Sursurunga language

Sursurunga
Region	New Ireland
Native speakers	(3,000 cited 1991) [1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Meso-Melanesian (St George linkage) Sursurunga
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sgz
Glottolog	surs1246

Sursurunga is an Oceanic language of New Ireland.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants ^[2]

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t̪			k
	voiced	b		d		g
Fricative				s			h
Nasal		m		n		ŋ
Trill				r
Approximant		w		l	j

• /p/ has two allophones: [ pʷ ] syllable initially and [ p̚ ] syllable finally. ^[3]
• /t̪/ has two allophones: [ t̪ ] syllable initially and [ t̪ ]~[ t̪͆ ] syllable finally. ^[4]
• /k/ has two allophones: [ k ] syllable initially and [ k ]~[ k̚ ]~[ kʰ ] syllable finally. ^[4]
• Voiced stops /b/[ bʷ ], /d/, and /g/ only occur syllable initially. Plain and prenasalized voiced stops (i.e., [ ᵐbʷ ], [ ⁿd ], [ ᵑg ]) are in free variation word initially. Voiced stops are nasalized word-medially between vowels and after non-nasal consonants. [ ɖ ], a "voiced alveolar slightly retroflexed stop" is also heard word medially. ^[5]
• /s/ is [ s ] syllable initially and finally. ^[6]
• /h/ is a "voiceless vocoid occurring word finally following a voiced vocoid of the same quality." ^[7]
• /m/ is [ mʷ ] syllable initially and [ m ] syllable finally. It becomes [ mʷ ] after a rounded vowel. ^[7]
• /l/ is /lʲ/ initially and finally. ^[8]
• Semivowels /w/ and /j/ only occur syllable initially. ^[8]

Vowels

Vowels ^{[9] [10]}

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ə	ɔ
Low		a

Orthography

Sursurunga has fifteen consonants—⟨b d g h k l m n ng p r s t w y⟩— and six vowels—⟨a á e i o u⟩. ^[11]

⟨ng⟩ is the velar nasal /ŋ/ and ⟨á⟩ is the schwa. ^[11]

Number

Sursurunga is famous for having a five-way grammatical number distinction. The numbers beside singular, dual, and plural have been called trial and quadral; ^[12] however, these numbers, which only occur on pronouns, indicate a minimum of three and four, not exactly three and four the way the dual indicates exactly two. ^[13] They are equivalent to "a few" and "several", and Corbett has called them (lesser) paucal and greater paucal. The trial cannot be used for dyadic kinship terms, whereas the quadral is used for two or three such pair relationships.

Emphatic pronouns ^[13]

	SG	DU	TRI	QUAD	PL
1.INCL	iau	giur	gimtul	gimhat	gim
1.EXCL	—	gitar	gittul	githat	git
2	iáu	gaur	gamtul	gamhat	gam
3	-i/on/ái	diar	ditul	dihat	di

Notes

1. Sursurunga at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Hutchisson & Hutchisson 1975, p. 168-172.
3. Hutchisson & Hutchisson 1975, p. 168.
4. Hutchisson & Hutchisson 1975, p. 169.
5. Hutchisson & Hutchisson 1975, p. 169-170.
6. Hutchisson & Hutchisson 1975, pp. 170–171.
7. Hutchisson & Hutchisson 1975, p. 171.
8. Hutchisson & Hutchisson 1975, p. 172.
9. King 2007, p. 5.
10. Hutchisson & Hutchisson 1975, p. 164.
11. Samson, Hutchisson & Hutchisson 2018, p. 11.
12. Hutchisson, Don (1986). "Sursurunga Pronouns and the Special Uses of Quadral Number". In Wiesemann, Ursula (ed.). Pronominal Systems. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. pp. 1–20.
13. Corbett, Greville G. (7 December 2000). "Meaning Distinctions". Number. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139164344.003. ISBN   0-521-64016-4.

References

• Hutchisson, Don; Hutchisson, Sharon (1975). "A preliminary phonology of Sursurunga". In Loving, Richard (ed.). Phonologies of five Austronesian languages. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 163–202.
• King, Phil (2007). An Acoustic Description of Central Vowels in Three Austronesian Languages of New Ireland (Report). SIL Electronic Working Papers. Vol. 2007–005.
• Samson, Benroi; Hutchisson, Sharon; Hutchisson, Don (2018). Sálán má Worwor Talas uri tan Kuir Wor Sursurunga [The meanings and explanations of Sursurunga words]. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN   978-9980-0-4287-3.