Cree Verb Stems

The stem of a verb is the main part of the verb, the one that has the basic meaning, even if you change the inflection in the prefixes and the suffixes. If you take a verb like ᐸᐦᑳᓇᐴ pahkaanapuu ‘s/he sits by her/himself’ , the stem is ᐸᐦᑳᓇᐱ pahkaanapi-, and -u is the inflection (pahkaanapi+u = pahkaanapuu) . When you change the person, as in ᐸᐦᑳᓇᐱᓐ pahkaanapin ‘I sit’, you can see the stem ᐸᐦᑳᓇᐱ pahkaanapi with the prefix ni- and the suffix -n.

ᐸᐦᑳᓇᐱ
ni- pahkaanapi -n
Person Prefix STEM Person suffix

The Cree definition we suggest for ‘stem’ is ᐌᒋᐦᒡ ᐊᔨᒧᐎᓐ wechihch ayimuwin.

Cree verbs can be grouped by stem types, according to the verb class they belong to.