At the beginning of a word, the nasal consonant is subsequently lost. Unlike the stops and the affricate, sh becomes voiced only at the beginning of a word. Plains Cree has pre-aspirated stops and a pre-aspirated affricate which are actually clusters of plus a following stop or affricate; these are not separate phonemes. Pre-aspiration can uniquely distinguish words. For example, compare the simple ᐠ k and cluster ᕽ hk in ᐑᒋᐦᐃᐠ wīcihik "help me!" and ᐑᒋᐦᐃᕽ wīcihihk "help him!". Vowels Plains Cree is often described as having seven contrastive vowels, three short and four long. However, northern Plains Cree has only three long vowels. These vowels in the standard writing systems are listed in the following table (with IPA phonemic notation within slashes). Note that the Cree syllabics symbols chosen for this table all represent syllable nuclei which have no syllable onset. The vowels are represented differently with non-null onset, as for example with n-onset in ᓀ nē, ᓂ ni, ᓃ nī, etc. A distinction not indicated in the table is between back rounded and back unrounded. The back vowels ᐅ o and ᐆ ō are rounded, whereas the sometimes back vowels ᐊ a and ᐋ ā are not. Within these phonemes there is a degree of allophonic variation. The short close vowels ᐃ i and ᐅ o are typically near close and , but range to close and . The short open vowel ᐊ a is typically open, ranging from front to back , but its range extends to front open-mid and back open-mid . The long front close vowel ᐄ ī is ; ᐁ ē is close-mid ; ᐆ ō is typically close-mid but its range includes close ; and ᐋ ā ranges from front open to back open . The description of ᐁ ē must be further qualified to account for geographic variation. Although this sound is in southern Plains Cree, it becomes closer farther north, becoming and merging with in northern Plains Cree, as it has done also in neighbouring Woods Cree. Contrast in vowel length can be seen in such pairs as: Phonological processes Consonant sequences The vowel is inserted when morphemes with non-syllabic endings are followed by morpheme-initial consonants, such as when the transitive animate conjunct ending -at is followed by the third person plural marker -k. The result is not atk but rather acik. Note the palatalization of the /t-i/ sequence. This insertion