Lesson 3 — Grammatical Topic — Plural marker  iy–

So far you've seen examples of the person markers k– , p– and s– by themselves in expressions such as k–lkn "I sit" or –amn "he/she knows."
Standing alone, these person markers indicate singular, just one:
	k–	"I" rather than "we"
	p–	"you singular" rather than "you all" or "you guys"
	s–	"he," "she" or "it" rather than "they"
To express the plural, add iy– right after the person marker:
	k–iy–	"we"
	p–iy–	"you all" or "you guys"
	s–iy–	"they"
Here are some examples:
	singular		plural
k–	k–alpat	"I run"	k–iy–alpat	"we run"
	k– utanin	"I understand"	k–iy–utanin	"we understand"
p–	p–ukal	"you are strong"	p–iy-ukal	"you all are strong"
	p–uli	"you hold [it]"	p–iy–uli	"you all hold it"
s–	s–atk	"he/she/it is alive"	s–iy–atk	"you all are alive"
	s–asay	"he/she dries [it]"	s–iy–asay	"they dry [it]"

Minor Sound Rule: iy– before consonants

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The plural marker iy– is simplified to i– when it comes before consonants:
k–	k–iy–tamay kitamay	"we forget"
	ma k–iy–ap ma kiap	"our house"
p–	p–iy–tap pitap	"you all go in"
	ma p–iy–koko ma pikoko	"your father"
s–	s–iy–ip siip	"they say"
	ma s–iy–tk ma sitk	"their mother"

When two sound rules apply

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More than one sound rule can apply to the same sequence of sounds. Here are more complex examples where more than one sound rule applies:
		ma s–ay ma ay	"his/her daughter"
		As you saw on the previous page:  first sibilant harmony applies when s– becomes before the that comes after it, and then the sequence of + becomes .
		ma s–iy–ay ma iay	"their daughter"
		In this example, the s– becomes through sibilant harmony and the iy– becomes i– because a consonant follows.

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