Publications

Publication details [#65599]

Kuteva, Tania, Debra Ziegeler, Seongha Rhee and Jessica Sabban. 2018. On sentence-final “what” in Singlish: Are you the Queen of England, or what? Journal of language contact 11 (1) : 32–70.

Publication type

Article in journal

Publication language

English

Keywords

language contact | objecting | particle | sentence | student

Language as a subject

English, British | Singlish

Place, Publisher

Brill

Annotation

This paper centers on one special linguistic trait of Singapore Colloquial English (sce), sentence-final what, which has been referred to as an ‘objection particle’ (Smith, 1985: 126). Sentence-final what in sce is assayed in its (synchronic) conduct and (diachronic) evolution, and it is stated that sentence-final what results from a process that began in British English.