Recent changes in the function and frequency of Standard English genitive constructions: a multivariate analysis of tagged corpora

Abstract

This study of present-day English genitive variation is based on all interchangeable instances of s-and of-genitives from the 'Reportage' and 'Editorial' categories of the 'Brown family' of corpora. Variation is studied by tapping into a number of independent variables, such as precedence of either construction in the text, length of the possessor and possessum phrases, phonological constraints, discourse flow, and animacy of the possessor. In addition to distributional analyses, we use logistic regression to investigate the probabilistic factor weights of these variables, thus tracking language change in progress as evidenced in the language of the press. This method, married to our large database, yields the most detailed perspective to date on frequently discussed issues, such as the relative importance of possessor animacy and end-weight in genitive choice (cf. most recently Rosenbach 2005), or on the exact factorial dynamics responsible for the ongoing spread of the s-genitive.

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

“…that long possessums favor s-genitive usage in AmE but not in BrE; see Hinrichs & Szmrecsanyi 2007). The reason for this, then, may well be that spoken vernaculars of the type covered in our datasets are more homogeneous than written varieties.…”

“…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).…”

“…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). However, our pairwise regression-based comparison between BrE and AmE fails to detect any significant probabilistic differences with regard to genitive choice.…”

“…As to probabilistic variation in the genitive alternation across speech communities, Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi (2007) show that in written-edited-published standard English, non-animate possessors discourage s-genitive usage less strongly in AmE than in BrE, and that long possessums favor s-genitive usage in AmE but not in BrE. Hundt and Szmrecsanyi (2012) find that possessor animacy is overall a more important predictor in (earlier, written) NZE than in (earlier, written) BrE; Jankowski and Tagliamonte (2014) report that in vernacular CanE, the s-genitive is near-categorically used with animate possessors, while inanimate possessors exhibit more variation and apparent-time change.…”

“…However, our pairwise regression-based comparison between BrE and AmE fails to detect any significant probabilistic differences with regard to genitive choice. The most likely reason for this failure is that the present study examines spontaneous spoken data, while Hinrichs & Szmrecsanyi (2007) examined written-edited-published language from sections of the Brown corpora. Recent work has found sizeable differences in genitive usage across spoken and written modes and registers, even within the same variety (Grafmiller 2014), thus the results presented here should be interpreted within the larger context of what we know about genitive variation across different modes, registers and communities.…”