Prefixed *m- as a pronominal element can profitably be compared with TB *a-, of almost universal distribution in the family. This element occurs as an independent 3rd person pronoun in Kiranti and Kuki-Naga (a-ma, a-ni), and as a pronominal prefix (ǝ-) in these same groups; cf. Aimol rǝmai ‘tail’, rul ǝrmai ‘snake's tail’; Bahing biŋ ǝta-mi ‘calf’ (‘cow its-child’), byar ǝpwaku ‘sugar-cane’ (‘cane its-juice’). Throughout the TB area in general, however, a lapsing of function can be observed, and the prefix is retained only in forms (normally kinship terms or words for parts of the body) used independently, i.e. without the customary pronominal prefixes, e.g. K wa or ǝwa ‘father’ (nwa ‘thy father’, kǝwa ‘his father’), mun∼ǝmun ‘body hair’, myi∼ǝmyi ‘eye’; Nung ǝkhö ‘uncle’, ǝna ‘ear’; B ӑbhá (ӑphá) ‘father’, ӑmí ‘mother’ (but mí-bá ‘parents’), ӑsà ‘flesh’ (but nwà-sà ‘beef’ = ‘cattle-flesh’); G apa ‘father’, ama ‘mother’; Mikir ari∼ri ‘hand’, aso∼so ‘child’; Lhota Naga okhe ‘hand’, eŋu ‘neck’, oka ‘daughter’, eŋü ‘wife’ (*a->o-∼e-), sho ǝho ‘tooth’, ǝtü ‘grandson’. Semantic specialization is sometimes encountered; cf. B swà ‘tooth’, ӑswà ‘cutting edge’; im ‘house’, ӑim ‘sheath’; myak ‘eye’, ӑmyak ‘knot in timber’; Lepcha uŋ ‘water’, ӑuŋ ‘water in which meat has been boiled’; vi ‘blood’, ӑvi ‘menses’; vyeŋ ‘door’, ӑvyeŋ ‘pass’; kuŋ ‘tree’, ӑkuŋ ‘bush’; rip ‘flower’, ӑrip ‘flower of cloth’.