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12. Subject Pronoun Prefixes

There are two series of subjective pronouns, as follows:

               

	Chiricahua		Mescalero
Person	[a]	[b]	[a]	[b ]
Sg. 1	sh-	í-	sh-	í-
Sg. 2	n-	ńn-	n-	ńn-
	high vowel-	í-	high nasal vowel-	í-
Sg. 3	zero	zero	zero	zero
Du. 1	long vowel[d]-	long vowel[d]-	long nasal vowel[d]-	long nasal vowel[d]-
Du. 2	ah-	aa-	ah-	aa-

Series [b] is employed in the perfective mode of all but -d- and -l- class verbs, and series [a] in all other modes and in the perfective mode of - d- and -l- class verbs. Of the two forms for the second person singular, n- is used only in the disjunct paradigm of the imperfective mode [see number 13]. In all other paradigms the second person is indicated by a high tone on the vowel of the preceding prefix [a high tone and nasalization in Mescalero].

As may be seen from the table, the mark of the first person dual is a lengthening and low tone on the vowel of the preceding prefix followed by the consonant -d-. This consonant, however, never occurs as such but either becomes -h- or zero or merges with the classifier or stem consonant which follows it.

               

First person dual plus:	Chiricahua	Mescalero
Classifier -ł-	long vowel -ł-	long nasal vowel -ł-
Stem Consonant '-	long vowel -t'-	long nasal vowel -t'-
Stem Consonant y-	long vowel -d-	long nasal vowel -d-
Stem Consonant gh-	long vowel -g-	long nasal vowel -g-
Stem Consonant z-	long vowel -dz-	long nasal vowel -dz-
Stem Consonant zh-	long vowel -j-	long nasal vowel j-
Stem Consonant l-	long vowel dl-	long nasal vowel dl-

The first person dual plus any other stem consonant results in either long vowel-plus h- plus stem consonant [long nasal vowel-plus stem consonant in Mescalero] or in long vowel-plus stem consonant [long nasal vowel-plus stem consonant in Mescalero].

The 3a person, place, and indefinite subjects are expressed by the deictic prefixes ji- [ch'i- in Mescalero], go-, and 'i-, respectively.