Sursurunga is an
Oceanic language
The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages ...
of
New Ireland.
Number
Sursurunga is famous for having a five-way
grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages present number categories of ...
distinction. The numbers beside singular,
dual, and plural have been called
trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribun ...
and
quadral (Hutchisson 1986); 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.
[Corbett, Greville G., ''Number,'' Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics, P240.8.C67 2000, ] They are equivalent to "a few" and "several", and Corbett has called them ''(lesser)
paucal
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages present number categories of ...
'' and ''greater paucal.'' The trial cannot be used for
dyadic kinship term Dyadic kinship terms (abbreviated or ) are kinship terms in a few languages that express the relationship between individuals as they relate one to the other. In English, there are a few set phrases for such situations, such as "they are father an ...
s, whereas the quadral is used for two or three such pair relationships.
References
Languages of New Ireland Province
St George linkage
{{MesoMelanesian-lang-stub