The Influence of the Lexifier: Beyond Grammaticalization in Singapore English

The study of language contact in the New Englishes has long been regarded as an object of sociolinguistic investigation, though there have been some excursions into the territory of creolistics. Much less frequently have typological, functionally-based contact grammaticalization theories been applied to the New English varieties. In The Influence of the Lexifier, Ziegeler builds on earlier contact grammaticalization theories, extending them to explain the role of the co-existing lexifier in determining the grammaticalization paths of some under-researched features of Singapore English. Studies discuss the current competition between the substrate and the lexifier in a variety which is strongly influenced by the normative, co-presence of the standard sub-variety. Also discussed are the appearance of lexical persistence, renewal and layering, the gradual nature of contact grammaticalization, of language-internal factors, retentionism and the actuation of transmission, and the question of co-opted discourse elements. Using a comparative, cross-dialectal and cross-linguistic approach, the book provides a new perspective on the significance of the lexifier in contact, intended for all researchers of contact linguistics and grammaticalization.