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

• /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

• 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

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.