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Genitive variation in letters, history writing and sermons in Late Middle and Early Modern English

  • Teo Juvonen
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English Historical Linguistics 2008
This chapter is in the book English Historical Linguistics 2008

Abstract

This paper analyzes genitive variation from about 1420 to 1640 in three genres, letters, history writing and sermons. The corpus material is selected from the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, second edition (PPCME2), the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English (PPCEME) and the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC). The occurrences of the genitive variants, the sLgenitive and the ofLgenitive, are quantified and categorized according to the factors of possessor weight, topicality and genitive relation. The corpus analysis shows that these factors have a significant impact on genitive variation in all the genres. The analysis also shows that the genres differ significantly from each other. However, the study shows no clear change over time, neither within the genres nor over the period as a whole.

Abstract

This paper analyzes genitive variation from about 1420 to 1640 in three genres, letters, history writing and sermons. The corpus material is selected from the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, second edition (PPCME2), the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English (PPCEME) and the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC). The occurrences of the genitive variants, the sLgenitive and the ofLgenitive, are quantified and categorized according to the factors of possessor weight, topicality and genitive relation. The corpus analysis shows that these factors have a significant impact on genitive variation in all the genres. The analysis also shows that the genres differ significantly from each other. However, the study shows no clear change over time, neither within the genres nor over the period as a whole.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. part iVerbal constructions
  6. “Þonne hate we hine morgensteorra” 11
  7. Tracking and explaining variation and change in the grammar of American English 29
  8. Prevent and the battle of the - ing clauses 45
  9. Prescription or practice? 63
  10. On the idiomatization of “ give + O + to ” constructions 79
  11. The clausal complementation of good in extraposition constructions 95
  12. part iiModality and (marginal) modals
  13. The ‘ fail to ’ construction in Late Modern and Present-Day English 123
  14. The interplay of modal verbs and adverbs 143
  15. Current change in the modal system of English 165
  16. part iiiDevelopments in the English noun phrase
  17. Discontinuous quantificational structures in Old English 185
  18. Genitive variation in letters, history writing and sermons in Late Middle and Early Modern English 197
  19. part ivSyntactic variation and change through contact
  20. On the use of beon and wesan in Old English 217
  21. The reflexes of OE beon as a marker of futurity in early Middle English 237
  22. Stylistic fronting in the history of English 255
  23. Subject and Word index 279
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.314.16juv

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. part iVerbal constructions
  6. “Þonne hate we hine morgensteorra” 11
  7. Tracking and explaining variation and change in the grammar of American English 29
  8. Prevent and the battle of the - ing clauses 45
  9. Prescription or practice? 63
  10. On the idiomatization of “ give + O + to ” constructions 79
  11. The clausal complementation of good in extraposition constructions 95
  12. part iiModality and (marginal) modals
  13. The ‘ fail to ’ construction in Late Modern and Present-Day English 123
  14. The interplay of modal verbs and adverbs 143
  15. Current change in the modal system of English 165
  16. part iiiDevelopments in the English noun phrase
  17. Discontinuous quantificational structures in Old English 185
  18. Genitive variation in letters, history writing and sermons in Late Middle and Early Modern English 197
  19. part ivSyntactic variation and change through contact
  20. On the use of beon and wesan in Old English 217
  21. The reflexes of OE beon as a marker of futurity in early Middle English 237
  22. Stylistic fronting in the history of English 255
  23. Subject and Word index 279
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