ABSTRACT
The fourth chapter examines the presence or absence of past tense and plural marking. In this chapter, the variability of past tense and plural marking in Colloquial Singapore English is captured by means of logistic regressions that incorporate both social and linguistic predictors. Examples of linguistic predictors include grammatical aspect, lexical aspect, and priming; while Examples of social predictors include age, ethnicity, education, attitude toward English, and dominance of English. As the multivariate analysis presented in this chapter serves as a possible methodology for the reader to apply to his or her own work, the social and linguistic predictors investigated in this chapter are not meant to be all encompassing or unchanging. Any researcher may alter the predictors in their statistical analysis depending on his or her own research interests. The chapter also includes in-depth analyses of interview transcripts to flesh out how linguistic and social factors influence an individual’s language in specific linguistic contexts.
