Alreadyin Singapore English

In this article I show that already in Singapore English expresses two aspectual properties: the completion of an action (perfectivity) or the beginning of an action (inchoativity). The sentence My son go to school already is potentially ambiguous: it could mean that my son has already gone to school, or my son now goes to school, having reached the school‐going age. The perfective (or completive) use of already is consistent with its lexical meaning in Standard British English, but the source of the second, inchoative use, I argue, is the Chinese particle le , which expresses perfectivity and inchoativity, depending on its position within the sentence.