pluralizing element -t- (c.f. also -ka thee: -t’kam you; -o, -ko him: ot, -kot them).
It is the series of subjective pronominal prefixes that most closely corresponds to the Chimariko “subjective” series. This is true for all persons, as indicated in the following comparative table:
| Chimariko | Salinan | ||
| Sing. | 1 | y-, i- | e- |
| 2 | m- | m- | |
| 3 h- | — | ||
| Plur. | 1 | a-; ya- | a- |
| 2 | q- | k- (subject of 2nd per. plur. imperative[1]) | |
| 3 | h- | — |
As so often in Chimariko, the Salinan pronominal elements of the first person frequently, if not regularly, displace or contract with the initial vowel of the stem or displace the vowel of a preceding element (e.g. ko- not; k-e- not I, k-a not we). Examples of Salinan forms in e- and a- are:
| e-ki am I going? | are we going? |
| k-e-cxai’ I woke up (’icxai’ to arise at dawn) | n-a-paʟa let us dance |
| k-e-k‘a·k’a I will not sing | k-a-suxtax we are not afraid |
| m e-yax when i came (iyax to come) | m-a-ya when we go (iya several go) |
Note that i- of iya to go, iyax to come (for i- cf. Washo iye to go; for -x < -k‘ c.f. Chimariko -uwa-k- to come < -uwa-, -uwa-m- to go and Yana -k‘i- hither, e.g. ni-sa- to go away, ni-k‘i- to come) is displaced by first person plural pronominal a- as in Chimariko (e.g. ya-mitcit-ni we kick, h-imitcit-ni he kicks; stem -imitcit-, cf. Hokan *imi- leg).
- ↑ Treated by Mason (p. 41) as a modal (imperative) prefix of the plural, but evidently pronominal, as shown by the parallel use of pronominal m- in the imperative of the singular, by the analogy of the Salinan possessive form t-k-, t-uk-, t-ko your, and by the comparison of other Hokan dialects (besides Chimariko q-, qo-, qe- we have also Yana -ga ye). Cf. also Washo ge-, imperative prefix; this is likely to be the old second person plural prefix, generalized for both numbers. The leveling of singular and plural pronominal prefixes is characteristic of Washo. The pronominal analogies of Washo ge- have been already pointed out by Kroeber.
