Pragmatics of the sentence-final uses of can in Colloquial Singapore English Mie Hiramoto * Department of English Language & Literature, National University of Singapore, Block AS5, 7 Arts Link, Singapore 117570, Singapore Received 16 January 2012; received in revised form 24 March 2012; accepted 30 March 2012 Abstract 1 In Colloquial Singapore English (CSE), the default usage of the word can is congruent with that in Standard English. It functions as a modal auxiliary marking epistemic, deontic, and ability meanings. Additionally, the word can is used as a pragmatic marker in sentence final position in CSE. One such function of can represents a pseudo-tag question marker, as in the sentence, ‘Borrow me $5 can?’, which translates to Standard English, ‘Can you lend me $5?’ 2 Another pragmatic function of can is as a discourse marker. Discourse markers are a highly noticeable feature of CSE, with its rich inventory of available particles including lah, lor, leh, wat, hor, meh, and mah, on which a number of scholars have reported. This paper investigates the pragmatic uses of sentence final can in these two functions. Because the positions of pseudo-tag can and discourse marker can overlap, it is at times ambiguous whether can is behaving as pseudo-tag or a discourse marker. I suggest that (1) pseudo-tag question use of can is a type of a calque transferred from CSE's Chinese substrate languages, and (2) discourse particle can is an innovative feature that developed from semantic expansion of the word ‘can’ in CSE under the influence of ‘can’-equivalent terms in the Chinese and Malay substrate languages. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Colloquial Singapore English (CSE); Can; Pseudo-tag question; Discourse particle; Substrate influence; Contact linguistics 1. Introduction This paper discusses the pragmatic functions of the word can in Colloquial Singapore English (CSE). CSE, also known as Singlish, is an English-based contact variety which is often categorized as one of the New Englishes (e.g., Kachru, 1985; Ho and Wong, 2001). According to Bao and Wee (1999), CSE is the ‘‘variety of English spoken [in Singapore] which is a product of intense language contact between English and the local languages’’. Because of the early British trade settlement, British English has been very influential in Singapore since the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819 (Bloom, 1986; Gupta, 1998; Wee, 2004). CSE also exhibits a number of characteristics transferred from the local substrate languages, including varieties of southern Chinese languages, Malay, and to a lesser extent, Tamil (Bao and Wee, 1999:1). It should also be noted that Chinese from the Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, and Teochew speaking areas were among the early immigrants in Singapore. Because CSE shows strong influences from a variety of local languages, researchers’ claims www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Pragmatics 44 (2012) 890--906 * Tel.: +65 8428 4698; fax: +65 6773 2981. E-mail address: ellmh@nus.edu.sg. 1 The following abbreviations are used in this paper. 1SG: first person singular; 1PL: first person plural; 2SG: second person singular; ASP: aspect; CSE: Colloquial Singapore English, DEM: demonstrative; GEN: genitive; LOC: locative; ICE-SIN: the International Corpus of English, Singapore English database; NEG: negation; NUS: National University of Singapore; NZ: New Zealand; PART; particle. 2 This example was publicized as a part of the Singapore Government's Speak Good English Movement 2010/2011 themed ‘‘Get It Right’’ (Taipei Times, 2010). 0378-2166/$ -- see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.03.013