in the local language that people have considerable difficulties in finding a standard expression for the dialect term (for instance, kovter meaning blanket is prešita odeja in Standard Slovene, but the latter term is very rarely used in speech, being considered inappropriate for non-literary registers). Southwestern dialects incorporate a great deal of calques and loanwords from Italian, whereas eastern and northwestern dialects are replete with lexemes of German origin. Usage of such words hinders intelligibility between dialects and is greatly discouraged in formal situations. Phonology Slovene has a phoneme set consisting of 21 consonants and 8 vowels. Consonants Slovene has 21 distinctive consonant phonemes. All voiced obstruents are devoiced at the end of words unless immediately followed by a word beginning with a vowel or a voiced consonant. In consonant clusters, voicing distinction is neutralized and all consonants assimilate the voicing of the rightmost segment, i.e. the final consonant in the cluster. In this context, , and may occur as voiced allophones of , and , respectively (e.g. vŕh drevésa ). has several allophones depending on context. Before a vowel, pronunciation is labiodental, (also described as ). After a vowel, pronunciation is bilabial and forms a diphthong. At the beginning of a syllable, before a consonant (for example in vsi "all"), the pronunciation varies more widely by speaker and area. Many speakers convert into a full vowel in this position. For those speakers who retain a consonantal pronunciation, it is pronounced before a voiced consonant and before a voiceless consonant. Thus, vsi may be pronounced as disyllabic or monosyllabic . The sequences , and occur only before a vowel. Before a consonant or word-finally, they are reduced to , and respectively. This is reflected in the spelling in the case of , but not for and . Under certain (somewhat unpredictable) circumstances, at the end of a syllable may become , merging with the allophone of in that position. Vowels Slovene has an eight-vowel (or, according to Peter Jurgec, nine-vowel) system, in comparison to the five-vowel system of Serbo-Croatian. Grammar Nouns Slovene nouns retain six of the seven Slavic noun cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative and instrumental. There is no distinct vocative; the nominative is used in that role. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns have three numbers: singular, dual and plural. Nouns in Slovene are either masculine, feminine or neuter gender. In addition, there is a distinction between animate and