Fuyug (Fuyuge, Fuyughe, Mafulu) is a language of Papua New Guinea spoken in the Central Province of the country. The language's 14,000 speakers live in 300 villages in the Goilala District.[2]
| Fuyug | |
|---|---|
| Region | Papua New Guinea |
Native speakers | 14,000 (2003)[1] |
Language family | Trans-New Guinea?
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | fuy |
| Glottolog | fuyu1242 |
The usual orthographic convention used to transcribe Fuyug is to use a for /ɑ/, e for /ɛ/, y for /j/, and the corresponding IPA characters for the remaining phonemes.
Fuyug possesses five vowel phonemes.[3]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u |
| Mid | ɛ | o |
| Open | ɑ |
The vowel /ɛ/ is pronounced as the diphthong [ɛi̯] when word-final as well as before a word-final consonant. For example, ateg ("truth") is pronounced [ɑˈtɛi̯ɡ] and ode ("where") as [oˈdɛi̯].[4]
All vowels are nasalised before a nasal consonant, as in in ("pandanus") [ˈĩn], ung ("nose") [ˈũŋɡ], em ("house") [ˈẽĩ̯m].[5]
Fuyug has 14 consonant phonemes.[6]
| Labial | Coronal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Voiceless | p | t | k |
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ | |
| Fricative | Voiceless | f | s | |
| Voiced | v | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ||
| Approximant | w | j | ||
| Liquid | l | |||
The voiceless plosive are aspirated in a word-final position and before /i/: endanti ("outside") [ɛ̃nˈdɑ̃ntʰi], oki ("fire") [ˈokʰi], eyak ("return") [ɛˈjɑkʰ].[6]
The nasal phoneme /n/ assimilates before a velar consonant becoming [ŋ] : yangos ("rain") [jɑ̃ŋˈɡos].[7]
The pronunciation of the liquid /l/ is in free variation between a lateral [l] and a flap [ɾ]. However, with the exception of words of foreign origin where the word in the source language is written with an r, this is represented in the orthography as l.[4]
Fuyug syllables come in the shape (C)V(C)(C). There cannot be more than two consonants adjacent to one another word-internally and the only final clusters permitted are mb, nd and ng. Within a word vowels may not follow one another.[8]
Stress in Fuyug is predictable. Stress falls on the final syllable in mono- and disyllabic words and on the antepenult in words of three of four syllables. Affixes do not alter the stressed syllable.[9]
Certain suffixes (notably the illative -ti) cause a change in the end of the word to which it is attached:[10]
Fuyug has personal pronouns for three numbers (singular, dual, plural) but not gender distinction.
| Person | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | na | da | di |
| 2nd | nu | ya | yi |
| 3rd | hu | tu | mu |
These pronouns can take four different suffixes: the genitive -l or -le, the emphatic -ni, the comitative -noy and the contrastive -v.[11]
Numerals in Fuyug are very restricted, having only fidan ("one") and yovalo ("two"). The numbers 3, 4 and 5 are composed of 1 and 2:
After five English numerals are used (numbers less than five often do so as well). The quantifier huka ("a lot") is also used after three.[12]