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Nasal Consonants.
LT script distinguishes six different nasal consonants, but ST only has three phonemically distinct nasal sounds.In LT as well, the nasal õ [ '070 ] only occurs before velars, i.e. ¡ k, and the palatal nasal þ
only
occurs before palatal « j. LT also distinguishes a dental nasal ¨
from an alveolar nasal ¨, but even in LT these two are in complementary
distribution: the ¨ occurs initially and before ¢ t, while the
alveolar nasal occurs finally and before ± r. Thus in our
transcription, we only distinguish between m, n and n; the
palatal and velar nasals we simply write as n before the appropriate
consonant, and we transliterate both ¨ and ¨ as n, since no Tamil
speakers (despite claims otherwise) distinguish between these two sounds.
As noted above, if LT final ý n occurs in final position, in ST an epenthetic Ë u is added to the word (and doubled if the stem vowel is short), e.g. ×½ý pen `woman' --> ×½Ôýá ponnu `ibid.'Note that the vowel also undergoes rounding because it occurs between a labial and a retroflex consonant.
All other sequences of vowel plus nasal in final position undergo nasalization of the vowel as described previously.
Harold_F.Schiffman