The English genitive alternation 143rized by comparatively high informational/lexical density (Hinrichs and
Szmrecsanyi 2007).In addition, the genitive alternation is also sensitive to a number of lan-
guage-external factors:
(v) External factors. In historical terms, the of-genitive has been the long-
term incoming form, yet the s-genitive has bounced back during the
Modern English period and is claimed to be spreading right now, espe-
cially in press language (for instance, Raab-Fischer 1995; Mair 2006).
As for genre/text type stratification, more informal settings usually fa-
vor the s-genitive (for instance, Altenberg 1982: 284) – so, the s-
genitive should be particularly frequent in spoken data (Rosenbach
2002: 39). In terms of geographic differences, the s-genitive is known
to be more frequent in American English than in British English (cf.,
for example, Rosenbach 2003: 395-396).
The univariate impact of each of the factors mentioned above is amply do-
cumented in the literature. The aim of the present research, by contrast, is
to fit a multivariate logistic regression model describing the probabilistic
grammar of genitive choice, with special attention being paid to how the
external factors in (v) shape and determine the factor weights of the internal
factors in (i) – (iv). To address this particular issue, the present study will
rely heavily on visualization techniques such as cluster analysis and multi-
dimensional scaling. An interesting issue along these lines is the cultural-
cognitive motivation driving the on-going spread of the s-genitive, espe-
cially in press language: is this a text-type-interdependent process such that
we are witnessing a ‘colloquialization of the norms of written English’
(Leech and Smith 2006; Hundt and Mair 1999)? Alternatively, are we see-
ing a geography-related process of ‘Americanization’ (such that the s-
genitive would become more frequent in British English because it is fre-
quent in American English’)? Or are we rather dealing with a process of
“economization” (Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi 2007: 469), such that journal-
ists have to increasingly convey ever more information in ever less paper
space, a constraint that would favor the more compact s-genitive?
In addressing these issues, and thus sketching a more complete, more
realistic, and thoroughly usage-based picture of linguistic variation in
space, time, and across text types, the overarching objective of this study is
to explore the gradient interaction between language-internal and language-