104 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 191 



Some two-syllable cores and most, if not all, polysyllabic cores 

 show evidence of being derived from simpler forms. However, very 

 few derivational affixes which are still productive can be identified. 

 The majority of polysyllabic verb cores are suspected of being derived 

 for one of the following reasons: 



(J) They include sequences of phonemes which recur with great 

 frequency in verb cores, although such sequences cannot be correlated 

 with any common semantic feature. For example: 



(2) They include sequences of phonemes which occur in two or 

 more semantically related verb cores. For example: 



a. -stu in 

 -yamAstu to be hungry 

 -p^niustTj to be thirsty 



b. -stA in 

 -sume'i'estA to teach 

 -cid^ustA to ponder 



(3) They include sequences of phonemes which, if eliminated from 

 the core, would leave a remainder that would itself be a verb core 

 semantically related to the longer form. For example. : 



a. -CI in 



-scd-ci windpipe; compare scu- to swallow 



It also recurs in a number of semantically unrelated cores: 



-sd-baci to pound 



-sgucuci to drool 



b. -CA in 



-kAicA man's sister; compare -kui wife 

 -d^umicA to learn; compare -dyiimi to remember 

 Other cores in which it occurs include the following: 

 -t&-nicA to work 

 -Vfi6&CA to listen 



