-ZHĮ́

Navajo

Etymology

From Proto-Athabaskan *šen (“summer”).

In Navajo, the initial fricative *š of Proto-Athabaskan didn't sonorize to zh, so in verbal stems and in the nominal stem shį́ (“summer”) the initial voiceless fricative sh is maintained (with the exception of the adverbial derivative díízhíní (“this summer”), which shows a later sonorization). However, for consistency, the stem set of this root is presented with an analogical voiced initial zh. See also -HAI (“winter”) for a similar situation.

Root

-ZHĮ́

1. to become summer, to pass the summer

Theme	Category	Bases	Transitive bases (O + ł)
∅	motion	it becomes summer yishį́į́h ↳ beeshį́į́h chʼéshį́į́h ↳ chʼínáshį́į́h (ná-, “back”) iʼniishį́į́h (iʼnii-, “begin”)

Stem set

Aspect	IMP	PERF	FUT	ITER	OPT
MOM	-zhį́į́h	-zhį́	-zhį́į́ł	-zhį́į́h	-zhį́į́h

See also Appendix: Roots and stems derivation.

Antonyms

• -DĄĄD (spring)
• -HAI (winter)
• -KʼEED (fall)

Derived terms

Navajo terms belonging to the root -ZHĮ́ (summer)