| mishta-mishkumi | iceberg |
| akami-shipu | on the other side of the river |
| minu-tutamᵘ | s/he does something good |
The first part of these words (mishta-, akami-, minu-) are called preforms (or lexical preforms). Preforms are always written with a hyphen.
Preforms can be added before a noun (mishta-mishkumi), a verb (minu-tutamᵘ) or a particle (akami-shipu) to form a new stem. In the following example, the personal prefix ni is placed before the preform minu-.
| Niminu-tuten. | I do good (things). |
Preforms vs. Initials
Use the following test to tell the difference between verbal preforms and initials: if you take out the component (preform/initial) and what’s left is a verb, it’s a preform. If you take it out and what’s left does not form a verb on its own, it’s an initial (sometimes also called a root).
For example, tshitshi begin to… can be combined with the verb tshimuan rain to form tshitshi-tshimuan it starts to rain. Here tshitshi- is a preform since, if we remove it, we’re left with the verb tshimuan.
In the word tshitshipanu it starts, we can’t remove tshitshi, since panu is not a verb on its own. So in this case tshitshi- is an initial.
Tshitshi, therefore, can be used as either a preform or an initial.
In standard spelling, preforms are written with a hyphen, while initials are written as one word combined with the rest of the verb. More examples:
| Preforms | Initials | ||
| miku-ashini | brick | mikuapu | s/he has red eyes |
| miku-ashiniu | it is brick-coloured | mikutau | s/he colours or dyes it red |
See also preverbs…