The orthography of Xârâcùù follows many of the same principles as most other New Caledonian languages: e.g. symbols usually used for voiced consonants (b, d, g, j, etc.) represent prenasalized consonants. Digraphs are used for a number of phonemes, e.g. bw, gw and ny for /ᵐbʷ/, /ᵑɡʷ/, /ɲ/ respectively; ch stands for /ʃ/, as in French. The large number of contrasting vowels and the inclusion of vowel clusters and vowel length mean that accents and other diacritics have to be used to represent vowel phonemes. Like in other languages of New Caledonia, nasal vowels are mostly indicated using a circumflex diacritic. Grammar Xârâcùù has a strict SVO sentence structure, with few exceptions. Pronouns † Used only in the past tense. ‡ Used with certain inalienable nouns. * Used after the particle rè with vowel assimilation e.g. nea rè+rö > nea röö "your knife" Noun phrase structure In comparison to other Oceanic languages, Xârâcùù's noun phrase structure is a little different. Most of the vowel modifiers in Xârâcùù come before the head. Some articles that feature this include a singular, du dual, ké paucal, and mîî~mîrî plural. There are several different morphemes for '10' and '15' which are just examples of a quinary numeral system. Numerals The numeral style of the language allows for few numeral classifiers that often only occur as suffixes to the number one and as prefixes to all of the other numerals in the language. Prepositions Xârâcùù has at least 17 known prepositions, at least half referring to direction or location. Three prepositions express types of comitative relationships. Possession Like many Oceanic languages, Xârâcùù features indirect and direct possession constructions. The following phrases demonstrate that "inalienable" nouns are directly possessed with the possessor, whether pronoun or noun, being directly suffixed to the possessed noun. Indirect possession comes in two syntactic types varying by familiarity and a classification system. Seven possessive classifications have possessive pronominal suffix or are joined by the possessed noun. These classifiers usually refer to food nênê- (allomorph nânâ-), starchy foods or nèkê-, meat or (nê)wînè, food to be chewed or nèxêê-, drinks or (nê)wînyè-, tubers to be planted or harvested or nêngê-, and goods possessions or ngêê or êê. There are also three other qualifiers including: xû or topic of story telling, (rö)wâ or passive, and rè or general. In these cases the possessed noun comes first followed by the classifier and the possessor.