Natural class

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In phonology, a natural class is a complete set of sounds within a language that can be described by one or more phonetic features which they have in common. Specifically, they can be described using fewer features than would be necessary to provide an exhaustive description of each individual sound, while also using more features than would be necessary to describe a superset of the sounds.

For example, the set containing the sounds [p], [t], and [k] is a natural class in English, namely voiceless stops. Other natural classes include liquids, nasals, velars and so forth.

In addition, members of a natural class will behave similarly in the same phonetic environment, and will have a similar effect on sounds that occur in their environment.