Eleven pragmatic particles, loans from Southern varieties of Chinese, are used in Singapore Colloquial English. They express varying degrees of commitment to an utterance, and can be arranged on a single scale of assertiveness. They fall into three main groups: contradictory, assertive, and tentative.Source: Gupta, Anthea Fraser. 1992. The pragmatic particles of Singapore Colloquial English. Journal of Pragmatics, 17:3, 39-65.