1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. English World-Wide
  4. Volume 46, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 46, Issue 1
  • ISSN 0172-8865
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9730
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

Treebanks (parsed corpora) play an important role in linguistic research, but creating high-quality parses can be very labor-intensive. This paper discusses the prospects of creating such parses in the context of New Englishes and what kinds of research insights parses can deliver. We present Singapore English as a case study. We suggest that despite the many contact-derived lexical and grammatical properties of Singapore English, it is quite feasible to apply an off-the-shelf American English parser to generate parses of Singapore English. In addition, we present an exploratory analysis of noun phrases in a Singapore English treebank, to illustrate the potential of parses and treebanks in research on World Englishes.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/eww.23069.hua
2025-03-21
2025-04-25

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/eww.23069.hua
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Bird, Steven, Ewan Klein, and Edward Loper
    2009 Natural Language Processing with Python. O’Reilly Media Inc.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Greenbaum, Sidney, and Gerald Nelson
    1996 “The International Corpus of English (ICE) project.” World Englishes151: 3–15. 10.1111/j.1467‑971X.1996.tb00088.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.1996.tb00088.x [Google Scholar]
  3. Marcus, Mitchell P., Beatrice Santorini, and Mary Ann Marcinkiewicz
    1993 “Building a large annotated corpus of English: The Penn Treebank.” Computational Linguistics191: 313–330.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Taylor, Ann, Mitchell P. Marcus and Beatrice Santorini
    2003 The Penn Treebank: An overview. InAnne Abeillé, ed., Treebanks. Dordrecht: Springer, 5–22. 10.1007/978‑94‑010‑0201‑1_1
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0201-1_1 [Google Scholar]
  5. Huang, Nick, Jia Wen Hing, Li Lin, and Zhiming Bao
    2022 “A tagged and annotated corpus of Singapore English.” National University of Singapore manuscript.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bao, Zhiming
    1995 “Already in Singapore English”. World Englishes141: 181–188. 10.1111/j.1467‑971X.1995.tb00348.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.1995.tb00348.x [Google Scholar]
  7. 2001 “The Origins of Empty Categories in Singapore English”. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages161: 275–319. 10.1075/jpcl.16.2.03zhi
     https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.16.2.03zhi [Google Scholar]
  8. 2009 “One in Singapore English”. Studies in Language331: 338–365. 10.1075/sl.33.2.05bao
     https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.33.2.05bao [Google Scholar]
  9. 2014 “Got in Singapore English”. InEugene Green, and Charles F. Meyer, eds.The Variability of Current World Englishes. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 147–165. 10.1515/9783110352108.147
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110352108.147 [Google Scholar]
  10. 2015 The Making of Vernacular Singapore English: System, Transfer and Filter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139135375
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139135375 [Google Scholar]
  11. Bao, Zhiming, and Hui Min Lye
    2005 “Systemic Transfer, Topic Prominence, and the Bare Conditional in Singapore English”. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages201: 269–291. 10.1075/jpcl.20.2.03zhi
     https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.20.2.03zhi [Google Scholar]
  12. Bao, Zhiming, and Lionel Wee
    1999 “The Passive in Singapore English”. World Englishes181: 1–11. 10.1111/1467‑971X.00117
     https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-971X.00117 [Google Scholar]
  13. Crewe, William J.
    1977 Singapore English and Standard English: Exercises in Awareness. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Davies, Mark, and Robert Fuchs
    2015 “Expanding Horizons in the Study of World Englishes with the 1.9 Billion Word Global Web-based English Corpus (GloWbE)”. English World-Wide361: 1–28. 10.1075/eww.36.1.01dav
     https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.36.1.01dav [Google Scholar]
  15. Gardner, Matt, Joel Grus, Mark Neumann, Oyvind Tafjord, Pradeep Dasigi, Nelson F. Liu, Matthew Peters, Michael Schmitz, and Luke Zettlemoyer
    2018 “AllenNLP: A Deep Semantic Natural Language Processing Platform”. Proceedings of Workshop for NLP Open Source Software (NLP-OSS), 1–6. 10.18653/v1/W18‑2501
     https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W18-2501 [Google Scholar]
  16. Gonzales, Wilkinson Daniel Wong
    2023 “Broadening Horizons in the Diachronic and Sociolinguistic Study of Philippine English with the Twitter Corpus of Philippine Englishes (TCOPE)”. English World-Wide441: 403–434. 10.1075/eww.22047.gon
     https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.22047.gon [Google Scholar]
  17. Gonzales, Wilkinson Daniel Wong, Mie Hiramoto, Jakob R. E. Leimgruber, and Jun Jie Lim
    2023 “The Corpus of Singapore English Messages (CoSEM)”. World Englishes421: 371–388. 10.1111/weng.12534
     https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12534 [Google Scholar]
  18. Greenbaum, Sidney
    1988 “A Proposal for an International Computerized Corpus of English”. World Englishes71: 315. 10.1111/j.1467‑971X.1988.tb00241.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.1988.tb00241.x [Google Scholar]
  19. Gupta, Anthea Fraser
    1992 “The Pragmatic Particles of Singapore Colloquial English”. Journal of Pragmatics181: 31–57. 10.1016/0378‑2166(92)90106‑L
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(92)90106-L [Google Scholar]
  20. 1994 The Step-tongue: Children’s English in Singapore. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Hiramoto, Mie, and Yosuke Sato
    2012 “Got-interrogatives and Answers in Colloquial Singapore English: Aktionsart and Stativity”. World Englishes311: 186–195. 10.1111/j.1467‑971X.2012.01750.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2012.01750.x [Google Scholar]
  22. Honnibal, Matthew, and Mark Johnson
    2015 “An Improved Non-monotonic Transition System for Dependency Parsing”. Proceedings of the 2015 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, 1373–1378. 10.18653/v1/D15‑1162
     https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/D15-1162 [Google Scholar]
  23. Huang, Nick
    2018 “Control Complements in Mandarin Chinese: Implications for Restructuring and the Chinese Finiteness Debate”. Journal of East Asian Linguistics271: 347–376. 10.1007/s10831‑018‑9185‑1
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s10831-018-9185-1 [Google Scholar]
  24. Jurafsky, Dan, and James H. Martin
    2023 Speech and Language Processing (3rd ed.).
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Kachru, Braj B.
    ed. 1982 The Other Tongue. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Kirk, John M.
    2017 “Developments in the Spoken Component of ICE Corpora”. World Englishes361: 371–386. 10.1111/weng.12277
     https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12277 [Google Scholar]
  27. Kirk, John M., and Gerald Nelson
    2018 “The International Corpus of English project: A Progress Report”. World Englishes371: 697–716. 10.1111/weng.12350
     https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12350 [Google Scholar]
  28. Kitaev, Nikita, Steven Cao, and Dan Klein
    2019 “Multilingual Constituency Parsing with Self-attention and Pre-training”. Proceedings of the 57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 3499–3505. 10.18653/v1/P19‑1340
     https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/P19-1340 [Google Scholar]
  29. Klein, Dan, and Christopher D. Manning
    2003 “Accurate Unlexicalized Parsing”. Proceedings of the 41st Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 423–430. 10.3115/1075096.1075150
     https://doi.org/10.3115/1075096.1075150 [Google Scholar]
  30. Lee, Nala H., Ai Ping Ling, and Hiroki Nomoto
    2009 “Colloquial Singapore English got: Functions and Substratal Influences”. World Englishes281: 293–318. 10.1111/j.1467‑971X.2009.01594.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2009.01594.x [Google Scholar]
  31. Lee, Si Kai
    2022 “On Agreement-drop in Singlish: Topics Never Agree”. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics451: 1–27.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Leimgruber, Jakob. R. E.
    2013 Singapore English: Structure, Variation and Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139225755
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139225755 [Google Scholar]
  33. Leuckert, Sven
    2019 Topicalization in Asian Englishes. New York: Routledge. 10.4324/9781351000437
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351000437 [Google Scholar]
  34. Li, Charles N., and Sandra A. Thompson
    1976 “Subject and Topic: A New Typology of Language”. InCharles N. Li, ed.Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press, 457–489.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Lim, Lisa
    2007 “Mergers and Acquisitions: On the Ages and Origins of Singapore English Particles”. World Englishes271: 446–473. 10.1111/j.1467‑971X.2007.00522.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2007.00522.x [Google Scholar]
  36. Lin, Li
    2022 “A Corpus-based Grammar of Singapore English: Description and Change”. Ph.D. Dissertation, National University of Singapore.
  37. Lin, Li, Kunmei Han, Jia Wen Hing, Luwen Cao, Vincent Ooi, Nick Huang, and Zhiming Bao
    2023 “Tagging Singapore English”. World Englishes421: 624–641. 10.1111/weng.12597
     https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12597 [Google Scholar]
  38. Nelson, Gerald, Sean A. Wallis, and Bas Aarts
    2002 Exploring Natural Language: Working with the British Component of the International Corpus of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/veaw.g29
     https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g29 [Google Scholar]
  39. Platt, John T.
    1975 “The Singapore English Speech Continuum and its Basilect ‘Singlish’ as a ‘Creoloid’”. Anthropological Linguistics171: 363–374.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Qi, Peng, Yuhao Zhang, Yuhui Zhang, Jason Bolton, and Christopher D. Manning
    2020 “Stanza: A Python Natural Language Processing Toolkit for Many Human Languages”. Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) System Demonstrations, 101–108. 10.18653/v1/2020.acl‑demos.14
     https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2020.acl-demos.14 [Google Scholar]
  41. Sato, Yosuke
    2016 “Remarks on the Parameters of Argument Ellipsis: A New Perspective From Singapore English”. Syntax191: 392–411. 10.1111/synt.12127
     https://doi.org/10.1111/synt.12127 [Google Scholar]
  42. Sekine, Satoshi, and Michael John Collins
    2013 “Evalb”. Available athttps://nlp.cs.nyu.edu/evalb/
  43. Tay, Mary W. J.
    1979 “The Uses, Users and Features of English in Singapore”. InJack C. Richardsed.New Varieties of Englishes. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, 91–111.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Teo, Ming Chew
    2020 Crosslinguistic Influence in Singapore English: Linguistic and Social Aspects. London: Routledge. 10.4324/9780429463853
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429463853 [Google Scholar]
  45. Tongue, Ray K.
    1979 The English of Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: Eastern University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Wallis, Sean. A., and Gerald Nelson
    2000 “Exploiting Fuzzy Tree Fragments in the Investigation of Parsed Corpora”. Literary and Linguistic Computing151: 339–361. 10.1093/llc/15.3.339
     https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/15.3.339 [Google Scholar]
  47. Wee, Lionel
    2018 The Singlish Controversy: Language, Culture, and Identity in a Globalizing World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781316855331
     https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316855331 [Google Scholar]
  48. Ziegeler, Debra
    2000 Hypothetical Modality: Grammaticalization in an L2 Dialect. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/slcs.51
     https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.51 [Google Scholar]
  49. 2015 Converging Grammars: Constructions in Singapore English. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. 10.1515/9781614514091
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614514091 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/eww.23069.hua
Loading
Treebanks and World Englishes
English World-Wide 46, 93 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.23069.hua
/content/journals/10.1075/eww.23069.hua
/content/journals/10.1075/eww.23069.hua
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): corpus; language contact; New Englishes; Singapore English; syntactic parsing; treebank; variation; World Englishes

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error