The progressive aspect indicates that action is in progress toward the completion of a goal. For example, if someone is swimming around with no particular goal, the imperfective nube is used. If he or she is on the way from one point to another, the progressive ubelh is used.

This position 3 prefix appears only when two conditions are satisfied. First, there must not be a position 2 subject marker (that is, a subject marker immediately preceding the verb base). This limits its occurence to the first person plural and third person duo-plural, which are marked by outer subject prefixes, and the third person singular, which is marked by no subject prefix. Second, it must be preceded by a conjunct prefix. Therefore, it always appears in the first person plural and third person duo-plural, where the outer subject prefixes ts' and h provide the necessary conjunct prefix. In the third person singular it appears only when the verb contains a conjunct prefix. This distribution is exemplified by the progressive paradigms of ‟to travel by boat”, where no prefix at all precedes the subject markers, and ‟to return by boat”, where only the disjunct prefix na- precedes them.

Examples of words containing this prefix:

Related Words:   Affixes

ling