The particle one of Singapore English is widely used in
Singapore culture, but it is little mentioned and its invariant meaning
has not been described, so that not much is known about its meaning and
the cultural norms it reflects. This article provides a detailed semantic
analysis of this particle, articulates its meaning in the form of a
reductive paraphrase using natural semantic metalanguage, and argues that
its use reflects Singapore English speakers' tendency to speak
definitively and exaggeratedly. The discussion of Singaporean speech norms
reflected by this particle includes reference to relevant Anglo English
speech norms for comparison and contrast.I
am indebted to Anna Wierzbicka for her detailed comments on an earlier
version of this article. I am grateful to Jane Hill, Peter Tan and
another, anonymous reviewer for their very generous and constructive
overall feedback on this paper. I have also benefited from stimulating
discussions with Cynthia Allen and Avery Andrews on the topic of relative
clauses and the syntax of the nominal one. Jane McGary provided
valuable editorial assistance and native Anglo English speaker intuition
in regard to some examples. Last but not least, I would like to express my
gratitude toward writer Hwee Hwee Tan for giving me a soft copy of her
manuscript to do electronic searches.