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Article published In: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 34:2 (2019) ► pp.346–376

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The role of parallel constructions in imposition

A synchronic study of already in Colloquial Singapore English

 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Published online: 25 November 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00042.teo
Abstract
Imposition, a general mechanism of contact-induced change that manifests itself in creole formation, second language acquisition, and even language attrition (Winford, Donald. 2013. On the unity of contact phenomena: the case for imposition. In Carole de Fe’ral (ed.), In and out of Africa: Languages in question. In honour of Robert Nicolai, 43–72. Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), is a result of unequal dominance in a multilingual’s languages, whereby linguistic features from an individual’s more dominant language are transferred to a less dominant language (van Coetsem, Frans. 1988. Loan Phonology and the Two Transfer Types in Language Contact. Dordrecht: Foris. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). In order to flesh out how imposition operates in multilinguals, this study compares the differences between Singaporean Chinese and Malay speakers in their use of already in Colloquial Singapore English. Based on sociolinguistic interview data from twelve Chinese and eight Malay individuals, it is found that Chinese and Malay speakers differ primarily in two ways: (1) the preferred syntactic position for already; (2) the frequency of different contexts that already appears in. By integrating theories from cognitive linguistics and findings from psycholinguistic studies, this paper argues that ‘equivalent’ constructions across two grammatical systems within a multilingual’s mind is a key channel through which imposition operates. To support this argument, differences between the speech of Chinese and Malay speakers are shown to be motivated by the presence or absence of ‘equivalent’ or parallel constructions.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background information
    • 2.1‘already’ in Colloquial Singapore English
    • 2.2Words with similar functions in other languages
      • 2.2.1Mandarin le
      • 2.2.2Mandarin yijing
      • 2.2.3Malay sudah/dah
      • 2.2.4Summary
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Non-completive ‘already’
    • 4.2Completive ‘already’
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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