Abstract
In light of recent findings that Singlish (Colloquial Singaporean English) makes use of three densely distributed tones in its intonation, it has been suggested that this variety of English may lack stress. Here I show that initialisms such as NTUC (National Trade Unions Congress) display tonal variation which cannot be explained straightforwardly in terms of lexical access routes, but indicate recursive prosodic word structures linked to lexical frequency. This analysis is supported by frequency counts and acoustic measurements, and represents not only evidence of stress in Singlish, but multiple levels of stress.
Highlights
IntroductionSinglish (colloquial Singaporean English) is a contact variety strongly influenced by various regional languages, especially Southern Min Chinese and Malay
Singlish is a contact variety strongly influenced by various regional languages, especially Southern Min Chinese and Malay
I propose that we find variation in Singlish initialisms because they are left-headed compounds that undergo different degrees of destressing, resulting in different degrees of pword merger
Summary
Singlish (colloquial Singaporean English) is a contact variety strongly influenced by various regional languages, especially Southern Min Chinese and Malay. Ng and Siraj, in contrast, treat these tonal phenomena as stress-dependent intonation: mid tone is linked to (nonfinal) stressed syllables (see section 6). Both analyses are capable of accounting for the vast majority of tonal patterns in Singlish. This study presents additional evidence that Singlish tonal patterns should be treated as stress-dependent, based on Singlish abbreviations such as MOE (Ministry of Education). These abbreviations show tonal variation which cannot be analysed in terms of phonetic reduction or lexical access.
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