Sinaugoro language

Sinaugoro
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionCentral Province
Native speakers
(18,000 cited 2000 census)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3snc
Glottologsina1266

Sinaugoro is an Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea. It is mainly spoken in the Rigo District of Central Province by some 15,000 people.[2] The language is closely related to Motu.

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar
plain lab.
Plosive voiceless t k kʷ
voiced b d ɡ ɡʷ
Fricative voiceless f s
voiced v (ʝ) ɣ ɣʷ
Nasal m n
Rhotic r
Approximant l (j)
  • /i/ is heard as a glide [j] when in word-initial position before a vowel, or within a syllable or syllable-initial onset.
  • /ɣ/ is heard as palatal [ʝ] when before front vowels.[3]

Vowels

Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a
  • Sounds /e, o/ are heard as [ɛ, ɔ] when in stressed syllables, or when the nucleus of the following syllable is /a/ or /o/.[3]

Writing system

Sinaugoro alphabet[4]
a b d e f g ḡ ḡw i k kw l m n o r s t u v

Grammar

Sinaugoro is an agglutinative language with ergative alignment and subject–object–verb (SOV) word order.[5] Number is marked explicitly on the verb and freely within the noun phrase, but is not marked on the noun itself. A morphological distinction is made in Sinaugoro between the possession of alienable and inalienable nouns, and then between the alienable possession of edible and inedible objects.[6]

Verbal indexing of person and number in Sinaugoro makes freestanding personal pronouns optional. These are given below, displaying a distinction between inclusive and exclusive.

Personal pronouns in Sinaugoro[7]
singular plural
1st person exclusive au gai
inclusive gita
2nd person goi gomi
3rd person gia gia

Notes

  1. ^ Sinaugoro at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Tauberschmidt (1999), p. 1
  3. ^ a b Tauberschmidt 1999, pp. 6–9.
  4. ^ SIL 1992.
  5. ^ Tauberschmidt (1999), p. 2
  6. ^ Tauberschmidt (1999), p. 14
  7. ^ Tauberschmidt (1999), p. 16-17

References

  • Tauberschmidt, Gerhard (1999). A Grammar of Sinaugoro: an Austronesian language of the Central Province of Papua New Guinea (PDF). Pacific Linguistics Series C, Volume 143. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/PL-C143. hdl:1885/146187. ISBN 0-85883-490-1.


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