Note that the Cree syllabics symbols chosen for this table all represent syllable codas, as in ᐁᐤ ēw, ᐁᑊ ēp, ᐁᐟ ēt, etc.

The consonants are represented differently when they comprise or are a component of a syllable onset, as in ᐍ wē, ᐯ pē, ᐻ pwē, ᑌ tē, etc.

[9] In contrast to this, Michif words of Plains Cree origin at Turtle Mountain, North Dakota, invariably have palatoalveolar pronunciation for both of these sounds.

Bloomfield reported the same voicing pattern as a possibility for the phoneme ᐠ k /k/, but did not mentioned it for ᑊ p /p/, ᐟ t /t/, or ᐨ c /t͡s/.

[9] The Plains Cree component of Michif shows a different pattern with respect to voicing.

These cases all involve syncope of vowel i /i/ that results in a cluster of nasal consonant plus stop, affricate or sibilant.

[7] These vowels in the standard writing systems are listed in the following table (with IPA phonemic notation within slashes).

The vowels are represented differently with non-null onset, as for example with n-onset in ᓀ nē, ᓂ ni, ᓃ nī, etc.

The long front close vowel ᐄ ī /iː/ is [iː]; ᐁ ē /eː/ is close-mid [eː]; ᐆ ō /oː/ is typically close-mid [oː] but its range includes close [uː]; and ᐋ ā /aː/ ranges from front open [aː] to back open [ɑː].

[13] Contrast in vowel length can be seen in such pairs as:[7] ᓴᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣsakahikannailvs  ᓵᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣsākahikanlakeᓴᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ {vs} ᓵᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣsakahikan {} sākahikannail {} lakeᓂᐱᐩnipiywatervs  ᓃᐱᐩnīpiyleafᓂᐱᐩ {vs} ᓃᐱᐩnipiy {} nīpiywater {} leafThe vowel /i/ 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.

[8] The glide /j/ 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".

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.

That is, the word /sīsīp-a/ would become sīsīp "duck" but /nisk-a/ remains niska "goose" because the stem is composed of only a single syllable.

In the case of the Plains Cree word for "dog" /atimwa/, the /w/ is only lost after the short vowel /a/ is dropped when the plural suffix -k is added.

[7] The stress pattern of Plains Cree is dependent on the number of syllables rather than on vowel length.

[14] The following table describes the phonotactics of Plains Cree by the distribution of consonants and semivowels with relation to the obligatory vowel.

[14] Plains Cree is classified as a polysynthetic fusional language as a result of the complexity of its affix combinations.

[14] Because almost all grammatical information is stored within the verb, nouns in Plains Cree are relatively simple.

[7][15] Bakker (2006) provides several position class templates for the morphemes in the verbs of Plains Cree, the following of which is the most derived.

An example of a concrete preverb can be found in /ka:mwa:ci/ "quietly", in kī-kāmwāci-pimātisiwak , or /ne:wo/ "four" in ē-kī-nēwo-tipiskāyik "when the fourth night passed".

[15] Two types of reduplication occur to verbs and particle roots to denote continuity, repetition or intensity.

[14] Direction, or the semantic designation of the actor-goal relationship, is morphologically expressed through theme signs that also show agreement between the verb and its nominal complements.

In Plains Cree, direction is dependent on person hierarchy, or the order of person-marking morphemes in the verb.

The following examples place the second person marker first linearly but the direct and inverse suffixes change the semantic roles.

The verb sēkihēw "scare" contains the direct-set marker /-e:w-/, indicating that the proximate third person is acting on the obviative.

[8] Because Plains Cree does not have a true case marking system, it has to instead rely on direction, obviation, and the locative suffix.

Denny (1978) contends that these sentences have an importance semantic difference in that the meaning of the incorporative form is narrower and denotes habitual action.

This is illustrated in the Plains Cree sentence wanihastimwēw "he loses his horse" or, literally, "he horse-loses".

In the Online Cree Dictionary, examples can be found of words with vowel length not distinguished due to lack of pointing.

[10] Plains Cree's Standard Roman Orthography (SRO) uses fourteen letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet to denote the dialect's ten consonants (p, t, c, k, s, m, n, w, y and h) and seven vowels (a, i, o, ā, ī, ō and ē).