Sinaugoro language

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.

Sinaugoro
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Central Province
Native speakers	(18,000 cited 2000 census)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Oceanic Papuan Tip Central Sinagoro–Keapara Sinaugoro
Language codes
ISO 639-3	snc
Glottolog	sina1266

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