On the basis of the pattern of distribution of the positional variants, the stops and nasals could be grouped into one sub-group and the affricates and the fricatives into another sub-group. The occurrence before a front vowel vs a non-front vown is the conditioning factor for the positional variants of the stops and the nasals. With both these classes i.e., stops and nasa, the front phones in terms of articulation (i.e., in the case of dentals and alveolars, the dentals) occur before non-front vowels and the back phones (i.e., alveolar/palata) occur before the front vowels. A similar pattern of distribution of the positional variants is found with the fricatives and affricates also. The conditioning factor in this case, however, is the occurrence before a central vowel vs a non-central vowel. The front phones (in terms of the place of articulation) occur before a central vowel while the back ones occur before non-central vowel. At this juncture, it may be pertinent to discuss the very basis of the setting up of the dental series of consonants. The dental affricates and fricatives have corresponding palatal positional variants before back and front vowels. The dental forms occur only before the central vowels. Thus purely from the distributional point of view, the affricates and the fricatives should have been considered as palatal consonants. Such a treatment would have enabled the dental nasal having a palatal positional variant also to be included under the palatal series. These have not been done primarily because of the two dental stops that have the corresponding dental and alveolar positional variants, but none in the palatal region. Had the affricates and the fricatives been considered as palatals purely on the basis of the distribution, the need to set up both the palatal and dental series would have arisen,instead of only the present dental series. Alternately for reducing the number of opposition at the place of articulation, the two dental stops and a dental lateral will have to be put under the palatal series. Rather than that, by considering the affricates and the fricatives as dentals, only the palatal approximant has to be put in a different slot. Taking all these into view, the affricate and the fricatives are considered as dentals.

A word in Sema never ends in a consonant except /y/ and /w/. Incidentally the /y, w/ that occur at the word-final position are, at the phonetic level, the non-syllabic elements of complex nuclei. Checked syllables do occur in Sema language. Barring a few instances, the words in Sema invariably begins with a consonant. Similarly within a word also, the onset of a syllable is usually a consonant.

Word-initial position :

            /p, t, k, q, b, d, g, c, m, n, , f, s, z, x, r, h, l, w, y/.