in that tc or ts is never a prefix when the verbal stem begins with a vowel. [This seems doubtful.] As between i and y, it appears that the latter is always used before stems beginning with a vowel except i, whereas i is employed before stems beginning with i or with consonants. [There seems, however, to be some evidence to show that i- may displace the initial stem vowel, just as u of tcu- my displaces the initial vowel of the noun stem, e.g. m-isam thy ear, h-isam his ear, but tcu-sam my ear.] The first persons singular and plural are distinguished from each other, where the form tc is used, only by a change of connecting vowel already pointed out. [Dixon’s “connecting vowel”, in the verb as in th enoun, as is shown by general Hokan comparative evidence, is in all probability either the initial vowel of the stem or a prefixed vowel inhering in the pronominal or other prefixed element.]
“The pronominal elements as given, are, when used as prefixes, attached to the verb by means of connecting vowels. These... often show some relation to the vowel of the verbal stem, but this is noticeable chiefly in the case of o and u stems. The first person singular and plural are distinguished from each other only by the change in this connecting vowel. As a rule, the first person singular it tco- or tcu-, whereas the plural is tca-. In one or two instances, however, this seems to be reversed.”
Forms with combined prefixed pronominal subject and object involving the first person are given by Dixon as follows:
- i-: I-thee, I-him, I-ye
- ya-: we-thee, we-him, we-ye, we-them; he-us
- tcu-, tca-: he-me, they-me
- tca-: he-us, they-us
The material contained in Dixon’s paper is hardly sufficient to enable us to unravel all the details of first person pronominal usage. Much remains uncertain or obscure. It is fairly clear that a number of phonetic laws are operative that Dixon has not succeeded in disentangling; it is also possible that certain phonetic niceties not explicitly taken into account, particularly vocalic quantity, may be significant. Thus, it is observable that verb stems in a- with preceding first personal y- show a ye- in the first person singular, ya- in the first person plural; e.g., from -ama- to eat: y-ema I eat, ya-ma let us eat. Apparently, in the singular the a- of the stem has been palatalized to e by the preceding y-; in the plural the ya- of the pronominal prefix has displaced the a- of the stem, or the two a- vowels have contracted to a single vowel that ordinarily resists palatalization. It seems more likely that the -a- of ya- and tca- regularly displace initial stem vowels. The simplest statement of the facts that it seems possible to formulate is as follows:
| Sing. | Plur. | |
| Subjective (i.e. subject of active verb) | y- (before vowels) | ya- |
| i- (before consonants) | ||
| Objective (i.e. subject of static verb and object of transitive verb) | -i | -ya |
| tcu- (before consonants) | tca-; -tca | |
| tc- (before vowels); | ||
| -tcu, -tc- |
The vowels of tcu- (singular) and of ya- and tca- (plural) are probably inherent vowels of the prefixes that normally displace initial stem vowels; tca- for tcu- and tco- for tca- are probably secondary phonetic developments due to assimilation, contraction, or elision. The first person plural, then, is formed from the corresponding singular by adding an -a- to the y- or tc- of the singular or by displacing the vowel of the singular tcu- by an -a-. In other words, the really essentially element of the affixed first person plural of Chimariko is -a-.
The truth of this is confirmed by certain first person plural forms in a- (without preceding y- or tc-) that are not explicitly discussed
