Another subjunctive personal affix:
-cik 'they (animate)' (sentence 6).
In supplementary questions, many speakers use a prefix ka'- before the past tense prefix ki'-, and before the future prefix wi'-.
Other speakers replace ki'- with ka'-, and omit ka'- before wi'-.
There is a third possibility: some speakers replace ki'- with ka'-, and change wi'- to wa'-.
This results in the following three patterns of tense prefixes for subjunctive verbs:
| pattern 1 | pattern 2 | pattern 3 | written here | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| past | ka'-ki'- | ka'- | ka'- | ka'-(ki'-) |
| 'going to' | ka'-wi'- | wi'- | wa'- | (ka'-)wi'- |
The student should use the pattern used by his teachers and by the Cree speakers in his community, but he will have to determine their usage by observation, of course, because it is very unlikely that they will find anyone with the conscious knowledge to describe the use of these prefixes, or to answer questions about it. Moreover, many well-travelled speakers seem to be able to use both patterns, and to adjust their own speach to what they hear.
Note: when i or i' is followed by i or i', the two vowels are sometimes pronounced like one i'. Thus ki'itwe'w is sometimes pronounced as ki'twe'w.
Below is an outline for a conversation between two people identified as A and B. Let one student speak for A, and another speak for B, and make a conversation in Cree in accordance with the outline. (If there is only one student, the teacher can speak for the other person in the conversation.) Note that some of the statements in the outline will allow more than one correct Cree sentence:
