Melodic Complexity and Lexical Stress in Singapore English: An Experimental Study

Abstract

This chapter sets out to discover mesolectal vernacular patterns of rhythm in a New English variety, Singapore English (henceforth SE). The evidence comes from two complementary corpora: i. a production corpus of interviews and text reading and ii. experimental data from a nonce word reading. The former indicates a lesser incidence of reduced syllables in SE, especially in tool words, confirming a slight move towards syllable timing instead of stress timing, but does not show notable differences with respect to stress placement. The latter points to strong intuitions about lexical stress placement preferences in general, quite close to inner circle varieties. However, these preferences clearly indicate a steady iambic shift for both verbal and nominal forms. Namely, three quarters of the verbal tokens are iambs for SE speakers compared to only a half for inner-circle speakers. Also, half of the nouns show iambic preference in SE data compared to one quarter in inner circle varieties. These findings confirm the rationale of using complementary corpora (natural speech vs. experimental data) in order to discover mesolectal patterns.