A Grammar of Singapore Indian Malay Sasi Rekha D/O
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarBank@NUS A GRAMMAR OF SINGAPORE INDIAN MALAY SASI REKHA D/O MUTHIAH (B.A. (Hons.), NUS) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS BY RESEARCH IN LANGUAGE STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2007 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My heart abounds with gratitude towards God who gave me the opportunity and the ability to do this thesis. My sincere thanks go to my supervisor Associate Professor Dr Bao Zhiming for his valuable time, guidance and support. I want to especially thank him for his feedback and constant appraisal of my work. He has played a significant role in the development of the paper. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Professor Mark Donohue who was my supervisor in the initial stages of this thesis. I shall always be thankful for his continual guidance, wise insights and above all, his unfailing availability to his students, which I have always found remarkable. It was he who aroused within me an interest for syntax and also initiated this thesis topic. He has impacted both my life and this thesis in a big way. This thesis would not have been possible without my informants: Paatti (Mdm Vadivammah Asirvatham), Amma (Mdm Samathanam), Periamma (Mdm Perijammal), Chithi (Ms Mary Pakiam), Chithappa (Mr Nelson William), Mdm Mohnibai, Mdm Govindammal, Mdm Palaniammal and Mdm Ong Ooh. Data-collection was among the most fun-filled part of this study and I owe it to all my informants. I am also indebted to dear friends Kumari and Naomi who helped to edit this thesis; and Sara who helped in the formatting and such technical aspects. Burps, thanks for all your help, especially with the data from your Nani . I am deeply grateful to the National University of Singapore for awarding me a scholarship to do this research. I TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................................... I TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................................II SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................VI LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. VIII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS........................................................IX CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................1 1.1 INDIAN COMMUNITY IN SINGAPORE ..........................................................................2 1.2 LANGUAGE SITUATION AMONG SINGAPORE INDIANS ...............................................3 1.3 MALAY IN SINGAPORE ...............................................................................................5 1.4 INTRODUCTION TO SIM .............................................................................................7 1.5 SIM: A PIDGIN ............................................................................................................9 1.6 GRAMMAR OF LANGUAGES IN CONTACT .................................................................10 1.7 LINGUISTIC APPROACH ............................................................................................12 1.8 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY .........................................................................................13 1.9 METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................................14 1.9.1 DATA TYPE .........................................................................................................14 1.9.2 DATA SOURCE ....................................................................................................15 1.9.3 DATA ANALYSIS .................................................................................................18 1.10 OUTLINE OF THESIS ..................................................................................................20 CHAPTER 2: LEXICON ......................................................................................................21 2.1 LEXICAL ORIGIN ......................................................................................................22 2.2 NOUNS .....................................................................................................................23 2.3 LOCATIVES ...............................................................................................................28 2.4 NUMERALS ...............................................................................................................29 2.5 PERSONAL PRONOUNS .............................................................................................31 2.6 VERBS AND AUXILIARIES .........................................................................................34 2.7 ADJECTIVE AND ADVERB HOMOMORPHS .................................................................37 2.8 PREPOSITIONAL FORMS ............................................................................................39 2.9 QUANTIFIERS AND INTENSIFIERS .............................................................................42 2.10 DEMONSTRATIVES ...................................................................................................43 II 2.11 NEGATORS ...............................................................................................................44 2.12 QUESTION WORDS ....................................................................................................47 2.13 CONJUNCTIONS ........................................................................................................47 2.14 PARTICLES ...............................................................................................................48 2.15 INTERJECTIONS ........................................................................................................49 2.16 MULTIFUNCTIONALITY OF HOMOMORPHS ...............................................................49 2.17 COMPOUNDS ............................................................................................................51 2.18 REDUPLICATED WORDS ...........................................................................................54 CHAPTER 3: GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES..............................................................61 3.1 MODIFIER -MARKER : PUNYA .....................................................................................61 3.2 CAUSATIVISER : KASI ................................................................................................67 3.3 PUN ..........................................................................................................................69 3.4 SENDIRI ....................................................................................................................70 3.5 EMPHATIC MARKERS ...............................................................................................71 CHAPTER 4: PHRASES.......................................................................................................74 4.1 NOUN PHRASES ........................................................................................................74 4.1.1 PREMODIFIERS ....................................................................................................77 A. DEMONSTRATIVES .........................................................................................77 B. ADJECTIVE PHRASES ......................................................................................78 C. CARDINALS ....................................................................................................80 D. QUANTIFIER ...................................................................................................80 E. POSSESSORS (WITHOUT PUNYA ) .....................................................................81 4.1.2 POSTMODIFIERS ..................................................................................................83 A. PREPOSITION PHRASES ...................................................................................83 B. QUANTIFIER : SUMA .........................................................................................83 C. ORDINALS ......................................................................................................84 4.2 VERB PHRASES .........................................................................................................85 4.2.1 VERB TYPES ........................................................................................................86 A. INTRANSITIVE VERBS .....................................................................................86 B. TRANSITIVE VERBS ........................................................................................87 C. DITRANSITIVE VERBS .....................................................................................89 D. SERIAL VERBS ................................................................................................91 4.2.2 OBJECTS /C OMPLEMENTS : NP, PP ......................................................................91 4.2.3 MODIFIERS .........................................................................................................93 A. MODALS .........................................................................................................93