Are xargs' flags positionally sensitive?

[Larry Dighera]

Can anyone explain why the following command fails to substitute a
file-name for {}:

	ls u.* | xargs -i -n1 -p uucp -r -nhomebas!greg {} homebas!~

It produces:

	uucp -r -nhomebas!greg {} homebas!~ u.usa.ca.1.Z

While, this command works as expected:

	ls u.* | xargs -n1 -p -i uucp -r -nhomebas!greg {} homebas!~

It produces:

	uucp -r -nhomebas!greg u.usa.ca.1.Z homebas!~ 

The only difference is the location of the -i flag to xargs.  Are 
xargs' flags positionally sensitive?

OS is Xenix 386.

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