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Article published In: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 35:2 (2020) ► pp.293–331

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Changes in the functions of already in Singapore English

A grammaticalization approach

 | Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3, France
Published online: 1 October 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00062.zie
Abstract
The use of the adverb already in Colloquial Singapore English has long been known as one of the most readily recognizable features defining the contact dialect, marking aspectual nuances such as anterior, completive, inchoative and inceptive functions, as noted by Bao (. 2005. The aspectual system of Singapore English and the systemic substratist explanation. Journal of Linguistics 411. 237–267. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2015. The making of vernacular Singapore English: System, transfer and filter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Recent observations note that the uses of already as an inchoative marker (distinguishing the adverb as an iamitive) are more frequently found than completive uses across a small, synchronic sample of speakers (Teo, Ming Chew. 2019. The role of parallel constructions in imposition. A synchronic study of already in Colloquial Singapore English. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 34(2). 347–377. ( )Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). It is perhaps less often recognized, though, that the aspectual use of already co-exists with the variable marking for past tense in Singlish (Ho, Mian Lian & John T. Platt. 1993. Dynamics of a contact continuum. Singaporean English. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and that both the aspectual adverb and the past tense may be seen to co-occur in the same construction. The frequency of already in its various functions is examined across two corpora, and the relative frequency of completive vs. non-completive functions is quantified diachronically. It is hypothesized that, rather than grammaticalizing onwards to become a past tense marker, as is predictable for some Portuguese creole iamitives (ya ‘already’) (. 2006. The lexicalization-grammaticalization continuum. In J. Clancy Clements, Thomas A. Klingler, Deborah Piston-Hatlen & Kevin J. Rottet (eds.), History, society and variation. In honor of Albert Valdman, 77–101. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), already is becoming increasingly restricted in its functional range in today’s Singlish, and that its perfect and completive functions may be at a stage of selective renovation by the use of the past tense in Standard Singapore English.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The situation of English in Singapore
  • 3.Previous studies on the status of Singlish already
    • 3.1More recent studies
  • 4.Categorizing already typologically
    • 4.1Grammaticalization paths
    • 4.2Iamitives and the past tense
    • 4.3Singlish past tense
  • 5.The occurrence of already in corpus data
    • 5.1Examples of each type
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Grammaticalization of already
      • 6.1.1Renovation
      • 6.1.2Already and past tense co-occurrence
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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