Debra Ziegeler Converging Grammars Language Contact and Bilingualism Editor Yaron Matras Volume 11 Debra Ziegeler Converging Grammars Constructions in Singapore English ISBN 978-1-61451-571-5 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-409-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0063-3 ISSN 2190-698X Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Compuscript Ltd., Shannon, Ireland Printing and binding: CPI Books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.com Table of contents Preface and acknowledgements ix Abbreviations xi List of figures and tables xiii List of tables xiv Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Main terms and definitions 5 1.2 Overview 9 Chapter 2 Singapore English 15 2.1 Introduction: Historical background 15 2.2 The sociolinguistics of Singapore English 20 2.2 The situation today 24 2.3 Grammatical morphology and discourse features 28 2.1 Tense, aspect and modality 28 2.2 Other grammatical features 34 2.4 Overview 39 Chapter 3 Construction grammars and the paradox of ‘mixed’ construction types 41 3.1 Introduction: constructions in variational contexts 41 3.2 Questions of construction descriptions 43 3.1 Identification and terminology 43 3.4 Form-meaning alignment in other accounts 55 3.4 Construction development and coercion 67 3.5 Summarising the current position 72 Chapter 4 Transitivity and causativity 77 4.2 What is a conventionalised scenario? 80 4.1 Earlier reference to the conventionalised scenario 80 vi Table of contents 4.2 Adversative conventionalized scenarios 82 4.3 Constraints on the use of CSs 85 4.4 The causative‑resultative alternate 88 4.3 Conventionalised scenario constructions in Singaporean English 93 4.2 The quantitative survey 99 4.1 Pragmatic mechanisms of causativity reduction 108 4.2 The subject role 111 4.5 Summary 114 Chapter 5 Experiential aspect 117 5.2 The ever construction 118 5.1 Negative polarity ever 118 5.3 Contact and substrate languages 123 5.4 Contact grammaticalisation as a possible explanation 127 5.5 Historical functions of English ever 132 5.1 Universal quantifier uses of ever in SCE 135 5.6 Logical explanations of meaning changes 136 5.8 Summary 142 Chapter 6 The past tense construction 143 6.2 Tense marking in habitual aspect in SCE 145 6.3 Tense marking in habituals in other languages 149 6.4 Preliminary survey data 154 6.2 Examples of the use of pasts-for-presents (PFP constructions) 156 Table of contents vii 6.1 Present-perfectives and the realis-irrealis interface in English 173 6.6 Summary 178 Chapter 7 Bare noun constructions 181 7.2 Number marking in Singapore Colloquial English count nouns 182 7.3 Specific and non‑specific nouns 184 7.4 Bare Noun Constructions in creole systems 187 7.5 Further examples of the Bare Noun Construction in SCE 191 7.1 Zero‑plural BNCs 191 7.2 More recent data 194 7.3 Specific markers in SCE 197 7.6 Number marking and the Chinese substrate 200 7.7 The Bare Noun Construction and construction coercion 204 7.8 Applying the coercion hypothesis to the contact data 207 7.9 Summary 213 Chapter 8 The Merger Construction: a model of construction convergence 215 8.2 Mechanisms of contact construction development 216 8.2 Material and pattern copying 219 8.4 Equivalence, and other constraints 225 8.5 Relexification and systemic transfer 228 8.3 The case studies in the present volume 232 8.1 Transitivity and the conventionalised scenario construction 234 8.2 The experiential aspect construction 236 8.3 The past tense construction 238 8.4 The bare noun construction 240 8.4 Previous studies of contact constructions 242 8.5 The Merger Construction Model 247 viii Table of contents 8.1 The Transitive Merger-Construction 248 8.2 The Experiential ever Merger-Construction 251 8.3 The Past Tense Merger-Construction 253 8.4 The Bare Noun Merger-Construction 255 8.6 Summary 258 Chapter 9 Concluding remarks 261 References 271 Index 289 Preface and acknowledgements The main inspiration for this collection of studies developed out of one of the studies, summarised in Chapter 7, in which a case for construction coercion was held up for challenge against the data obtainable from Singapore English. In par- ticular, it was inspired by a question posed by one of the referees of Construc- tions and Frames, who asked whether Singapore English should be understood (in construction terms) as actually a dialect of English or a different language.
For the purposes of the present work, the question extends far beyond the puzzling data produced as part of that study, and certainly could be asked of any mixed language situation, creole or otherwise. In response to that initial prompting, I felt it was necessary to approach the problem of constructions in contact situa- tions using data from the more difficult areas of contact such as those in which the transparency of substrate modelling is not so clearly in evidence, and fur- thermore, to attempt to create a theoretical platform based on the use of ambi- guous construction frameworks. The confusion of contact constructions has been tackled by few researchers so far, and it is hoped that the present volume of studies can contribute towards resolving many of the problems that arise from applying a strict construction-based descriptive approach to cases of languages in which the syntax and the lexicon derive from different languages. Amongst the other papers that have contributed to this volume are included one that was written as the output of a one-year UK ESRC grant held at the U niversity of Manchester (2003) (R000223787), with the help of Sarah Lee.
Chapter 4 appears as an extended version of the original study, and includes more detail than was permitted to appear in its original published form due to space limita- tions. I am grateful to all the colleagues and students at Manchester who might have helped in providing scholarly comment or assisting in any way to shape this study. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 were for the most part both written during an enriching, two-year Visiting Fellowship at the National University of Singapore Department of English Language and Literature, 2007-2008, while working in a “dream” office overlooking a romantic tropical harbour, dotted with shining white cargo ships and lined with coconut palms. I am grateful to colleagues and students at the Chinese Department of the National University of Singapore for their comments on the study in Chapter 5, and for inviting me to present an earlier version of the study as a colloquium in their department.
Chapter 6 was the output of a small grant provided by the NUS Faculty Staff Support Scheme (2008-9), and I thank in particular my student assistant, Amelyn Thompson, for her ideas and assis- tance in data gathering for that study. To the many colleagues from the Depart- ment of English Language and Literature at NUS, including Bao Zhi Ming, Vincent x Preface and acknowledgements Ooi, Peter Tan and Lionel Wee, who might have at one time or another provided comments or suggestions on these studies, I am also very grateful. But most of all I must acknowledge the enthusiasm and interest of the undergraduate students of the Department of English Language and Literature at NUS, whose creative passion and infinite respect for learning and scholarship provided me with enor- mous inspiration for research during my two-year visit to Singapore. Other ideas in the studies were presented in France at the AFLiCo conference, University of Lyon II, May 2011, the AFLiCo conference, University of Paris 10, Nanterre, May 2009, and at colloquia and presentations at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University Paris 3, 2012 and 2013.
I am grateful to colleagues including Hilary Chappell, Salikoko Mufwene, and to audience members at those presentations for their assistance and useful comments. The editors and anonymous referees of English World-Wide, Language Sciences, and Constructions and Frames must also be thanked for their suggestions and ideas in contribution to the original papers that formed the basis of Chapters 4, 6, and 7. I am also especially indebted to Yaron Matras, and the editorial team of the Language Contact and Bilingualism Series, for their patience and wise advice on the structure of this book. Others who should be thanked for their comments and suggestions on the work presen- ted in the studies include Werner Abraham, Markku Filppula, Marc Fryd, Larry Horn, Elisabeth Leiss, Diana Lewis, Lucia Tovena, Elizabeth Traugott, and colle- agues and students at the Sesylia seminars at Université Paris III, where sections of the book were presented.
Last but not least, I must thank as always the patient support and encouragement of Tuck, and courageous little Kuai Leui, whose con- stant and loyal companionship on my computer desk never ceases to provide me with the right philosophy on life. Debra Ziegeler Paris, November 2014 Abbreviations 1 1st person 2 2nd person 3 3rd person ACC accusative agt agent ART article ASP aspect marker BA pre-transitive marker BNC bare noun construction CAUS causative CL classifier CR causative-resultative (construction) CRS currently relevant state (le) CS conventionalised scenario DEMPART demonstrative particle EE experiential ever EVD evidential F feminine FUT future INDF indefinite M masculine N(P) noun (phrase) NEG negative marker NPE negative-polarity ever Nom. nominative OBJ object OBL oblique P(P) preposition (phrase) PART participle or converb PASS passive PFP past-for-present PFV perfective PL plural PST/ PAST past pat patient QP question particle xii Abbreviations rec recipient REL relator RP relative pronoun SCE Singapore(an) Colloquial English S/SG singular SUBJ subject SSE Singapore(an) Standard English/Standard Singapore(an) English V(P) verb (phrase) List of figures Fig. 1: Three principle construction types showing form-meaning alignment differences Fig.
1a: Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar Fig. 1b: Croft’s (2001) Radical Construction Grammar Fig. 1c: Goldberg’s construction grammar: composite fused structure caused motion + put (Goldberg 1995: 52) Fig. 1d: Goldberg’s (to appear) caused-motion construction Fig.
2: Cyclical interaction between generalisation and lexical constraints in constructionisation Fig. 3: The transitive construction (Goldberg 1995: 117) Fig. 4: The ACTION FOR RESULT metonymy: metonymic links between the causative-resultative construction (X gets X’s hair cut) and the conventionalised scenario (X cuts X’s hair). 5: Advertising flyer illustrating the variable feature of zero-plural BNCs in Singaporean (commercial) English.
6: Singapore traffic warning sign (April, 2008) Fig. 7: Form-function poles of the Bare Noun Construction in Singapore Colloquial English Fig. 8: The Transitive Merger-Construction Fig. 9: The Experiential ever Merger-Construction Fig.
10: The Past Tense Merger-Construction Fig. 11: The Bare Noun Merger-Construction List of tables Tab. 1: Responses to the elicitation survey, showing frequency of CSs relative to causative resultatives (CRs). 2: Average of totals for causative-resultatives and conventionalised scena- rios, in percentages.
3: Responses using habitual aspect in answer to the lead posting: How long do you take for shower? What’s the first thing that you will mostly do in the bathroom? (ex. 4: Probability of the occurrence of the specific determiner one relative to indefinite article use in a restricted portion of the Flowerpod Corpus (the Pen Club thread). 5: The components and constraints of nominal type-shifting. 6: The components and constraints of count-to-mass type-shifting, using ambiguous examples in (192–212).
Chapter 1 Introduction The vernacular dialect of Singapore English, commonly known as ‘Singlish’, has provided the source for an overwhelming number of research efforts in the past 50 years since the island of Singapore first became an independent nation. In this regard, many or even most of the linguistic studies undertaken on Singlish have focused more particularly on sociolinguistic or socio‑historical factors under‑ lying its development. Such studies have referred, in the past, to proficiency or educational levels (e., Gupta 1991, 1994), and more recently, the diglossic account has been extended to refer to a clear, functional distinction between Singlish and the standard variety of English spoken on the island as well (Alsagoff 2010), which differs little from other standards except perhaps in pronunciation (Gupta 1994). As such, Singapore English in general has not suffered from a dearth of descriptive accounts, reflecting, above all, the way in which the dialect and its sub‑varieties have changed and evolved during the brief period of time in which there has been a consciousness of an autono‑ mous variety of English.