to be subject to apocope except for when the stem is syllabic. That is, the word would become sīsīp "duck" but remains niska "goose" because the stem is composed of only a single syllable. Similarly, post-consonantal word-final is lost. In the case of the Plains Cree word for "dog" , the is only lost after the short vowel is dropped when the plural suffix -k is added. Thus, the word is realized atim while its plural form is atimwak. Surface variations In normal, everyday spoken Plains Cree, several phonological contractions are observed. For instance, final vowels can merge with the initial vowel of the following word. This is how the phrase nāpēw mīna atim is reduced to nāpēw mīn ātim "a man and a dog". In this case, the contraction involved the same vowel; the first vowel is taken and included in the second word in its long form. When the contraction involves different vowels, the first vowel is deleted and the second is lengthened: nāpēw mīna iskwēw "a man and a woman" is reduced to nāpēw mīn īskwēw. Contraction does not always occur, and the word boundary may also be distinguished by the insertion of the sound: mīna iskwēw and mīna(h) iskwēw respectively. Within words, short vowels may also disappear when they are unstressed, especially between and or and . In normal speech, for example, the greeting tānisi "hello" is reduced to tānsi. Syllable structure and stress The stress pattern of Plains Cree is dependent on the number of syllables rather than on vowel length. For instance, in disyllabic words, it is the last syllable that receives primary stress, as in the word /is'kwe:w/ iskwēw "woman" or /mih'ti/ mihti "piece of firewood". Words of three syllables or more exhibit primary stress on the third syllable from the end. In this case, secondary stress falls on alternate syllables from the antepenult. One may observe, for instance, that the word pasakwāpisimowin "Shut-Eye Dance" is pronounced /'pasa'kwa:pi'simo'win/. This rule holds even in cases where the penultimate syllable is long. Phonotactics The syllable itself consists of an optional onset, a peak obligatory vowel and an optional coda. The onset can be non-syllabic or a consonant, sometimes followed by a w. Although any vowel can occur in any position in the word, the long vowels and are found only rarely in initial and final positions. Plains Cree does not permit vowel clusters; clusters of