Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-13T05:11:08.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Expanding the scope of grammatical variation: towards a comprehensive account of genitive variation across registers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2023

DOUGLAS BIBER Open the ORCID record for DOUGLAS BIBER [Opens in a new window] ,
BENEDIKT SZMRECSANYI Open the ORCID record for BENEDIKT SZMRECSANYI [Opens in a new window] ,
RANDI REPPEN Open the ORCID record for RANDI REPPEN [Opens in a new window]  and
TOVE LARSSON Open the ORCID record for TOVE LARSSON [Opens in a new window]
DOUGLAS BIBER
Affiliation:
Authors’ addresses: English Department (Applied Linguistics Program) Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011-6032 USA Douglas.Biber@nau.edu Randi.Reppen@nau.edu Tove.Larsson@nau.edu
BENEDIKT SZMRECSANYI
Affiliation:
Faculty of Arts (Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics) KU Leuven Blijde-Inkomststraat 21 – box 3308 3000 Leuven Belgium Benedikt.Szmrecsanyi@kuleuven.be
RANDI REPPEN
Affiliation:
Authors’ addresses: English Department (Applied Linguistics Program) Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011-6032 USA Douglas.Biber@nau.edu Randi.Reppen@nau.edu Tove.Larsson@nau.edu
TOVE LARSSON
Affiliation:
Authors’ addresses: English Department (Applied Linguistics Program) Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011-6032 USA Douglas.Biber@nau.edu Randi.Reppen@nau.edu Tove.Larsson@nau.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most studies of genitive variation in English have considered only the choice of two variants ('s versus of), based on analysis of only tokens that are judged to be interchangeable. We argue in the present article that research on genitive variation can be usefully extended in both respects: including premodifying nouns as a third variant; and attempting to account for all tokens of the genitive. In addition, we extend the scope of analysis to explore the possibility of contextual constraints having different importance in different registers.

First, we carry out a text-linguistic analysis comparing the rates of genitive variants in texts from three registers (conversation, newspaper reports, academic articles), showing that genitives overall are much more frequent in written registers, with the premodifying noun variant being especially frequent. Then, a variationist analysis is undertaken to account for the choice of genitive variant in particular contexts and registers. A total of 3,425 genitive tokens were coded for ten contextual characteristics (e.g. length of the Modifying NP, semantic category of the Modifying noun and the Head noun, final sibilancy of the Modifying noun). Statistical analyses with random forests and conditional inference trees are triangulated, showing how contextual factors interact in predicting the use of each genitive variant – and how patterns of variation differ across registers.

Keywords

genitivespremodifying nounstext-linguistic versus variationist analysesregister variation
Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 2024 , pp. 95 - 133
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aaron, Jessi E. 2010. Pushing the envelope: Looking beyond the variable context. Language Variation and Change 22, 1–36.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas. 1988. Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas. 2014. Using multi-dimensional analysis to explore cross-linguistic universals of register variation. Languages in Contrast 14(1), 7–34.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas. 2019. Text-linguistic approaches to register variation. Register Studies 1, 42–75.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas & Conrad, Susan. 2019. Register, genre, and style, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas & Egbert, Jesse. 2023. What is a register? Accounting for linguistic and situational variation within – and outside of – textual varieties. Register Studies 5, 1–22.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Egbert, Jesse, Gray, Bethany, Oppliger, Rahel & Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2016. Variationist versus text-linguistic approaches to grammatical change in English: Nominal modifiers of head nouns. In Kytö, Merja & Pahta, Päivi (eds.), Cambridge handbook of English historical linguistics, 351–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas & Gray, Bethany. 2016. Grammatical complexity in academic English: Linguistic change in writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward. 2021. Grammar of spoken and written English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [First published in 1999 by Longman.]Google Scholar
Brook, Marisa. 2018. Taking it up a level: Copy-raising and cascaded tiers of morphosyntactic change. Language Variation and Change 30, 231–60.Google Scholar
Egbert, Jesse & Davies, Mark. 2019. If olive oil is made of olives, then what's baby oil made of? The shifting semantics of Noun+Noun sequences in American English. In Egbert, Jesse & Baker, Paul (eds.), Using corpus methods to triangulate linguistic analysis. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Engel, Alexandra. 2022. The register specificity of probabilistic grammars in English and Dutch. PhD dissertation, KU Leuven.Google Scholar
Engel, Alexandra, Grafmiller, Jason, Rosseel, L. & Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2022. Assessing the complexity of lectal competence: The register specificity of the dative alternation after give. Cognitive Linguistics 33(4), 727–66.Google Scholar
Engel, Alexandra & Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2023. Variable grammars are variable across registers: future temporal reference in English. Language Variation and Change 34(3), 355–78.Google Scholar
Fahy, Matthew, Egbert, Jesse, Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt & Biber, Douglas. 2022. Comparing logistic regression, multinomial regression, classification trees and random forests applied to ternary variables: Three-way genitive variation in English. In Schützler, Ole & Schlüter, Julia (eds.), Data and methods in corpus linguistics: Comparative approaches, 194–223. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grafmiller, Jason. 2014. Variation in English genitives across modality and genres. English Language and Linguistics 18(3), 471–96.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory. 2005. Grammar and usage: A variationist response. [Letters to Language.] Language 81(3), 561–3.Google Scholar
Heller, Benedikt, Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt & Grafmiller, Jason. 2017. Stability and fluidity in syntactic variation world-wide: The genitive alternation across varieties of English. Journal of English Linguistics 45(1), 3–27.Google Scholar
Hinrichs, Lars & Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2007. Recent changes in the function and frequency of standard English genitive constructions: A multivariate analysis of tagged corpora. English Language and Linguistics 11(3), 437–74.Google Scholar
Jankowski, Bridget & Tagliamonte, Sali. 2014. On the genitive's trail: Data and method from a sociolinguistic perspective. English Language and Linguistics 18(2), 305–29.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1969. Contraction, deletion, and inherent variability of the English copula. Language 45(4), 715–62.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2010. Principles of linguistic change, vol. 3: Cognitive and cultural factors (Language in Society 39). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Payne, John & Berlage, Eva. 2014. Genitive variation: The niche role of the oblique genitive. English Language and Linguistics 18(2), 331–60.Google Scholar
Rosenbach, Anette. 2002. Genitive variation in English: Conceptual factors in synchronic and diachronic studies. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Rosenbach, Anette. 2014. English genitive variation – the state of the art. English Language and Linguistics 18(2), 215–62.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2017. Variationist sociolinguistics and corpus-based variationist linguistics: overlap and cross-pollination potential. Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue canadienne de linguistique 62(4), 1–17.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2019. Register in variationist linguistics. Register Studies 1(1), 76–99.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt & Engel, Alexandra. 2023. A variationist perspective on the comparative complexity of four registers at the intersection of mode and formality. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 19(1), 79–113.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, Grafmiller, Jason, Heller, Benedikt & Rothlisberger, Melanie. 2016. Around the world in three alternations: Modeling syntactic variation in varieties of English. English World-Wide 37(2), 109–37.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2011. Variationist sociolinguistics: Change, observation, interpretation. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. & Harald Baayen, R.. 2012. Models, forests, and trees of York English: Was/were variation as a case study for statistical practice. Language Variation and Change 24(02), 135–78.Google Scholar