"strong". A syllable with a long vowel is always strong, even at the beginning of a word, and resets the meter for all subsequent syllables. Thus a short vowel that immediately follows a long vowel must always be weak, and words beginning with a long vowel are trochaic: 'raccoon'. The strong syllable rule is necessary to explain the processes of vowel deletion and devoicing. Vowel deletion, devoicing, and reduction Initial short (i.e. weak) vowels are frequently deleted in modern Miami, hence the optional initial vowel of 'stump', 'tobacco', 'he is tall'. Initial vowel deletion appears to take preaspiration (-h-) with it before stops, but not before fricatives, which remain distinct from their simple counterparts (perhaps because of the assimilation of and to and ). By contrast, initial long vowels are never deleted: 'it is extinguished'. This helps to identify long vowels in texts that mark them irregularly or not at all. Weak vowels followed by a preaspirated consonant are devoiced: 'his palate' is pronounced . Since short vowels that follow a long vowel are always weak, these will always undergo devoicing before a preaspirate: 'ten' is pronounced . Voiceless vowels, like vowel length and preaspiration, are transcribed irregularly in the Miami-Illinois literature; the French missionary sources usually indicate voiceless vowels, but later Anglo-American sources often ignore them, producing illusory consonant clusters foreign to Miami-Illinois phonology. In the Peoria of Oklahoma resident Nancy Stand, recorded briefly in the 1930s by Charles Voegelin, many vowels appear to be reduced to a schwa . The contextual rules behind vowel reduction are unclear, and since no other Miami-Illinois text indicates any similar process, it appears to be a case of English influence. Accent The process of accentuation (heightened syllable prominence) is independent of the strong syllable rule: weak syllables can be accented, and whereas the strong syllable rule applies from left to right, accentuation applies from right to left. The rules of accentuation are as follows: A syllable with a voiceless vowel can never take an accent, so bisyllabic words with a short first vowel followed by a preaspirate are always accented on the second syllable: 'field', 'bear'. This proves that accent is determined after the syllable-strength processes described above. If a word has a long vowel in the preantepenultimate syllable, the accent is placed on the subsequent syllable (the penultimate), if not devoiced: 'raccoon', 'pipe (obviative)'. This rule is highly unusual, and in