Of-genitive versus s-genitive: A corpus-based analysis of possessive constructions in 20thcentury English

摘要: This paper examines genitive variation in English, using two methodological approaches. In the manual approach, we extract variants from parsed sub- corpora of text category J (academic writing) B-Brown (1931), Brown (1961) and Frown (1991/2) corpora. Focussing on syntactic parameter, illustrate how principle end-weight gains ground 1930 to 1990. The automatic approach implements constraints confirms findings is used scale British English. Methodologically, show automatically sift out irrelevant corpus examples whose identification would normally need human intervention -- particular, apparent main English constructions which are not genuine alternation.