There are two consonant as well as three consonant clusters in
the initial position. We shall call them CC type and CCC type clusters
respectively. As the first member of CC type, stops, fricatives, nasals, lateral
and trill sounds occur. Affricates and semivowels do not occur as the first
member of CC type clusters. As the second member, lateral, trill and semivowels
occur when the stops occur as the first member. When the first member is a
fricative, stops, affricates, nasals, lateral, trill and semivowels occur. The
nasals do not occur with other sounds except with semivowels. Stops and
affricates alone occur as the second member when the lateral is the first member
of CC type. The trill sound occurs with stops, affricates, fricatives and
semivowels as the first member. In the initial position, one significant feature
that is to be noted is the nonoccurrence of identical consonant clusters. The
stop sounds do not occur with stop sounds. Similarly fricatives do not occur
with fricative sounds and lateral with lateral sound and so on.
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