consonant with the same place of articulation and manner of articulation. Ottawa fortis consonants are voiceless and phonetically long, and are aspirated in most positions: , , , . When following another consonant they are unaspirated or weakly articulated. The lenis consonants are typically voiced between vowels and word-initially before a vowel, but are devoiced in word-final position. The lenis consonants are subject to other phonological processes when adjacent to fortis consonants. Labialized stop consonants and , consisting of a consonant with noticeable lip rounding, occur in the speech of some speakers. Labialization is not normally indicated in writing, but a subscript dot is utilized in a widely used dictionary of Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwe to mark labialization: 'he is afraid' and 'he is sick'. Vowels Ottawa has seven oral vowels, four long and three short. There are four long nasal vowels whose status as either phonemes or allophones (predictable variants) is unclear. The long vowels are paired with the short vowels , and are written with double symbols , , that correspond to the single symbols used for the short vowels , , . The long vowel does not have a corresponding short vowel, and is written with a single e. The phonological distinction between long and short vowels plays a significant role in Ottawa phonology, as only short vowels can be metrically weak and undergo syncope. Long vowels are always metrically strong and never undergo deletion. The table below gives the orthographic symbol and the primary phonetic values for each vowel. The long nasal vowels are (), (), (), and (). They most commonly occur in the final syllable of nouns with diminutive suffixes or words with a diminutive connotation, as well as in the suffix ([-) 'first person (Conjunct) Animate Intransitive'. Orthographically the long vowel is followed by word-final to indicate that the vowel is nasal; while n is a common indicator of nasality in many languages such as French, the use of is an orthographic convention and does not correspond to an independent sound. One analysis treats the long nasal vowels as phonemic, while another treats them as derived from sequences of long vowel followed by and underlying ; the latter sound is converted to or deleted. A study of the Southwestern Ojibwe (Chippewa) dialect spoken in Minnesota describes the status of the analogous vowels as unclear, noting that while the distribution of the long nasal