Singlish Question Formation Strategies

[Sat13] [SN17] [CS26]

Colloquial Singapore English (Singlish) is a contact variety with an English lexifier and Malay/southern Chinese substrate influence. It has three interchangeable question-formation strategies for content questions ([Sat13]):

1. Full wh-movement: "What you think Natalie is baking at 3am ah?"
2. Partial wh-movement: "You think what Natalie is baking at 3am ah?"
3. Wh-in-situ: "You think Natalie is baking what at 3am ah?"

All three express the same meaning ('What do you think Natalie is baking at 3am?') and are used interchangeably. Do-support is optional in Singlish, and ah is a sentence-final particle that marks wh-in-situ questions as non-echo ([SN17]).

Derivational Analyses ([SN17])

• Full movement: successive cyclic overt movement to matrix Spec-CP (same derivation as English, minus obligatory do-support)
• Partial movement: overt movement to intermediate Spec-CP, then covert movement to matrix Spec-CP — encoded as the dedicated WhInterpMechanism.partialMovement constructor (distinct from .covertMovement, which is the Huang-1982 single-step covert analysis used for Mandarin daodi).
• Wh-in-situ: unselective binding by Q operator in matrix C; NO movement (overt or covert)

The covert step in partial movement is evidenced by island sensitivity: partial movement out of complex NPs is unacceptable ([SN17]), while wh-in-situ inside complex NPs is fine (as expected if no movement crosses the island boundary).

structure Singlish.Questions.WhStrategy : Type

A Singlish wh-question formation strategy.

No whReachesMatrixSpecCP field — this is derived from the mechanism via WhInterpMechanism.ReachesSpecCP.

• label : String

  Human-readable label.

• whPosition : Syntax.Question.WhMovementStrategy

  Surface position of the wh-phrase.

• mechanism : Syntax.Question.WhInterpMechanism

  Interpretation mechanism at the syntax-semantics interface.

def Singlish.Questions.instReprWhStrategy.repr : WhStrategy → ℕ → Std.Format

Equations

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@[implicit_reducible]

instance Singlish.Questions.instReprWhStrategy : Repr WhStrategy

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.instReprWhStrategy = { reprPrec := Singlish.Questions.instReprWhStrategy.repr }

def Singlish.Questions.instDecidableEqWhStrategy.decEq (x✝ x✝¹ : WhStrategy) : Decidable (x✝ = x✝¹)

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@[implicit_reducible]

instance Singlish.Questions.instDecidableEqWhStrategy : DecidableEq WhStrategy

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.instDecidableEqWhStrategy = Singlish.Questions.instDecidableEqWhStrategy.decEq

def Singlish.Questions.WhStrategy.ReachesMatrixSpecCP (s : WhStrategy) : Prop

Does the wh-phrase reach matrix Spec-CP? Derived from the mechanism.

Equations

• s.ReachesMatrixSpecCP = s.mechanism.ReachesSpecCP

@[implicit_reducible]

instance Singlish.Questions.instDecidableReachesMatrixSpecCP (s : WhStrategy) : Decidable s.ReachesMatrixSpecCP

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.instDecidableReachesMatrixSpecCP s = id inferInstance

def Singlish.Questions.fullMovement : WhStrategy

Full wh-movement: overt successive cyclic movement to matrix Spec-CP. "What you think Natalie is baking at 3am ah?"

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.fullMovement = { label := "full wh-movement", whPosition := Syntax.Question.WhMovementStrategy.initial, mechanism := Syntax.Question.WhInterpMechanism.overtMovement }

def Singlish.Questions.partialMovement : WhStrategy

Partial wh-movement: overt to intermediate Spec-CP, then covert to matrix Spec-CP — the dedicated two-step constructor. Distinct from the single-step .covertMovement (Huang 1982 / Mandarin daodi). "You think what Natalie is baking at 3am ah?"

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.partialMovement = { label := "partial wh-movement", whPosition := Syntax.Question.WhMovementStrategy.mixed, mechanism := Syntax.Question.WhInterpMechanism.partialMovement }

def Singlish.Questions.whInSitu : WhStrategy

Wh-in-situ: unselective binding by Q in C, no movement. "You think Natalie is baking what at 3am ah?"

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.whInSitu = { label := "wh-in-situ", whPosition := Syntax.Question.WhMovementStrategy.inSitu, mechanism := Syntax.Question.WhInterpMechanism.unselectiveBinding }

def Singlish.Questions.allStrategies : List WhStrategy

All three Singlish strategies.

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.allStrategies = [Singlish.Questions.fullMovement, Singlish.Questions.partialMovement, Singlish.Questions.whInSitu]

theorem Singlish.Questions.fullMovement_reaches : fullMovement.ReachesMatrixSpecCP

theorem Singlish.Questions.partialMovement_reaches : partialMovement.ReachesMatrixSpecCP

theorem Singlish.Questions.whInSitu_does_not_reach : ¬whInSitu.ReachesMatrixSpecCP

theorem Singlish.Questions.inSitu_island_insensitive : ¬whInSitu.mechanism.IslandSensitive

In-situ wh-phrases are island-insensitive (unselective binding). [SN17]: (11b) vs (11a).

theorem Singlish.Questions.partial_island_sensitive : partialMovement.mechanism.IslandSensitive

Partially moved wh-phrases are island-sensitive — the covert second step crosses the boundary at LF. [SN17]: (15).

theorem Singlish.Questions.partial_has_covert_step : partialMovement.mechanism.HasCovertStep

Partial movement involves a covert step (the second of its two steps), distinguishing it from full overt movement.

theorem Singlish.Questions.full_no_covert_step : ¬fullMovement.mechanism.HasCovertStep

Full movement does not involve a covert step.

def Syntax.Question.WhInterpMechanism.toDependencyType : WhInterpMechanism → ShenHuang2026.WhDependencyType

Map a WhInterpMechanism to [SH26]'s coarser WhDependencyType. Overt, covert, and partial movement all map to .movement; unselective binding maps to .binding.

Equations

• Syntax.Question.WhInterpMechanism.overtMovement.toDependencyType = ShenHuang2026.WhDependencyType.movement
• Syntax.Question.WhInterpMechanism.covertMovement.toDependencyType = ShenHuang2026.WhDependencyType.movement
• Syntax.Question.WhInterpMechanism.partialMovement.toDependencyType = ShenHuang2026.WhDependencyType.movement
• Syntax.Question.WhInterpMechanism.unselectiveBinding.toDependencyType = ShenHuang2026.WhDependencyType.binding

theorem Singlish.Questions.singlish_insitu_is_binding : whInSitu.mechanism.toDependencyType = ShenHuang2026.WhDependencyType.binding

Singlish in-situ uses the same dependency type as Mandarin wh-in-situ: binding. This connects Chan & Shen's Singlish analysis to Shen & Huang's cross-linguistic island framework.

theorem Singlish.Questions.singlish_full_is_movement : fullMovement.mechanism.toDependencyType = ShenHuang2026.WhDependencyType.movement

Singlish full movement uses the same dependency type as English wh-movement: movement.

theorem Singlish.Questions.singlish_partial_is_movement : partialMovement.mechanism.toDependencyType = ShenHuang2026.WhDependencyType.movement

Singlish partial movement maps to .movement (it has both an overt step and a covert step, both of which are movement operations).

structure Singlish.Questions.SentenceFinalParticle : Type

ah is a sentence-final particle that blocks echo readings in wh-in-situ questions, ensuring they are interpreted as genuine information-seeking questions. [SN17]: footnote 1.

• form : String
• blocksEchoReading : Bool

@[implicit_reducible]

instance Singlish.Questions.instReprSentenceFinalParticle : Repr SentenceFinalParticle

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.instReprSentenceFinalParticle = { reprPrec := Singlish.Questions.instReprSentenceFinalParticle.repr }

def Singlish.Questions.instReprSentenceFinalParticle.repr : SentenceFinalParticle → ℕ → Std.Format

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@[implicit_reducible]

instance Singlish.Questions.instDecidableEqSentenceFinalParticle : DecidableEq SentenceFinalParticle

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.instDecidableEqSentenceFinalParticle = Singlish.Questions.instDecidableEqSentenceFinalParticle.decEq

def Singlish.Questions.instDecidableEqSentenceFinalParticle.decEq (x✝ x✝¹ : SentenceFinalParticle) : Decidable (x✝ = x✝¹)

Equations

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def Singlish.Questions.ah : SentenceFinalParticle

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.ah = { form := "ah", blocksEchoReading := true }

def Singlish.Questions.theHell : ExpressiveModifier.ExpressiveWhModifier

Singlish the-hell — an aggressively non-D-linked (ANDL) wh-modifier. Theory-neutral lexical entry; the Minimalist POV-feature analysis lives in Syntax/Minimalism/ANDL.lean, the empirical licensing data in Studies/ChanShen2026.lean.

Parametric values: parasitic movement (must adjoin to wh-phrase; cannot move on its own), matrix-scope host requirement.

Equations

• Singlish.Questions.theHell = { form := "the hell", gloss := "the-hell (ANDL intensifier)", movementType := ExpressiveModifier.ANDLMovementType.parasitic }

def Singlish.Questions.question : Syntax.Question.QuestionProfile

Singlish question profile. Not in WALS (contact variety). Wh-movement classified as .mixed because all three strategies (full movement, partial movement, in-situ) are interchangeable ([Sat13]). Polar questions use sentence-final particles (ah, meh) ([SN17]).

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.