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Unit 17: Connected English Speech: Accent

Y+ • 12 PALM Notes
]+ ] 13 THOUGHT
o• o 14 GOAT
u+ u 15 GOOSE
aI ai 16 PRICE
]I ]i 17 CHOICE
a• au 18 MOUTH
I c i c 19 NEAR
e c e 20 SQUARE
Y+ • 21 START
]+ ] 22 NORTH
]+ o 23 FORCE
• c u c 24 CURE
I i 25 HAPPY
c c 26 LETTER
c c 27 COMMA
As (3) shows, many of the vowel oppositions found in SSBE are absent from SgE; and in the great
majority of cases, the main reason for the changes in SgE is the structure of other languages spoken in
Singapore. (The same contact influences account for realisational differences between SgE and other
Englishes. Looking at the various phoneme mergers in SgE in more detail, we find the patterns in (4).
(4) Lexical sets Merged SgE vowel Malay Hokkien
DRESS, TRAP, BATH e e e
KIT, FLEECE i i i
LOT, THOUGHT ] ]
FOOT, GOOSE u • ,u u
STRUT, PALM, START • no low back vowels
In all these cases, lexical sets which have distinct vowels in SSBE (and often in other accents too)
share a single vowel in SgE; and furthermore, this vowel tends to correspond to the vowel found in
either Hokkien, or Malay, or both. Thus, instead of /e/ versus /a/, SgE has only /e/; both Hokkien
and Malay have only a higher vowel in this area, namely /e/ (and realisationally, SgE /e/ raises to
[e] before plosives and affricates, as in bead, neck, neutralising the opposition between /e/, the
monophthong found in FACE words, and /e/in TRAP, DRESS in this context, so that bread - braid, red
- raid, bed - bade are homophones). The merger of the KIT, FLEECE sets follows the pattern for Malay
and Hokkien, and the same is true of STRUT/PALM/START; neither Malay nor Hokkien has any
low back vowels, and the SgE vowel for all these sets is higher and more central; in SgE this merger
means that cart and cut, or charm and chum, are homophonous. In the cases of lot/THOUGHT, and
FOOT/GOOSE, SgE follows the Hokkien pattern; Malay has neither /Z/ nor /]/, but both /• / and
/u/. Whichever local language has exerted most influence in any particular instance, it is clear that
native language systems have acted as a filter or template for non-native learners of Singapore English,
creating the vowel system found today.
17.8 Realisational Differences

In the second type of accent difference, part of the system of phonemes may be the same for two or
more accents, but the realisations of that phoneme or set of phonemes will vary. For instance, in
SSBE, SSE and GA, /l/ has two main allophones, being clear, or alveolar [l] before a stressed vowel,
as in light, clear, but dark, velarised [{] after a stressed vowel, as in dull, bill. This distribution of

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