'Tübatulabal puw' ‘to irrigate’, 'uּbuw' ‘he irrigated’ would have to be analyzed as containing different morphemes, since the phoneme sequence /puw/ does not occur in the second word. Similarly, 'p∂l∂ּla' ‘to arrive’, '∂ּb∂l∂ּla' ‘he arrived’; for every morpheme which begins with a voiced stop after a prefix there is a similar morpheme beginning with the homorganic voiceless stop in word-initial. In spite of the phonemic difference between the members of each of these pairs, we wish to consider each pair a single morpheme, since in other cases we have a single morpheme in the position of both members of these pairs: 'w∂ּ' in ‘to pour’, '∂ּw∂ּ' in ‘he poured’. We say that there is a regular alternation in the language: a voiced stop is replaced by the homorganic voiceless stop in word-initial.
- Harris (1942a), a pag.169