CV metathesis occurs in morpheme concatentation in which the first person singular pronominal /ca-/ becomes /ac-/ in front of a non-high vowel (/a/ or /o/.)
 

Examples: (See Comments for key to special characters used.)

CV metathesis occurs in morpheme concatentation in which the first person singular pronominal /ca-/ becomes /ac-/ in front of a non-high vowel (/a/ or /o/):

/ca+a:pikhci/   ‘my + body’  [aca:pihci]

[see Kimball for more examples]
 

Comments:

This alternation could be analyzed as the result of epenthesis and deletion.  The prefixes /ca-/, /cu-/, /ko-/, and /haci-/ all show an initial /a/ in when affixed onto words beginning with /a/ and /o/, surfacing as /ac-/, /aci-/, /ako-/, and /ahaci-/ respectively.

When any of these prefixes combine with a vowel-initial word, the word-initial vowel is deleted; the only exception is /ca-/ + /a/ or /o/, in which the vowel of the prefix is deleted (assuming that the world initial /a/ is epenthetic.)

Root Vowel Deletes:
/ko-/ + /ilho:sin/  -->  ko-lho:sit    ‘we + to forget (We forgot it.)’
/ko-/ + /a:pihci/   -->  ako-pihci    ‘we + bodies (our bodies)’
/ca-/ + /iyyi/        -->  ca-yyi          ‘I + foot (my foot)’

Prefixed Vowel Deletes:
/ca-/ + /ofahyan/  -->  ac-ofahy    ‘I + to be ashamed (I am ashamed.)’

In either analysis, /ca-/ will be exceptional, but independent processes of epenthesis and deletion are motivated by the data.  (Mike Armstrong)

Last updated: 2/6/2002