in quotation marks. Although the particle marks the end of the quotation, only context can tell you where the quotation starts!
The quote phrase by no means is limited to words actually spoken! It may identify at attitude or thought and may represent a reason for something being done.
The verb related to the speech or thought (eg. ‘he said’) can be placed either before or after the quoted phrase and sometime even omitted.
It’s also important to note that particles such as ‘ti (and also ‘ca) are often merged to the end of nouns in which case they may affect the spelling of that word in two ways: an immediately preceding short vowel becomes lengthened (a->ā) and an ṃ changes to a nasal form of n, due to sandhi. So, when looking up words, these effects must be first reversed.
Also, when iti or ti, is followed by a vowel, sandhi takes place regularly, eg.:
evaṃ + ‘ti = evañti
kvaci + iti = kvacīti
iti + evaṃ = iccevaṃ;