UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I'm currently using zsh. Sometimes I find myself wishing to reuse an argument from earlier in the command.

I know that I can, of course, assign an argument to a variable ahead of time, and then easily use that variable more than once.

I know about the ability to reuse arguments from previous commands (e.g. !$ or !:1). And, of course, a shell script automatically assigns its arguments to variables.

But what about the current command? Once I am in the middle of a command, is there no easy way to refer to, say, the first argument of the present command?