This paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘classificatory verbs’, i.e., a set of verbs whose stems alternate to categorize the verbal arguments with regard to animacy, shape, material consistency, etc. Similar to equivalent verbs in other Dene languages, Tłı̨chǫ classificatory verbs are shown to belong to four semantic classes that do not have the same stem inventories or consistent patterns of stem selection. Based on various pieces of evidence, viz., optionality of the classified argument, argument saturation, verbal augmentation, verb-noun correspondence, referentiality, and noun incorporation, the paper argues against the maintenance of the notion that the so-called verb stem is a verbal element; instead, it is a root that merges with a nominalizer to form a nominal affix. In the light of this argument, the paper extends the analysis to non-classificatory verbs claiming a conceptually simpler and computationally more economical analysis of Tłı̨chǫ verbal morphology within the minimalist approach.