The three nasal phonemes—, , and —maintain their contrast when in syllable-initial position (e.g. "cama" 'bed', "cana" 'grey hair', "caña" 'sugar cane'). In syllable-final position, this three-way contrast is lost as nasals assimilate to the place of articulation of the following consonant—even across a word boundary; or, if a nasal is followed by a pause rather than a consonant, it is realized for most speakers as alveolar (though in Caribbean varieties, this may instead be or an omitted nasal with nasalization of the preceding vowel). Thus is realized as before labial consonants, and as before velar ones.