... clear from these rulesthat the split into C− and C+has taken placemainly based on whether the consonants have the combined “dental alveolar” feature (negativeclass) or the “dental” and the ... is an equal prevalence of the consonants from C+ and C−in the languages of L−. Therefore, it can be argued that the pres-ence of the consonants from C−in a language can(phonologically) ... because, such a distinctionis prevalent in many other sounds, some of whichare (a) nasals in Tamil (Shanmugam, 1972) and Malayalam (Shanmugam, 1972; Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996), (b) laterals...