It's Labor Day, but there's one final twist on the prefixes for the summer. The prefixes m-, ť-, and d- are as well behaved as one could wish, but the prefix l-, in a fitting display of egotism, differs. The true form of the first person prefix is not l-, but le-. This phenomenon is known as vowel coloring. Vowel coloring changes an adjacent vowel, but sometimes does not otherwise betray its presence. In this case, the vowel coloring of le- is weak, and easily overwhelmed by all vowels except for i. Unlike the promise in the Gospel, the le- prefix does change an iota of the (linguistic) law; an i preceded by the le- prefix becomes e. Thus íyeš becomes léyeš "my daughter-in-law", ipi? becomes lépi? "my blanket", í:bu changes to lé:bu, and í:bi? is transformed into lé:bi?. If you can keep those last three straight without practice, you're doing better than I did.
Have a good weekend!
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