Phonemic Patterning
In terms of phonemic patterning, it is valuable to consider further how the consonant table is represented. Although the columns of the table in the Section on the Consonant Chart use the passive articulator, as is normal for the IPA, phonemically the consonants pattern primarily in terms of the active articulator, as follows:
Evidence that these are the relevant natural classes comes from a variety of sources, including phonetics, phonotactics and morphophonemic alternations. Take for example the behaviour of məN‑, the 'active voice' prefix, where the 'N' is realised as a nasal segment homorganic with the initial consonant of the root:
An analysis that classifies /s/ as an ‘alveolar’ incorrectly predicts məN+sewa as *[mənewa] rather than the actual [məɲewa] (the /s/ is deleted by a regular process). Furthermore, the phonetic overlap noted above, where the consonants shown in the 'postalveolar' column are often actually alveolar, becomes irrelevant once the primacy of the active articulator is recognised. Evidence from consonant harmony (Adelaar 1992), which limits co-occurrrence of homorganic consonants in root morphemes, also works in terms of the active articulator categories, and not the passive categories.