ABSTRACT
The theoretical implications are manifold and include findings on both a micro as well as a macro level. The evolution of L1 SingE has been crucially different from what can be observed in other postcolonial contexts that have English as a first language – from the United States to other former colonies such as Australia or New Zealand. The differences between the two contexts (England vs. Singapore) might appear robust at first glance; however, a difference between the Chinese and Indian children from Singapore can be observed for both of the morphosyntactic features investigated as well. The interplay of variability and heterogeneity on the one hand and systematicity and homogenization tendencies on the other suggests that L1 child SingE is not a completely ungoverned, unsystematic system but a variety “in the making,” with an often diverse set of more formal and more informal options for the realization of a specific feature.
