does not occur before semivowels such as or in certain specific combinations. Because Plains Cree does not accept the phonological sequence , however, one is dropped. When the morpheme , a marker for the inclusive plural in the conjunct order, is followed by , the third person plural marker, the word is realized as . Vowel sequences The glide is inserted between two long vowels, which is why the combination of kīsikā "be day" and āpan "be dawn" forms kīsikāyāpan "it is day-break". Also, the combination of a long vowel and a short vowel deletes the short vowel. Therefore, nīpā "in the dark" and ohtē "walk" form nīpāhtēw "he walks in the dark". This deletion is true whether the short vowel occurs before or after the long vowel. When two short vowels occur in sequence, however, it is the second that deletes. For instance, the stem ositiyi "his foot/feet" combines with the locative suffix /ehk/ to produce ositiyihk "on his foot/feet". Normal patterns of vowel combination and deletion, however, are set aside during prefixation, a process in which a is inserted between vowels when the personal prefixes ki-, ni-, o-, and mi- precede a stem-initial vowel. As a result, when the personal prefix for "I" ni- is affixed to the stem for "sit" apin, the word is realized as nitapin instead of nipin. In isolated cases, or is sometimes inserted instead of , such as the word nihayān "I have it". Palatalization Palatalization of the sounds and to and respectively occurs before the vowels and as well as the consonant . For example, the stem "fetch" becomes kināsin "you fetch me" before the ending and kinātitin "I fetch you" where it is not palatalized before the ending . This pattern includes several important exceptions, including that of the stem wāt- "hole". Before the inanimate proximate singular suffix , one would expect the to become either or but it does not. Palatalization is also found in diminutives, where all instances of in a word are replaced by before the diminutive suffixes , , etc. Thus, nitēm "my horse" would become nicēmisis "my little horse" and atimw- "dog" would realize as acimosis "little dog". Palatalization to indicate diminution extends even to internal changes within the stem. This is why the statement yōtin "it is windy" can change to yōcin to say that "it is a little windy". Apocopation Word-final short vowels tend