The particle ya in Colloquial Singapore English

It has been recently argued that the particles in Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) constitute a grammatical category that actively draws new members to it. Drawing on distributional and collocational evidence, this paper establishes that CSE has a new particle, ya. The paper then proceeds to analyse the discourse pragmatic function of the particle. It shows that a speaker uses the particle ya to (weakly) boost the illocutionary force of a statement, and to also signal that this is a statement that the speaker considers to be uncontroversial in nature. The paper then closes by discussing some observations from the perspective of grammaticalization and sociolinguistic studies - that are consistent with the relative newness of this particle. Regarding grammaticalization, the paper shows that the particle ya is actually more grammaticalized than affirmative yes/ya. It is by comparison more expressive of the speaker's belief-state or attitude. Regarding sociolinguistics, the paper observes that users of the particle ya seem to be mainly females who are in their late thirties or younger.