'say' tE '[optative mode marker]' dandE '[potential mode marker]' The alternation depends on the following morpheme: Nouns and verbs whose stems end in -Vhi or -Vhį change to -Vx before the plural marker -tu: ||anahį + tu|| > /anaxtu/ 'their hair'. That may occur with duti 'to eat' also: ||duti + tu|| > /dutitu/~/duxtu/ 'they eat'. The rule may optionally also apply in compounds and across word boundaries if the next element starts with CV: ||asąhi + nǫpa|| > /asąx nǫpa/ 'both arms'. Nouns that end in -di and can undergo pluralization change to -x: ||adi + tu|| > /axtu/ 'their father'. Verbs whose stems end in -Vki, -Vpi, or -si optionally lose their -i before the plural marker: ||pastuki + tu|| > /pastuktu/ 'they sew' ||duhapi + tu|| > /duhaptu/ 'they pulled it off her head' ||dusi + tu|| > /dustu/ 'they grabbed'. ||k(i)|| > x/___k occurs optionally across morpheme or word boundaries. ||ay + nk + kiduwe|| > ||yąk + kiduwe|| > /yąxkiduwe/ 'you untie me' ||mąki ką|| > /mąx ką/ 'when it was reclining' but ||yąk + kinitą + xti|| > /yąkinitą xti/ 'it is too large for me'. The rule may cause the previous vowel to denasalize. ||ay + nk + kica daha|| > ||yąk + kica daha|| > /yaxkica daha/ 'you have not forgotten us' ||mąki kide|| > /max kide/ 'he sat until'. Verbs whose stems end in -ti or -hi may optionally change to -x before the negative mode marker ni: ||kohi + ni|| > /kox ni/ 'they were unwilling'. Stems ending in -si optionally become -s. ||nk + Ø + kidusi + ni|| > ||axkidusi + ni|| > /axkidus ni/ 'I did not take it from him'. The dative marker ki becomes kiy before a vowel. ||ki + E + tu|| > /kiyetu/ 'they said to him'. (However, Einaudi cites one counterexample, ||ki + į|| > /kiį/ 'they were drinking it for him', perhaps with a glottal stop inserted.) The following rule is optional in compounds and across word boundaries and obligatory everywhere else: V1V1 > V1 V1V2 > V2 ||ku + ay + ǫni + ni|| > /kayǫ ni/ 'you do not make it' ||tątǫ + ahi|| > /tątahi/ 'panther skin'. However, there are a few words with two adjacent vowels: naǫ 'day', hauti 'be sick', etc. Two morphophonemically-identical syllables may not appear contiguously, but the former is dropped. ||ku + ku