[3] Central Rotokas is most notable for its extremely small phonemic inventory and for having perhaps the smallest modern alphabet.
The three voiced members of the Central Rotokas dialect consonant phoneme inventory each have wide allophonic variation.
[6] The voiced consonants are the allophonic sets [β, b, m], [ɾ, n, l, d], and [ɡ, ɣ, ŋ].
"[7] Robinson shows that in the Aita dialect of Rotokas there is a three-way distinction required between voiced, voiceless, and nasal consonants.
There does not seem to be any reason for positing phonological manners of articulation (e.g., plosive, fricative, nasal, tap) in Central Rotokas.
Since a phonemic analysis is primarily concerned with distinctions, not with phonetic details, the symbols for voiced occlusives could be used: stop ⟨b, d, ɡ⟩ for Central Rotokas, and nasal ⟨m, n, ŋ⟩ for Aita dialect.
Typologically, Rotokas is a fairly typical verb-final language, with adjectives and demonstrative pronouns preceding the nouns they modify, and postpositions following.
Although adverbs are fairly free in their ordering, they tend to precede the verb, as in the following example: osirei-toareieye-MASC.DUavuka-vaold-FEM.SGiavaPOSTururupa-viraclosed-ADVtou-pa-si-veirabe-PROG-2.DU.MASC-HABosirei-toarei avuka-va iava ururupa-vira tou-pa-si-veiraeye-MASC.DU old-FEM.SG POST closed-ADV be-PROG-2.DU.MASC-HABThe old woman's eyes are shut.Selected basic vocabulary items in Rotokas:[10]