Lim lisa singapore english a grammatical description

Singapore English: A grammatical description Varieties of English Around the World General Editor Edgar W Schneider Department of English & American Studies University of Regensburg Universitätsstraße 31 D-93053 REGENSBURG Germany edgar.schneider@sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de Editorial Assistants Alexander Kautzsch, Magnus Huber (Regensburg) Editorial Board Laurie Bauer (Wellington); Manfred Görlach (Cologne); Rajend Mesthrie (Cape Town); Peter Trudgill (Fribourg); Walt Wolfram (Raleigh, NC) General Series Volume G33 Singapore English: A grammatical description Edited by Lisa Lim Singapore English A grammatical description Edited by Lisa Lim University of Amsterdam John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984 Cover picture: The sculpture ‘The River Merchants’ (sculptor: Aw Tee Hong) is located at the mouth of the Singapore River, and portrays Alexander Laurie Johnston, Scotsman and prominent merchant, interacting with a Chinese trader and Malay chief It is in encounters of this type where different languages meet that innovative linguistic features – such as those found in Singapore English – arise Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Singapore English : a grammatical description / edited by Lisa Lim p cm (Varieties of English Around the World, issn 0172–7362 ; v g33) Includes bibliographical references and indexes English language Singapore Grammar English language Variation-Singapore English language Dialects Singapore Singapore-Languages I Lim, Lisa II Series PE3502.S5S56 427’.95957-dc22 2004 2004057688 isbn 90 272 4893 (Eur.) / 58811 576 (US) (Hb; alk paper) © 2004 – John Benjamins B.V No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher John Benjamins Publishing Co · P.O Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa Table of contents Acknowledgements Tables & Figures Chapter  English in Singapore and Singapore English Background and methodology . Preamble  .2 A brief history .2. English arrives in Singapore .2.2 English in education .2.3 And English in the home and streets .3 A brief history of Singapore English scholarship .4 The Grammar of Spoken Singapore English Corpus (GSSEC) 0 .4. Collecting the data  .4.2 Who are the Singapore English speakers?  .4.3 The resulting corpus 2 .4.4 Transcription 3 .5 Outline of volume 4 .6 Concluding remarks 6 Chapter Sounding Singaporean 2. Introduction 9 2.2 Vowels 20 2.2. Inventory 20 2.2.2 Monophthong realisation and distribution 20 2.2.3 Diphthongs, and triphthongs? 23 2.2.4 Rhotacisation 25 2.2.5 Vowel substrate influence? 25 2.3 Consonants 27 2.3. Voiceless plosives 28 2.3.2 Voiced obstruents 29 XI XIII   9 vi Table of contents 2.3.3 Dental fricatives 29 2.3.4 Nasal deletion 30 2.3.5 Liquids and glides 3 2.3.5. l vocalisation 3 2.3.5.2 r, taps and flaps 3 2.3.5.3 r deletion 3 2.3.5.4 v ~ w alternation 32 2.3.6 Syllable structure processes 32 2.3.6. Syllabic consonants 32 2.3.6.2 Final consonant deletion or replacement 32 2.3.6.3 Consonant cluster reduction 33 2.3.7 Liaison 34 2.3.8 Consonantal substrate influences? 34 2.4 Prosodic features 37 2.4. Intonation forms and functions 39 2.4.. Declaratives 39 2.4..2 Interrogatives 39 2.4..3 Imperatives 4 2.4..4 Exclamatives 4 2.4.2 Characteristic CSE forms 42 2.4.2. Sustained level steps 42 2.4.2.2 Phrase-final lengthening 43 2.4.2.3 Particles 45 2.4.2.4 Pitch patterns and particles from the substrates? 47 2.4.3 Focus and prominence 49 2.4.3. Focus placement 49 2.4.3.2 Prominence cues 52 2.4.3.3 Substrate prosody? 52 2.5 Conclusions 53 Chapter Nouns and noun phrases 3. Introduction 57 3.2 Nouns and definiteness 58 3.2. Indefinite articles 58 3.2.2 Definite articles 60 3.2.3 Premodifiers as heads 62 57 Table of contents 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Number and agreement 63 3.3. Number 63 3.3.2 Agreement 65 Different ‘ones’ 66 3.4. Relative one? 67 3.4.2 Reifier one? 68 3.4.3 More on ‘singulative’ 70 PRO-drop 7 Heavy NP shift 72 Conclusions 73 Chapter The verbal cluster 4. Introduction 75 4.2 Verb forms 77 4.2. Optionality of verbal inflections 77 4.2.2 Verb forms and their uses 79 4.3 The copula be and other predicate phrases 82 4.4 Be as an auxiliary 85 4.4. The progressive auxiliary be 85 4.4.2 The passive auxiliary be 86 4.4.3 Be as part of be supposed to 87 4.5 Factors determining the (co-)occurrence of auxiliaries 87 4.5. Auxiliary clusters 87 4.5.2 Subject NPs, negation, and the auxiliary 88 4.5.3 Wh-interrogatives and subject-auxiliary inversion 9 4.5.4 ‘Do-support’ 9 4.6 Verb reduplication and aspectual classes of events 92 4.6. Verb reduplication 92 4.6.2 Tests for aspectual classes in CSE 93 4.6.3 Constraints on verb reduplication 95 4.7 Passive constructions 97 4.7. Four types of passive constructions 97 4.7.2 The kena passive 98 4.8 Conclusion 99 75 vii viii Table of contents Chapter Reduplication and discourse particles 5. Introduction 05 5.2 Reduplication 06 5.2. Nouns 06 5.2.2 Adjectives 08 5.2.3 Verbs 09 5.2.3. Attenuation 0 5.2.3.2 Continuity 0 5.2.4 Adverbs 2 5.3 The possibility of substratal influence 3 5.3. Other cases of substratal influence 3 5.3.2 Substratal influence in the case of CSE reduplication 4 5.4 Discourse particles 7 5.4. lah 8 5.4.2 ma 9 5.4.3 wat 20 5.4.4 meh 2 5.4.5 leh 22 5.4.6 lor 22 5.4.7 hor 23 5.4.8 hah 25 5.5 A brief summary of the particles 25 5.6 Conclusion 26 Chapter The evolution of Singapore English: Finding the matrix 6. Introduction 27 6.2 Problems of classification 29 6.3 Sources of hybridity in SE 3 6.3. The lexifier 32 6.3.2 Substrates and adstrates 32 6.3.2. Reduplication patterns 33 6.3.2.2 Copula & property verbs 35 6.3.2.3 TMA system 36 6.3.2.4 ‘Passives’ 38 6.3.2.5 Nouns and polyfunctionality 39 6.3.3 Final remarks 40 05 27 Table of contents 6.4 Origins of English in Singapore 4 6.5 Conclusions 45 References 5 Name index 65 Subject index 67 ix 60 References Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS14), Bangkok, Thailand, 22–24 May 2004 Ooi, Vincent B Y., ed 2001 Evolving Identities: The English Language in Singapore and Malaysia Singapore: Times Academic Press ———, L Alsagoff, Z Bao, P Tan & L Wee, eds 1997 Times-Chambers Essential English Dictionary Singapore: Federal Publications (S) Pte Ltd By arrangement with E Higgleton, A Seaton, P Hands, K Cullen & H Sargeant, eds Times-Chambers Essential English Dictionary Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd Othman, Z & S Atmosumarto 1995 Colloquial Malay London: Routledge Oxford English Dictionary Online 1997 2nd ed.: Additions 1997 Oxford: Oxford University Press [2003] Available: http://80-dictionary.oed.com.libproxy1 nus.edu.sg/entrance.dtl Pakir, Anne 1986 “A linguistic investigation of Baba Malay” Ph.D., University of Hawai’i ——— 1991 “The range and depth of English-knowing bilinguals in Singapore” World Englishes 10(2): 167–179 ——— 1992 “English-knowing bilingualism in Singapore” In K C Ban, A Pakir & C.K Tong, eds Imagining Singapore Singapore: Times Academic Press, 234–262 ——— 1993 “Spoken and written English in Singapore” In Anne Pakir, ed The English Language in Singapore: Standards and Norms Singapore: UniPress, 19–31 ——— 1994 “Making bilingualism work: Developments in bilingual education in ASEAN” In Rosemary Khoo, Ursula Kreher & Ruth Wong, eds Towards Global Multilingualism: European Models and Asian Realities Clevedon/Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters, 13–27 Pan, Lynn, ed 2000 The Encyclopaedia of the Chinese Overseas Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press Platt, John 1975 “The Singapore English speech continuum and its basilect ‘Singlish’ as a ‘Creoloid’” Anthropological Linguistics 17(7): 363–374 ——— 1977 “The sub-varieties of Singapore English: Their sociolectal and functional status” In Crewe, ed 1977a, 83–95 ——— 1980 “Multilingualism, polyglossia and code selection in Singapore” In Afendras & Kuo, eds, 63–83 ——— 1982 “English in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong” In R W Bailey & M Görlach, eds English as a World Language Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 384–414 References ——— 1987 “Communicative functions of particles in Singapore English” In R Steele & T Threadgold, eds Language Topics: Essays in Honour of Michael Halliday, Vol Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 391–401 ——— & Ho Mian Lian 1989 “Discourse particles in Singaporean English: Substratum influences and universals” World Englishes 8(2): 215–221 ——— & Heidi Weber 1980 English in Singapore and Malaysia – Status: Features: Functions Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press ———, ——— & Mian Lian Ho 1983 Singapore and Malaysia (Varieties of English Around the World T4) Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins ———, ——— & ——— 1984 The New Englishes London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svartvik 1985 A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language London: Longman Rappa, Antonio 2000 “Surviving the politics of late modernity The Eurasian fringe community of Singapore” Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 28(2): 153–180 Richards, Jack C 1977 “Variation in Singapore English” In Crewe, ed 1977a, 68–82 ——— & Mary W J Tay 1977 “The ‘La’ particle in Singapore English” In Crewe, ed 1977a, 141–156 Rickford, John 1974 “Carrying the new wave into syntax: The case of Black English BÍN” In R.W Fasold & R.W Shuy, eds Analyzing Variation in Language Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 162–183 Roach, Peter 2000 English Phonetics & Phonology, 3rd ed Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Romaine, Suzanne 1995 Bilingualism 2nd ed Blackwell Publishers Ross, John Robert 1967 Constraints on Variables in Syntax Ph.D., MIT, Cambridge Rubdy, Rani 2001 “Creative destruction: Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement” World Englishes 20: 341–355 Rudolph, Jurgen 1998 Reconstructing Identities: A Social History of the Babas in Singapore Ashgate Sadock, Jerrold M 1986 “Some notes on noun incorporation” Language 62: 19–31 Schneider, Edgar 1999 “Notes on Singaporean English” In Uwe Carls & Peter Lucko, eds Form, Function and Variation in English Studies in Honour of Klaus Hansen Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 193–205 ——— 2003 “The dynamics of New Englishes: From identity construction to dialect birth” Language 79(2): 233–281 6 62 References Sells, Peter, John Rickford & Thomas Wasow 1996 “An Optimality Theoretic approach to variation in negative inversion in AAVE” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 14: 591–627 Skutnabb-Kangas, T & R Phillipson 1989 “‘Mother Tongue’: The theoretical and sociopolitical construction of a concept” In U Ammon, ed Status and Function of Languages and Language Varieties New York: Walter de Gruyter, 450–477 Soames, Scott & David M Perlmutter 1979 Syntactic Argumentation and the Structure of English Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press Tan, Ee Lyn 1989 “The use of dental stop in Singaporean English and its relation to the mother tongue” B.A Honours, National University of Singapore Tan, Ying Ying 2001 “Acoustic correlates of stress in Chinese, Malay and Indian varieties of Singapore English” Working Papers in Language, Literature & Theatre Studies Department of English Language & Literature, National University of Singapore Tay, Mary W.J 1979 “The uses, users and features of English in Singapore” In Jack C Richards, ed New Varieties of English: Issues and Approaches (RELC Occasional Papers 8) Singapore: Regional English Language Centre (RELC), 91–111 ——— 1982 “The phonology of Educated Singapore English” English World-Wide 3(2), 135–145 ——— 1983 Trends in Language, Literacy and Education in Singapore Singapore: Department of Statistics ——— 1993 The English Language in Singapore: Issues and Developments Singapore: Unipress ——— & Anthea Fraser Gupta 1983 “Towards a description of Standard Singapore English” In Richard B Noss, ed Varieties of English in Southeast Asia (RELC Anthology Series No 11) Singapore: Regional Language Centre (RELC) Thomason, Sarah Grey & Terrence Kaufman 1988 Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press Tickoo, M L 1996 “Fifty years of English in Singapore: All gains, (a) few losses?” In Joshua A Fishman, Andrew W Conrad & Alma Rubal-Lopez, eds Postimperial English: Status Change in Former British and American Colonies, 1940–1990 Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 431–456 Tongue, Ray K 1974 The English of Singapore and Malaysia 1st ed Singapore: Eastern Universities Press ——— 1979 The English of Singapore and Malaysia 2nd ed Singapore: Eastern Universities Press References Tsao, Feng-fu 2001 “Semantics and syntax of verbal and adjectival reduplication in Mandarin and Taiwanese Southern Min” In H Chappell, ed Sinitic Grammar Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 285–308 Vendler, Zeno 1957 “Verbs and times” The Philosophical Review 66: 143–160 Verkuyl, Henk J 1993 A Theory of Aspectuality Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ——— 2002 “Aspectual composition: Surveying the ingredients” Proceedings of the conference Perspectives on Aspect Available online: http://www-uilots.let uu.nl/conferences/Perspectives_on_Aspect/P_o_A_index.html Warner, Anthony 1993 English Auxiliaries: Structure and History Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Watts, Richard & Peter Trudgill, eds 2002 Alternative Histories of the English Language London/New York: Routledge Wee, Lionel 2002 “Lor in Colloquial Singaporean English” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 711–725 Wells, John C 1982 Accents of English: Vol Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Wetzer, H 1995 Nouniness and Verbiness A Typological Study of Adjectival Predication Nijmegen: University of Nijmegen Whinnom, K 1971 “Linguistic hybridization and the special case of pidgins and creoles” In Dell Hymes, ed Pidginization and Creolization of Languages Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 91–115 Wolfram, Walt 1986 “Good data in a bad situation: Eliciting vernacular structures” In J.A Fishman, A Tabouret-Keller, M Clyne, B Krishnamurti & M Abdulaziz, eds The Fergusonian Impact, Volume 2: Sociolinguistics and the Sociology of Language Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 3–22 Wong, Jock Onn 1994 “A Wierzbickan approach to Singlish particles” M.A., National University of Singapore Yap, F H., S J Matthews & K Horie 2004 “From pronominaliser to pragmatic marker: Implications for unidirectionality from a crosslinguistic perspective” In Fischer et al., eds, 137–168 Yeow, Kok Liang 1987 “Stress, rhythm and intonation in educated Singapore English: An auditory and instrumental study” M.A, National University of Singapore Zhang, M 1998 “A cognitive semantics approach” Paper presented at the Joint meeting of the 7th International Association of Chinese Linguistics 63 64 References (IACL-7) and the 10th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-10), Stanford University, California, USA, 26–28 June 1998 Zhu, Shenfa 2003 “Intonation patterns of four sentence types in Singapore English” Ph.D., National University of Singapore ——— & Lisa Lim 2002 “Intonation in Singapore English declaratives: An auditory and acoustic analysis” Paper presented at the 13th World Congress of Applied Linguistics (AILA2002), Singapore, 16–21 December 2002 Corpus The Grammar of Spoken Singapore English Corpus (GSSEC) (funded by a National University of Singapore Academic Research Grant R-103-000-003-112 for the project Towards a Reference Grammar of Singapore English) Lisa Lim, Joseph A Foley, Vivienne Fong, Yibin Ni & Lionel Wee Department of English Language & Literature, National University of Singapore Name index A Adelaar, K A 131 Alsagoff, Lubna 57, 63, 64, 66, 67, 71, 83, 84, 113, 136 Anderson, Stephen R 63, 65 Ansaldo, Umberto 7, 9, 10, 13–16, 18, 19, 27, 59, 61, 71–73, 114, 127, 129, 131, 135, 139, 140, 142, 143, 145, 147, 149 Asher, R E 53 Atmosumarto, S 37 Ayampillay, Rathi Devi 38 D DeGraff, Michel 127, 129, 131 Deterding, David 13, 25, 27, 29, 30, 34, 38, 49, 52, 53 Di Cristo, Albert 38 Doraisamy, T R Dowty, David R 93, 102 Dressler, Wolfgang 112 B Bakker, Peter 136 Bao, Zhiming 22, 30, 97–99, 102, 113, 130, 135, 136, 138, 148 Barbaresi, Lavinia Merlini 112 Baxter, A 142 Benjamin, Geoffrey Besemeres, Mary 101 Biber, Douglas 10, 80, 101 Bickerton, Derek 9, 136 Bloom, David 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 142 Blust, Robert 133 Bodman, Nicholas Cleaveland 25, 27, 34, 35, 47, 48, 52 Bokhorst-Heng, Wendy Brown, Adam 19, 29, 34 F Ferguson, Charles A 10, 145, 146 Fishman, Joshua 145 Foley, Joseph A 5, 6, 9, 10, 16, 20, 61, 73, 128, 129, 141, 142, 148 Fong, Vivienne 14, 15, 17, 18, 33, 52, 66, 77, 99, 106, 109, 135–138, 148 C Carlson, Greg 61 Carter, Ronald 11 Chaudenson, Robert 131, 145 Chiang, Ker Chiu 25, 34 Chiew, Seen Kong Crewe, William J Croft, William 127, 141 Cruttenden, Alan 24, 25, 28, 29, 31, 34, 39–41, 55 E Enfield, N J 71 G Gan, Lee Meng 105, 123, 125 Gil, David 18, 57, 60, 64–70, 73, 74, 129 Goh, Christine C M 39, 42, 51 Grabe, Esther 44 Green, Lisa 83 Greenbaum, Sidney 17 Gupta, Anthea Fraser 3, 7, 9, 10, 38, 71, 86, 105, 118, 121, 122, 126, 130, 131, 136, 142, 143, 145, 147 H Heine, Bernd 69 Hirst, Daniel 38 Ho, Chee Lick 57, 63, 64, 66, 71, 83 Ho, Hung Yee Ivy 92, 93, 95–97, 111 Ho, Mian Lian 66, 118, 122, 129, 136 Holm, John A 131 Hopper, Paul J 70 Huang, Shu Jun Vivien 37 66 Name index Hull, David L 127 K Kaufman, Terrence 132, 134, 136 Kerswill, Paul 55 Khoo, Joo Ee 142 Killingley, Siew-Yue 25, 34 Kuo, Eddie C Y Kuteva, Tanai 69 Kwan-Terry, Anna 119, 126 Kwok, Helen 47, 48 L Labov, William 11, 75 Lass, Roger 141 Lau, Wen Li 25, 37, 56 Lee, Ee May 24 Leow, B G 2, 6, 20 Li, Charles N 111, 114, 115, 135 Lien, C 138, 148 Lightfoot, David 141 Lim, C Lim, Choon Yeoh 92, 126 Lim, Li San 81, 82, 137 Lim, Lisa 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 28, 37–39, 47, 49, 51, 52, 55, 61, 71, 118, 128, 129, 140–142, 148 Lim, Sonny 25, 34 Lim, Su Tsi Jacqueline 84, 93–95, 102 Llamzon, A Lock, Graham 20, 25, 34 Loh, P F S Loke, K.-K 48 Low, Ee Ling 13, 38, 44 Low, J M.-Y 48 Lowenberg, P H M Matthews, Stephen J 61, 74, 129, 131, 133, 138, 142, 143, 145 McCarthy, Michael 11 McWhorter, John 129, 136, 143, 147 Mintz, Malcolm W 114 Mithun, Marianne 58, 59 Moorthy, Shanti Marion 29 Mufwene, Salikoko 7, 127, 129–131, 141, 143–146 Muysken, Pieter 136 N Newbrook, Mark Ng, Poey Siong Ng, Sandy 28, 37, 54, 55 O Ooi, Vincent B Y 16 Othman, Z 37 P Pacioni, Patrizia 61 Pakir, Anne 1, 5, 6, 129, 142 Pan, Lynn 132 Perlmutter, David M 72 Phillipson, R 18 Platt, John 6–9, 12, 13, 16, 29, 44, 48, 65, 66, 71, 73, 83, 101, 118, 119, 122, 129, 136, 141, 145, 148 Poedjosoedarmo, Gloria R 25, 27, 30, 34, 52, 53 Prentice, D J 131 Q Quirk, Randolph 17, 41, 80, 100 R Rappa, Antonio 142 Richards, Jack C 10, 45, 119 Rickford, John 75 Roach, Peter 24 Romaine, Suzanne 145 Ross, John Robert 72 Rubdy, Rani 17 Rudolph, Jurgen 142, 143 S Sadock, Jerrold M 58 Schneider, Edgar 6, 7, 9, 16, 25, 144 Sells, Peter 75 Singh, Rajendra 109, 111 Skutnabb-Kangas, T 18 Smith, Norval 136 Soames, Scott 72 Stroud, Christopher 146 T Tan, Ee Lyn 29 Tan, Ying Ying 51, 52 Name index Tay, Mary W J 6, 9, 10, 19, 38, 39, 45, 119 Thomason, Sarah Grey 132, 134, 136 Thompson, Sandra A 111, 114, 115, 135 Tickoo, M L 4, Tongue, Ray K 1, 7, 8, 29, 136 Traugott, Elizabeth C 70 Trudgill, Peter 129 Tsao, Feng-fu 133, 134 V Vendler, Zeno 102 Verkuyl, Henk J 102 W Warner, Anthony 83 Watts, Richard 129 Weber, Heidi 6-9, 16, 29, 44, 65, 71, 83, 101, 136 Wee, Lionel 14–16, 19, 41, 45–47, 63, 66, 92, 97–102, 113, 114, 122, 126, 129, 133–135, 138–140, 148 Wells, John C 20 Wetzer, H 135 Whinnom, K 127 Wierzbicka, Anna 101 Wolfram, Walt 75 Wong, Jock Onn 119, 121, 126 Y Yap, F H 70, 140 Yeow, Kok Liang 38 Yip, Virginia 133 Z Zhang, M 133, 134 Zhu, Shenfa 38, 39, 49 167 Subject index A accommodation 11 acrolect(al) 8, 9, 16 see also Standard Singapore English (SSE) adstrate(s) 132, 134, 135, 136, 138, 141, 149 affection 63, 106–108, 114–116 agreement see number agreement; subjectverb agreement Aktionsart 97 Anterior 136, 137 aspect 79, 99, 106, 111, 136–138 aspectual class 76, 92–95 aspectual composition 102 see also TMA attenuation (-ive) 109–112, 114–117, 134 auxiliary (-ies) 14, 75, 76, 81–83, 85–91, 97, 99–101, 124, 125 auxiliary system, English 99 B Baba(s) 131, 142, 143, 147 see also Peranakans; (Baba) Malay Bahasa Pasar see also (Bazaar) Malay basilect(al) 8, 9, 16, 58, 60, 61, 64, 129, 144–148 bilingual(ism) 1, 5, 12, 145 C Cantonese 2, 7, 19, 20, 25–27, 35, 47, 48, 55, 61, 65, 132, 134, 135, 138, 140, 145, 146 Chinese 2–6, 11, 12, 20, 28, 32, 37, 47, 48, 52, 56, 113–116, 130, 132, 135, 142, 147, 148 Chinese-medium 4, code switching/ mixing 11, 15, 66, 73 Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) 1, 10, 14–20, 38, 45, 48, 53–55, 57, 66, 73, 75, 76, 99, 100, 102, 105, 106, 139, 140, 149 see also mesolect(al); Singapore English (SE); Singlish; Standard Singapore English (SSE) comparative 48, 108, 109 consonants 27–37, 55 continuity 109–111, 114–117, 133, 134 count/ non-count 57, 63, 64 Creole/ creole(s) 8–10, 127–129, 131, 136, 142–144, 147 creole genesis 129 creolisation 15, 127, 131, 136, 141–143, 146, 147 creoloid 9, 129 D declarative(s) 39, 42, 45, 47, 48, 119, 124–126 definite articles 57, 58, 60, 61 definiteness 58, 73 diglossia (-ic) 10, 145, 146 discourse particle(s) see particle(s) ‘do-support’ 91, 92 duration 22, 50, 52 see also length Durative 137 Dutch 2, 132 E education 3–7, 12, 17, 132, 135, 141, 143 see also policy(-ies), language/ education; English-medium; Chinese-medium endonormative 9, 144 endonormative stabilisation 7, 12, 13 English-medium 3–5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 130, 143, 144 error analysis 7, 10, 14 ethnic(-ity) / (group) 2, 5, 10, 15, 19, 142 Eurasian(s) 2, 131, 142, 143 exclamative(s) 41, 43 existential clauses/ constructions 78, 82, 84, 135 exonormative 70 Subject index F focus 19, 37, 49–53 Founder Principle 130, 143 G General American (GA) 20–25, 31, 54 Grammar of Spoken Singapore English Corpus (GSSEC) 10–13, 18, 75, 76, 100, 129 H Habitual 78–80, 136, 137 Hainanese 2, 132 Hokkien 6, 7, 19, 20, 25–27, 34, 35, 47, 48, 52, 55, 65, 132, 134, 135, 138, 139, 142, 143, 145, 148 hybridisation 127, 137 I iconicity 112 imperative(s) 41, 46, 47, 126 implicature 110, 120 incorporation, noun 58, 59, 139, 140 indefinite article(s) 57–61 indefiniteness 58, 73, 114, 115 Indian 2, 5, 11, 12, 37, 43, 50, 52, 56, 142, 148 Indonesia(n)(s) 2, 132 intensification 108, 109, 114–116, 134 International Transcription System for Intonation (INTSINT) 38 interrogative(s) 39, 40, 46, 47, 76, 86, 91, 119, 124, 125 wh- interrogative(s) 39, 40, 76, 91, 101 yes-no interrogative(s) 40, 47 declarative interrogative(s) 47 question tag(s) 46 intimacy 63, 106, 108, 114–116, 134 intonation 14, 38–49 Irrealis 100, 136, 137 K Kristang 142 L lectal continuum 8, 9, 16, 19, 61, 66, 73, 129, 139 length 22, 25, 27, 50, 52, 53 see also duration lexicon 7, 132 lexifier 130, 132, 136, 145 lingua franca 3–6, 8, 131, 141 linguistic homogeneisation 16 literacy loudness 44, 49–53 M Malacca 2, 3, 142 Malay(s) 2–8, 11, 12, 19, 20, 25–28, 31, 32, 35–37, 43, 50, 52, 53, 55, 56, 65, 71, 113– 117, 131–133, 135, 136, 138, 139–143, 145–148 Baba Malay 131, 132, 142, 147 Bazaar Malay 3, 6, 131, 132, 134, 141, 143, 145–147 Cocos Malay 133, 141 restructured Malay 131, 135, 141, 142 Trade Malay 131, 145 Mandarin 5, 6, 19, 20, 25–27, 34, 36, 52, 55, 61, 114–116, 132, 135, 138–140, 146, 148 mesolect(al) 8, 9, 16, 19, 54, 61, 129, 130, 144, 145 see also Colloquial Singapore English (CSE); Singlish Min 132–134, 138 mother tongue 1, 5, 18 multilingual(ism) 10, 12, 17, 18, 130, 131, 146, 147 N native speaker 6, 10, 12, 15 nativisation negation 76, 85, 88–92, 99 New Variety of English (NVE) 128, 129 Non-punctual 137 noun incorporation see incorporation noun phrase(s) (NP) 14, 57–74, 78, 82, 84, 88, 89, 96, 101, 139 bare NPs 61, 65, 129 head noun 62 heavy NP shift 57, 72, 73 see also object (NP); subject (NP) nucleus (-ei) 38, 48, 49 Subject index number 14, 57, 59, 63–66, 73, 77, 136, 139 number agreement 57, 59, 63, 65, 66, 73, 139 O object 71, 96, 139 object NP(s) 71, 96 observer’s paradox 11 official language 5, one 14, 57, 66–71, 113, 139, 140 P particle(s) 15, 19, 41, 45–48, 50, 53, 66, 70, 76, 101, 102, 105, 106, 117–126, 149 ah 41, 46–51, 62, 66–68, 81, 82, 96, 97, 102, 108, 123, 137 hah 76, 96, 100, 103–106, 118, 125, 126 hor 66, 76, 100, 103–106, 118, 123–126 lah 29, 41, 45–47, 49–51, 60, 63, 64, 66, 71, 78, 83, 86, 91–93, 95, 98, 101, 104–106, 117–125, 137 leh 47, 48, 50, 76, 100, 103, 104, 106, 118, 122, 126 lor 41, 47, 48, 76, 83, 96, 98, 100, 103, 104, 106, 118, 121–126 ma 103, 104, 106, 119–120, 125, 126 meh 96, 103–106, 117, 118, 121, 126 wat/ what 45, 50, 51, 95, 96, 106, 118, 120, 121, 124, 125, 137 passive(s) 15, 76, 86–88, 97–99, 102, 138–140, 148 kena passive 97–99, 102, 138, 139, 148 Penang 2, 3, 142 Peranakan(s) 2, 131, 143, 147 see also Baba(s); (Baba) Malay Perfective 136, 137 person 77, 78, 136 phrase-final (position) 42, 43, 45, 50, 53 see also sentence-final position; utterance-final position phrase-final lengthening 37, 43, 52 pidgin(s) 127–129, 131, 141, 143 pitch 38, 39, 42–53, 118 plurality 115, 134 policy (-ies), language/ education 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 17, 20, 144 polyfunctional(ity) 57, 69, 71, 73, 74, 139, 140 polyglossia 145 post-creole continuum 8, 10 pragmatic particle(s) see particle(s) predicate phrase(s) 82, 84, 85 pro-drop 57, 71, 73 Progressive 79, 85, 87, 88, 136 prominence 19, 37, 38, 43–45, 49–53 prosody (-ic) 19, 37–53 R reduplication 15, 76, 105–117, 126, 132– 135, 140 adjectival reduplication 108, 109, 114–116, 133 nominal reduplication 63, 106–108, 114–116 verb(al) reduplication 15, 76, 92, 93, 95–97, 99, 109–112, 114–116, 133 relative clause 57, 66, 67, 113 Received Pronunciation (RP) 19, 29, 31, 34, 39–41, 55 see also Standard Southern British English (SSBE) S sentence-final position 43, 67, 117 see also phrase-final; utterance-final position Singapore English (SE) 1, 7–18, 127–147 see also Colloquial Singapore English (CSE); Standard Singapore English (SSE) Singlish 1, 16, 17, 146, 148 see also Colloquial Singapore English; mesolect(al); Singapore English (SE); Standard Singapore English (SSE) Sinitic 53, 59, 61, 71, 132, 133, 135, 136, 138, 139, 145–148 solidarity 45, 46, 101, 119 Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) 17, 105 standard 7–9, 11, 14, 17, 54, 105, 130 Standard English (StdE) 8, 9, 17, 27, 53, 58–64, 66, 67, 71–73, 75, 76, 93, 97, 99, 102, 112, 113, 127, 130, 132, 133, 135, 136, 142–148 Standard Lexical Sets 20, 21 171 72 Subject index Standard Singapore English (SSE) 8–10, 15, 16, 18–22, 54, 55 see also Colloquial Singapore English (CSE); Singapore English (SE) Standard Southern British English (SSBE) 20–25, 27–32, 34, 39, 42, 46, 50, 51, 54, 55 see also Received Pronunciation (RP) Straits Settlements 2–4 stress 14, 38, 47, 48, 51, 52 subject 69, 98, 99, 135 subject-auxiliary inversion 85, 86, 91, 101 subject NP(s) 71, 72, 76, 78, 82, 88, 89 subject-verb agreement 14, 78 substandard 8, 17 substrate(s)/ substratal influence 19, 25, 27, 34–37, 47, 48, 52, 53, 57, 59, 61, 65, 66, 71, 113, 114, 116, 127, 132, 134–136, 138, 141, 143, 145, 146, 149 superlative 108 superstrate syllable 27–32, 38, 39, 42, 43, 47, 50, 52, 55, 107 syllable structure 34, 35, 37 T Tamil 5–8, 19, 20, 25-28, 31, 32, 36, 37, 50, 53, 55, 68, 132, 142, 148 tense 33, 65, 77-82, 84, 93, 99–101, 136 see also TMA Teochew 2, 132 TMA 136, 137, 140 see also aspect; tense tone(s) 38–53 in Chinese languages 47, 48 in INTSINT 38 in RP 39, 41, level tone(s)/ steps 42, 43, 47, 48, 53 tone (-al) languages 53 topic-comment 57 triplication 133, 134, 139 typological convergence 135, 138, 143 U utterance-final position 50, 51, 69 see also phrase-final; sentence-final position V verb(s) 14, 15, 33, 58, 59, 75–104, 133, 135, 137, 139 copula 14, 15, 76, 82–84, 100, 101, 135 property verbs 133, 135, 148 verb forms 76–78 verb phrase(s) (VP) 83, 93–97, 99, 100, 102 verbal inflection(s) 77 vernacular 11, 13, 131, 132 Voice Onset Time (VOT) 28, 29, 37, 55 vowel(s) 20–27, 28, 30–32, 44, 55 diphthongs 20, 23–25, 27, 29, 55 monophthongs 20–23 W wh- element/ interrogative see interrogative(s) world Englishes 48 Y Yue 132, 133 In the series Varieties of English Around the World the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: G1 LANHAM, Len W and C.A MACDONALD: The Standard in South African English and its Social History (Julius Groos) Heidelberg, 1979 96 pp Out of print G2 DAY, Rita (ed.): Issues in English Creoles Papers from the 1975 Hawaii Conference (Julius Groos) Heidelberg, 1980 iii, 188 pp Out of print G3 VIERECK, Wolfgang, Edgar W SCHNEIDER and Manfred GÖRLACH (comps.): A Bibliography of Writings on Varieties of English, 1965–1983 1984 iv, 319 pp G4 VIERECK, Wolfgang (ed.): Focus on: England and Wales 1984 iv, 304 pp (includes 40 maps) G5 GÖRLACH, Manfred (ed.): Focus on Scotland 1985 iv, 241 pp Out of print G6 PETYT, K.M.: 'Dialect' and 'Accent' in Industrial West Yorkshire 1985 viii, 401 pp G7 PENFIELD, Joyce and Jack ORNSTEIN-GALICIA: Chicano English 1985 vii, 112 pp Out of print G8 GÖRLACH, Manfred and John HOLM (eds.): Focus on the Caribbean 1986 viii, 209 pp G9 GÖRLACH, Manfred: Englishes Studies in varieties of English 1984–1988 1991 211 pp G10 FISCHER, Andreas and Daniel AMMAN: An Index to Dialect Maps of Great Britain 1991 iv, 150 pp G11 CLARKE, Sandra (ed.): Focus on Canada 1993 xii, 302 pp G12 GLAUSER, Beat, Edgar W SCHNEIDER and Manfred GÖRLACH: A New Bibliography of Writings on Varieties of English, 1984–1992/93 1993 208 pp G13 GÖRLACH, Manfred: More Englishes New studies in varieties of English 1988–1994 1995 276 pp G14 McCLURE, J Derrick: Scots and its Literature 1996 vi, 218 pp G15 DE KLERK, Vivian (ed.): Focus on South Africa 1996 iv, 328 pp G16 SCHNEIDER, Edgar W (ed.): Focus on the USA 1996 vi, 368 pp G17 PATRICK, Peter L.: Urban Jamaican Creole Variation in the Mesolect 1999 xx, 329 pp G18 SCHNEIDER, Edgar W (ed.): Englishes around the World Studies in honour of Manfred Görlach Volume 1: General studies, British Isles, North America 1997 vi, 329 pp G19 SCHNEIDER, Edgar W (ed.): Englishes around the World Studies in honour of Manfred Görlach Volume 2: Carribbean, Africa, Asia, Australasia 1997 viii, 358 pp G20 MACAULAY, Ronald K.S.: Standards and Variation in Urban Speech Examples from Lowland Scots 1997 x, 201 G21 KALLEN, Jeffrey L (ed.): Focus on Ireland 1997 xviii, 260 pp G22 GÖRLACH, Manfred: Even More Englishes Studies 1996–1997 With a foreword by John Spencer 1998 x, 260 pp G23 HUNDT, Marianne: New Zealand English Grammar – Fact or Fiction? A corpus-based study in morphosyntactic variation 1998 xvi, 212 pp G24 HUBER, Magnus: Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context A sociohistorical and structural analysis 1999 xviii, 322 pp + CD rom G25 BELL, Allan and Koenraad KUIPER (eds.): New Zealand English JB/Victoria UP, 2000 368 pp G26 BLAIR, David and Peter COLLINS (eds.): English in Australia 2001 vi, 368 pp G27 LANEHART, Sonja L (ed.): Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English 2001 xviii, 373 pp G28 GÖRLACH, Manfred: Still More Englishes 2002 xiv, 240 pp G29 NELSON, Gerald, Sean WALLIS and Bas AARTS: Exploring Natural Language Working with the British Component of the International Corpus of English 2002 xviii, 344 pp G30 ACETO, Michael and Jeffrey P WILLIAMS (eds.): Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean 2003 xx, 322 pp G31 THOMPSON, Roger M.: Filipino English and Taglish Language switching from multiple perspectives 2003 xiv, 288 pp G32 HACKERT, Stephanie: Urban Bahamian Creole System and variation 2004 xiv, 254 pp G33 LIM, Lisa (ed.): Singapore English A grammatical description 2004 xiv, 172 pp T1 TODD, Loreto: Cameroon (Julius Groos) Heidelberg, 1982 180 pp., map Out of print T2 HOLM, John: Central American English (Julius Groos) Heidelberg, 1982 iv, 184 pp., + tape Out of print T3 MACAFEE, Caroline: Glasgow 1983 v, 167 pp T4 PLATT, John, Heidi WEBER and Mian Lian HO: Singapore and Malaysia 1983 iv, 138 pp T5 WAKELIN, Martyn F.: The Southwest of England 1986 xii, 231 pp T6 WINER, Lise: Trinidad and Tobago 1993 xii, 368 pp T7 MEHROTRA, Raja Ram: Indian English Texts and Interpretation 1998 x, 148 pp T8 McCLURE, J Derrick: Doric The dialect of North-East Scotland 2002 vi, 222 pp T9 MÜHLHÄUSLER, Peter, Thomas E DUTTON and Suzanne ROMAINE: Tok Pisin Texts From the beginning to the present 2003 x, 286 pp