The Functions of 了liǎo in Singapore Mandarin

This paper provides an account of the functions of 了 liǎo in Singapore Mandarin using spoken data. It is found that while liǎo can perform the grammatical roles of le, it presents its own constraints, particularly when used as a perfective aspect marker. Specifically, it occurs with verbal compounds in clause-final positions – an unacceptable construction in Mainland China Mandarin. Additionally, it is also observed that it co-occurs with 了 le at the sentence-final position, resulting in a rather peculiar ‘double-了’ construction. Some explanations are given for these occurrences of liǎo in Singapore Mandarin; most notably, it is hypothesized that Singapore Mandarin has retained the older construction of liao and the retention might have been brought on by the language contact with non-Mandarin dialects like Minnanese. The implication of this study is two-fold: (a) it can first shed light on a linguistic variation found in Singapore Mandarin and (b) it can also potentially serve as a reference study for future research conducted on 了 in general.