relationships: A Navajo pronominal prefix paradigm may be compared with the Chiricahua above: Two other pronominal prefixes include the reciprocal prefix as in Mescalero ’ił- and Navajo ał- "each other's" and the reflexive prefix as in Mescalero ’ádi- and Navajo ádi- "one's own". Phrase formation Larger possessive phrases can be formed like the following Navajo phrases: As seen above, the possessor occurs before the possessed noun(s). Thus, in order to say "John's bread", the 3rd person prefix bi- is added to the possessed noun bááh "bread" and the possessor noun John is placed before bibááh "his bread". Usually, in the first and second persons only a pronominal prefix (shi-, ni-, and nihi-) is added to possessed nouns. However, if focusing on the possessor (i.e. a type of emphasis) is needed, an independent personal pronoun may be added to the possessive phrase. Thus, we have the following By observing these Navajo possessive phrases, it is evident here that Southern Athabascan languages are head-marking in that the possessive prefix is added to the possessed noun, which is the head of the noun phrase (this is unlike the dependent-marking languages of Europe where possessive affixes are added to the possessor). Stem modification absolute vs. possessed vs. compound (combining) forms voicing vocalic suffixes Alienable vs. inalienable Alienability: Alienable and inalienable possession Possession (linguistics)#Inherent and non-inherent (constantly possessed) associated semantic changes Clitics proclitics enclitics postpositional enclitics Verbs The key element in Southern Athabaskan languages is the verb, and it is notoriously complex. Verbs are composed of a stem to which inflectional and/or derivational prefixes are added. Every verb must have at least one prefix. The prefixes are affixed to the verb in a specified order. The Southern Athabaskan verb can be sectioned into different morphological components. The verb stem is composed of an abstract root and an often fused suffix. The stem together with a classifier prefix (and sometimes other thematic prefixes) make up the verb theme. The theme is then combined with derivational prefixes which in turn make up the verb base. Finally, inflectional prefixes (which Young & Morgan call "paradigmatic prefixes") are affixed to the base—producing a complete verb. This is represented schematically in the table below: Verb template The prefixes that occur on a verb are added in specified order according to prefix type. This type of morphology is called a position class template (or slot-and-filler template). Below is a table of