Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres

Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt; Hinrichs, Lars

doi:10.1075/silv.2.22szm

Cited by 81 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…We will not speculate as to why our results are different from Hundt and Szmrecsanyi (2012) except to note that their study examined data of a different time period (late 19th and early 20th century) and medium (written) from ours. Next, we saw earlier that previous studies comparing AmE to BrE have reported a number of probabilistic contrasts, such as inanimate possessors discouraging s-genitive usage less strongly in AmE than in BrE, and/or animate possessor more strongly favoring the s-genitive in BrE than in AmE (Jahr Sohrheim 1980; Hinrichs & Szmrecsanyi 2007;Szmrecsanyi & Hinrichs 2008;Szmrecsanyi et al 2014). The previous literature also suggests that in the written medium at least, long possessums favor s-genitive usage in AmE but not in BrE (Hinrichs & Szmrecsanyi 2007).…”

Section: Genitive Variation: Interim Summarymentioning

confidence: 79%

Spoken syntax in a comparative perspective: The dative and genitive alternation in varieties of English

Szmrecsanyi

Grafmiller

Bresnan

et al. 2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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This paper introduces a new resource designed to facilitate the quantitative investigation of syntactic variation in spoken language from a comparative perspective. The datasets comprise homogeneously annotated collections of "interchangeable" (i.e. competing) genitive and dative variants in four varieties of English: American English, British English, Canadian English, and New Zealand English. To showcase the empirical potential of the data source, we present a suggestive analysis that investigates the extent to which the probabilistic grammar of genitive and dative variant choice differs across varieties. The statistical analysis reveals that while there are a number of subtle probabilistic contrasts between the regional varieties under study, there is overall a striking degree of cross-varietal homogeneity. We conclude by outlining directions for future research.

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Section: Genitive Variation: Interim Summarymentioning

confidence: 79%

Spoken syntax in a comparative perspective: The dative and genitive alternation in varieties of English

Szmrecsanyi

Grafmiller

Bresnan

et al. 2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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“…The Early Modern English period, however, sees a revival of the s-genitive, "against all odds" (Rosenbach 2002: 184). In Present-Day English, the s-genitive is comparatively frequent (Rosenbach 2002, Hinrichs & Szmrecsanyi 2007, Szmrecsanyi & Hinrichs 2008), and appears now to be spreading (Potter 1969, Dahl 1971, Raab-Fischer 1995, Rosenbach 2003, Szmrecsanyi 2009). In the news genre specifically, Hinrichs & Szmrecsanyi (2007) diagnose a spread of the s-genitive in late twentieth-century press English which appears to be due to a process of 'economization' .…”

Section: A Very Short History Of Genitive and Dative Variation In Engmentioning

confidence: 97%

Dative and genitive variability in Late Modern English

Wolk

Bresnan

Rosenbach³

et al. 2013

DIA

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200

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We present a cross-constructional approach to the history of the genitive alternation and the dative alternation in Late Modern English (AD 1650 to AD 1999), drawing on richly annotated datasets and modern statistical modeling techniques. We identify cross-constructional similarities in the development of the genitive and the dative alternation over time (mainly with regard to the loosening of the animacy constraint), a development which parallels distributional changes in animacy categories in the corpus material. Theoretically, we transfer the notion of 'probabilistic grammar' to historical data and claim that the corpus models presented reflect past speakers' knowledge about the distribution of genitive and dative variants. The historical data also helps to determine what is constant (and timeless) in the effect of selected factors such as animacy or length, and what is variant.* We express our thanks to the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) for funding the project "Predicting syntax in space and time". We are also grateful to the audiences of the March 2010 workshop on "Probabilistic syntax: Phonetics, diachrony and synchrony" (hosted by the FRIAS) and the November 2010 workshop on "The development of syntactic alternations" (Stanford University) for constructive feedback. We acknowledge helpful comments and suggestions by Ludovic De Cuypere, Beth Levin and Joanna Nykiel, and owe gratitude to Stephanie Shih for advice on coding final sibilancy, and to Katharina Ehret, whose assistance has contributed significantly to the development of our research. Lastly, three anonymous referees provided us with extremely helpful and constructive comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply. The third author is grateful to the University of Paderborn for providing her access to their on-line library resources while working on this article.

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“…Leech et al 2009) have further shown that the two variables take part in different kinds of stylistic change. The progressive, for instance, is a construction that has been discussed in the context of the ongoing colloquialisation of written language in BrE and AmE (Leech et al 2009: 239), whereas the shift towards s-genitives contributes to the densification, or "eco-nomization" (Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi 2007;Szmrecsanyi and Hinrichs 2008), of content observed in some written genres (Leech et al 2009: 250). Both trends are apparent in 20th-century newspaper writing, whereas a text type like personal letters is unlikely to be affected by densification.…”

Section: Progressives and Genitives: An Interim Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animacy in early New Zealand English

Hundt

Szmrecsanyi

2012

EWW

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The literature suggests that animacy effects in present-day spoken New Zealand English (NZE) differ from animacy effects in other varieties of English. We seek to determine if such differences have a history in earlier NZE writing or not. We revisit two grammatical phenomena -progressives and genitives -that are well known to be sensitive to animacy effects, and we study these phenomena in corpora sampling 19th-and early 20th-century written NZE; for reference purposes, we also study parallel samples of 19th-and early 20th-century British English and American English. We indeed find significant regional differences between early New Zealand writing and the other varieties in terms of the effect that animacy has on the frequency and probabilities of grammatical phenomena.Keywords: animacy, progressive, genitive alternation, regional variation, British, American and New Zealand English IntroductionAnimacy matters. Cross-linguistically, animacy effects in grammar are common (for example, Dahl and Fraurud 1996). In English, gradient degrees of NP animacy constrain the choice of various grammatical constructions, such as genitives (see e.g. Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi 2007), datives (e.g. Bresnan and Hay 2008), or relativizers (e.g. Jaeger 2006). Animacy also plays a role in the later stages of the grammaticalisation of constructions such as the progressive in general and the progressive passive in particular: progressives with inanimate subjects increased before the construction's text frequency soared in the 20th century (Hundt 2004a), * We would like to thank the participants of the workshop on areal and regional variation in English historical corpora at the Helsinki Corpus Festival (28 September -2 October 2011). We are also grateful to Edgar W. Schneider and the anonymous reviewer of EWW for their helpful comments and constructive criticism on previous versions of this paper, which allowed us to further develop our ideas and fine-tune the interpretation of the data.

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Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres

Cited by 81 publications

References 13 publications

Spoken syntax in a comparative perspective: The dative and genitive alternation in varieties of English

Spoken syntax in a comparative perspective: The dative and genitive alternation in varieties of English

Dative and genitive variability in Late Modern English

Animacy in early New Zealand English

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