Late nineteenth-century American development: A general equilibrium history: Jeffrey G. Williamson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Pp. x+350. $19·50)

Abstract

Previous research on the variation in past tense marking in Singaporean English has discussed Bickerton's ‘Bioprogram Hypothesis’ (Bickerton, Roots of language. Karoma Publishers Inc., Ann Arbor, 1981) as a possible explanation for the preference for punctual aspect to be marked for past in such dialects. The present study considers this explanation in the light of recent grammaticalization studies, and with statistical data investigates the relation between past tense marking and the development of implicatures of counterfactuality in a selected sample of educated Singaporean English. It is shown that not only substratum features, but important factors pertaining to diachronic processes in the grammatic-alization of past tense are likely to play a significant role in determining the degree to which counterfactual implicatures are perceived in such varieties.