Preface and acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- List of figures and tables -- List of tables -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- 1.1 Main terms and definitions -- 1.2 Overview -- Chapter 2 Singapore English -- 2.1 Introduction: Historical background -- 2.2 The sociolinguistics of Singapore English -- 2.2.1 Earlier studies -- 2.2.2 The situation today -- 2.3 Grammatical morphology and discourse features -- 2.3.1 Tense, aspect and modality -- 2.3.2 Other grammatical features -- 2.4 Overview -- Chapter 3 Construction grammars and the paradox of 'mixed' construction types -- 3.1 Introduction: constructions in variational contexts -- 3.2 Questions of construction descriptions -- 3.2.1 Identification and terminology -- 3.2.2 Compositionality -- 3.2.3 Meaning -- 3.2.4 Form-meaning alignment in other accounts -- 3.3 Construction(al)isation -- 3.4 Construction development and coercion -- 3.4.1 Cyclical interaction -- 3.5 Summarising the current position -- Chapter 4 Transitivity and causativity -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 What is a conventionalised scenario? -- 4.2.1 Earlier reference to the conventionalised scenario -- 4.2.2 Adversative conventionalized scenarios -- 4.2.3 Constraints on the use of CSs -- 4.2.4 The causative-resultative alternate -- 4.2.5 Adversative resultatives -- 4.3 Conventionalised scenario constructions in Singaporean English -- 4.3.1 Substrate influence -- 4.3.2 The quantitative survey -- 4.3.3 Results -- 4.3.4 Comparative overview -- 4.4 Discussion -- 4.4.1 Pragmatic mechanisms of causativity reduction -- 4.4.2 The subject role -- 4.5 Summary -- Chapter 5 Experiential aspect -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2 The ever construction -- 5.2.1 Negative polarity ever -- 5.2.2 SCE ever -- 5.3 Contact and substrate languages -- 5.4 Contact grammaticalisation as a possible explanation.

5.5 Historical functions of English ever -- 5.5.1 Universal quantifier uses of ever in SCE -- 5.6 Logical explanations of meaning changes -- 5.7 Discussion -- 5.8 Summary -- Chapter 6 The past tense construction -- 6.1 Introduction -- 6.2 Tense marking in habitual aspect in SCE -- 6.3 Tense marking in habituals in other languages -- 6.3.1 Slavic -- 6.3.2 Chinese dialects -- 6.4 Preliminary survey data -- 6.4.1 Search items -- 6.4.2 Examples of the use of pasts-for-presents (PFP constructions) -- 6.4.3 Distributional frequency -- 6.4.4 Interim summary -- 6.5 Discussion -- 6.5.1 Present-perfectives and the realis-irrealis interface in English -- 6.6 Summary -- Chapter 7 Bare noun constructions -- 7.1 Introduction -- 7.2 Number marking in Singapore Colloquial English count nouns -- 7.3 Specific and non-specific nouns -- 7.4 Bare Noun Constructions in creole systems -- 7.5 Further examples of the Bare Noun Construction in SCE -- 7.5.1 Zero-plural BNCs -- 7.5.2 More recent data -- 7.5.3 Specific markers in SCE -- 7.6 Number marking and the Chinese substrate -- 7.7 The Bare Noun Construction and construction coercion -- 7.8 Applying the coercion hypothesis to the contact data -- 7.8.1 A grammatical metaphor -- 7.9 Summary -- Chapter 8 The Merger Construction: a model of construction convergence -- 8.1 Introduction -- 8.2 Mechanisms of contact construction development -- 8.2.1 Convergence -- 8.2.2 Material and pattern copying -- 8.2.3 Grammaticalisation -- 8.2.4 Equivalence, and other constraints -- 8.2.5 Relexification and systemic transfer -- 8.3 The case studies in the present volume -- 8.3.1 Transitivity and the conventionalised scenario construction -- 8.3.2 The experiential aspect construction -- 8.3.3 The past tense construction -- 8.3.4 The bare noun construction.

8.4 Previous studies of contact constructions -- 8.5 The Merger Construction Model -- 8.5.1 The Transitive Merger-Construction -- 8.5.2 The Experiential ever Merger-Construction -- 8.5.3 The Past Tense Merger-Construction -- 8.5.4 The Bare Noun Merger-Construction -- 8.6 Summary -- Chapter 9 Concluding remarks -- References -- Index.