Sulka language

Consonants

The phonological system of Sulka comprises 28 contrasting segments, fourteen consonants, and seven vowels.^[4] On the topic of consonants, there is no recent evidence to support contrast between [b] and [β], therefore they're assumed to be allophones and are represented in the table of consonants as [β] only.^[4]

Sulka consonants are:^[5]

Vowels

For its vowels, Sulka has a contrast between three front vowels: high, mid, and low, [i], [e], and [ε], but there is no instance of the central high vowel [ɨ].^[4] However, when it comes to vocalic contrasts, it is not always clear. The mid front vowel may fluctuate somewhere between close-mid [e] and the more central-close vowel [ɪ], pronounced like English i in 'in'.^[4] The sounds [o] and [u] often fluctuate with each other as in the example of '1SG verbal pronoun' [ku] and [ko]. This pattern of fluctuation seems to commonly occur for high front vowels. When looking at the length of vowels, long vowels are often confused with diphthongs.

The seven vowel sounds can be found in the following words:^[4]

The words below contain closed syllables which are the only attested words showing that syllable length is phonemic:^[4]

Nouns

Selected Sulka nouns showing singular and plural forms (Tharp 1996: 161-163):^[12]

Verbs

Basic verb phrases are similar to Oceanic languages. For a typical Austronesian sentence structure, it follows the subject-verb-object word order whereas Papuan follows a subject-object-verb word order. Free pronouns mainly act as verbal or prepositional object. Instead of having the bilabial nasal found on the free pronouns, first and third person plural have an initial velar.^[4] Additionally, the basic verb phrase begins with a subject proclitic indicating both subject person/number and aspect/mood. This is followed by one or more verbs, a (pro)nominal object where necessary, and optional oblique constituents.^[4]

According to Reesink (2005), the most common future form he recorded was the same one identified previously. He cites this work by Schneider (1942:323) where this form was named a separate modal particle er(a).^[4]

Habitual aspect and conditional mood utilize the same forms as the irrealis, both for 1SG and 2SG. In contrast, all of the other forms have more in common with the future pronouns because they also lack 3SG -t. Below, see examples of the habitual and the conditional, respectively:

Grammatical gender

Most Papuan languages have masculine and feminine distinctions. However, the Sulka language does not follow this rule. As for the Austronesian languages, where they have inclusive and exclusive opposition in nonsingular first person, Sulka does not follow them either (Sulka of East New Britain: A Mixture of Oceanic and Papuan Traits, Reesink, 2005). As stated by Reesink, "There is not even a third person differentiation between feminine and masculine genders".