Golin language

Golin (also Gollum, Gumine) is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

Vowels

Diphthongs that occur are . The consonants can also be syllabic.

Consonant

are treated as single consonants by Bunn & Bunn (1970), but as combinations of + , + by Evans et al. (2005).

Two consonants appear to allow free variation in their realisations: varies with , and with .

assimilates to before and .

Tone

Golin is a tonal language, distinguishing high ([˧˥]), mid ([˨˧]), and low ([˨˩]) tone. The high tone is marked by an acute accent and the low tone by a grave accent, while the mid tone is left unmarked. Examples:

• High: mú [mu˧˥] 'type of snake'; wí [wi˧˥] 'scream (man)'
• Mid: mu [mu˨˧] 'type of bamboo'; wi [wi˨˧] 'coming from the same ethnic group'
• Low: mù [mu˨˩] 'sound of river'; wì [wi˨˩] 'cut (verb)'

Pronouns

Golin is notable for having a small pronominal paradigm. There are two basic pronouns:

• ná first person
• í second person

There is no number distinction and no true third person pronoun. Third person pronouns in Golin are in fact compounds derived from 'man' plus inín 'self':

• yalíni 'he' < yál 'man' + inín 'self'
• abalíni 'she' < abál 'woman' + inín 'self'

References