More onKena‐passives in Singapore English

Abstract

In the so‐called kena‐passive construction in Singapore English (Bao and Wee ), the morphosyntactic realization of the passive feature of irregular verbs is optional (John kena caught/?catch) in contrast to the obligatory realization of the same feature within the English‐derived be‐passive (John was caught/*catch). We propose that this asymmetry follows from the hybrid syntactic structures of the kena‐passive construction. Specifically, we argue that the verb kena allows not only the standard passive structure of the type discussed by Bao and Wee but also the active structure which embeds a sentential complement comprised of pro and the active verb. This analysis is supported by a variety of arguments regarding the kena‐active complement structure independently available in Singapore English (Yap and Lim ) as well as Chinese (Feng ; Huang ) and Baba Malay (Ansaldo and Matthews ), which have been hypothesized in the literature as the two major substrate languages of Singapore English.

The be‐ versusget‐passive alternation in world Englishes

“…Passive constructions have attracted the attention of linguists in world Englishes research for various reasons. On the one hand, there is evidence of structural borrowing, as is the case with the kena‐ passive in Singaporean English (see Fong, 2004: 97–98 or Kim & Sato, 2013). On the other hand, various studies have observed differences in the frequency of be ‐ and get ‐passives, not only across different varieties of English world‐wide but also across the written vs. spoken mode.…”

Relationship building in Vietnamese English written business communication: A systemic functional analysis

“…Kachru, Y. Kachru, and Nelson 2008: xvii). In South East Asia where Vietnam is geographically located, there have been numerous studies regarding localised varieties of English, such as Thai English (Watkhaolarm 2005), Singapore English (Tan-Chia, Fang, and Ang 2013; Kim and Sato 2013;Smakman and Wagenaar 2013), and Malaysian English (Gut, Pillai, and Don 2013). In Vietnam, despite the significant status, features and functions of English used in written business communication, there is a dearth of empirical studies about these issues (Bautista and Gonzalez 2008).…”