On the basis of 698 instances of Saxon genitive and of-construction, the present paper explores the use of these modifiers from a corpus-linguistic perspective. In particular, the influence of the lexical class of the modifier, the semantic relationship expressed by the constructions, and weight and syntactic complexity is analysed. It will be argued that the variation of genitive and of-construction can be explained with regard to two major underlying factors, namely 'processability' and 'degree of human involvement' .

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On the basis of a longitudinal corpus of English produced by German intermediate learners, the present paper explores how noun phrase (NP) complexity develops in terms of global measures of complexity (length, number of modifiers per 1,000 words) in learner data on an intermediate level of competence and describes how the use of individual NP-modification structures changes as learners progress through their three final years of secondary school. An additional objective is to test Biber et al.’s (2011) hypothesized stages of acquisition against our data of intermediate learner English, complementing the data of advanced learner English provided by Parkinson & Musgrave (2014). Our results show that global measures of NP complexity remain stable as learners progress from grades 10 to 12. Zooming in on individual learners and features, the results lend tentative support to Biber et al.’s (2011) stages of acquisition. However, individual variation influences the frequency of noun-phrasal modifiers.

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Since the beginnings of modern popular music, listening to pop songs has been one of the major pastimes in Western countries, raising the question how popular music contributes to the shaping of beliefs and attitudes in general and gender roles and stereotypes in particular. While there is a considerable body of research concerning the depiction of men and women in pop music videos, the lyrics of pop songs, so far, have largely been neglected as a viable source of data. On the basis of two corpora of contemporary pop songs by male and female artists, respectively, the present paper explores discourses of femininity and masculinity as represented in the lyrics of pop songs. It is shown that although the two corpora behave surprisingly similarly in some respects, the way in which male and female artists refer to themselves or to the opposite sex might contribute to the consolidation of unfavourable roles for women.