A corpus-based study of actually and basically in

Singapore English

Paul Doyle and David Deterding

National Institute of Education, Singapore

Actually we were there in Hokkaido around one week and … actually in between we were actually quite safe although there’s a snow storm there … but erm those flights before us and those flights after us they could not actually land.

to see the penguin you have to you have to actually wake up very early in the morning ... to actually go down there and actually view the penguins … so I guess a lot of people didn't actually want to do it ... yeah

actually and basically are both very common in SgE.

They are also common in BrE.

actually : cf BrE

initial medial final

SgE

(NIECSSE)

25% 69% 5%

BrE(Aijmer 2002)

13% 44% 42%

basically : cf BrE

initial medial final

SgE

(NIECSSE)

52% 39% 9%

BrE

(ICE-GB)

28% 56% 16%

pitch plot

actually measurements in NIECSSE

rising non-rising

SgE females 56 16

BrE females 2 3

tones on initial actually

rising non-rising

SgE (NIECSSE) 82% 18%

BrE (Aijmer 2002) 19% 25%

• note: many BrE tokens had no tone

average F0 movement on basically

initial medial (final)

SgE

(NIECSSE)

29 Hz 20 Hz (0 Hz)

BrE

(ICE-GB)

-42 Hz -35 Hz -1 Hz

• note : there are only 3 SgE final tokens

boosted pitch

• SgE tends to have early “boosted “ pitch

• actually and basically seem to carry this booster

• maybe the function of these words in SgE is to carry the booster

Conclusions

• SgE actually and basically tend to occur earlier than BrE tokens

• SgE tokens tend to have rising intonation

• the purpose may be to carry the early “booster” of SgE

• SgE intonation has its own special patterns