Keynote speakers

Contact grammaticalisation in Singapore in the 21^st century

Grammaticalisation in a contact situation has been described in previous studies in as a form of ‘Replica grammaticalisation’ (Heine and Kuteva 2003, 2005) in which a grammaticalisation pathway in a model language (M) is followed, stage by stage, in a replica language (R), to produce the same functional requirements found in the model language, but using lexical material from the replica language. Other situations refer to the adoption of lexical material from R to reproduce M-language functions almost instantaneously, without the R language following through the diachronic steps that are apparent in the M language (what Heine and Kuteva label ‘Ordinary contact-induced grammaticalisation’). Another main difference between the two processes is that in Ordinary contact-induced grammaticalisation the strategies employed by the M language are found almost ubiquitously across languages and can be considered cross-linguistically universal.

The former process of Replica grammaticalisation has been criticised for its inability to explain how speakers of R may consciously reproduce historical stages known to have taken place in the history of the M language (Matthews & Yip 2009; Gast & van der Auwera 2012). On the other hand, later studies such as Michaelis & Haspelmath (2020, to appear), dispense with the term ‘Ordinary contact-induced grammaticalisation’ altogether, preferring to describe such processes as ‘constructional re-creation’ or ‘constructional calquing’, and ‘re-creative grammaticalisation’, and discussing the absence of a stage-by-stage pathway as due to the faster time periods in which creoles and other contact languages are created.

In the case of Singapore English, a diglossic variety with a High (standard) sub-variety has been in continuous contact with the Low (Colloquial Singapore English, or Singlish) at least since the introduction of mass English-medium education in the 1960s (see, e.g., Gupta 1991), and it may therefore be questioned exactly how much contact competition now exists between substrate influences and those of the co-existing, standard lexifier. Michaelis (2017) demonstrates that in creoles, tense, aspect and mood categories are modelled on the substrate languages, while only word order appears to be modelled on the lexifier. It cannot be argued that Standard Singapore English exerts no influence whatsoever on Singlish, nor that the substrate languages, which are fast disappearing from everyday use due to local language policy, are as influential as they were in the earlier, post-colonial era. The present paper looks at a number of features of tense, aspect and modality in Singlish, and reconsiders the ways in which the substrate languages and the standard sub-variety both interact to influence present-day Singlish in determining which languages are the Model languages for grammaticalisation. Convergence to the standard is also seen as becoming increasingly conspicuous.

Short Bio

Phd: Monash University, Melbourne, Australia 1997, published as Hypothetical Modality. Grammaticalisation in an L2 Dialect (2000), Benjamins); Habilitation: University Paris 7, 2012. Currently Professor of English Linguistics at the Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle, Paris, I have also worked in Taiwan (National Tsing Hua University), the University of Manchester, and the National University of Singapore. I have been researching in Singapore English since my Phd, alternatively with studies on grammaticalisation in the history of English, hence the second book (2006, Benjamins): Interfaces with English Aspect. Diachronic and Empirical Studies. My third monograph, Converging Grammars. Constructions in Singapore English (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter), looks at the contradictions arising from the application of construction grammar theory to contact situations, and proposes the hypothesis of ‘merger constructions’. I have also co-edited (with Bao Zhiming): Negation and Contact. With Special Focus on Singapore English (2017, Benjamins), a collection of papers dealing mainly with the expression of negation in contact languages.