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Abstract
Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) is a contact English vernacular, which has been widely studied. Researchers have reported some variations from standard English varieties and contact-induced innovative usages exhibited by CSE, particularly in its tense, aspect and modality (TAM) system. Regarding the past tense category, CSE has two forms: the simple past and got. The former originated from the superstrate language of English, whereas the latter form is an innovation induced by language contact. The simple past has been widely studied in the perspective of sociolinguistics, however, all previous studies assume that it does not exhibit any difference in meaning from that in other standard English varieties. The preverbal got has triggered much attention and debate with respect to its temporal, aspectual and modal meanings, but no consensus has been reached. Both past tense forms have not be explored in subordinate clauses in previous studies. As a consequence, the semantic contributions of the simple past and got in CSE have not been fully explored.
The current dissertation focuses on two past tenses in CSE, with attempt to achieve two goals: (i) to identify the semantics of the two past tenses; (ii) to explore the origins of the semantic
changes exhibited by the two past tenses. To achieve the first goal, the semantic exploration takes neo-Reichenbachian time-relational framework on tense and aspect to thoroughly investigate the past tenses in both matrix and embedded clauses. The main claim made in the semantics component is that both forms are instances of relative past tenses, that is, they denote or refer to times located before a contextually determined reference time. To achieve the second goal, the investigation, grounded in contact linguistics, aims to evaluate the roles played by substratum influence, superstrate input and linguistic universals from a typological perspective. One of the main claims made in the language contact component is that the two past tenses in CSE probably have gone through two different trajectories of change. To account for the origins of the relative past tenses, superstrate input, substratum influence and grammaticalization all play a role.
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