5 Conclusion

This webpage has presented the historical distribution of the s-genitive and the of-genitive, the factors that influence the choice of genitive and the hierarchy of the influence of these factors.

The historical distribution of s-genitive and of-genitive is briefly as follows: from the late 10th to 13th century the s-genitive has been the dominant genitive construction, yet from 12th century onwards the use of the of-genitive has gradually increased. In early Modern English there has been a revival of the s-genitive, and in Present-Day English (especially American English), the s-genitive is increasingly popular. Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi (2007) suggest that the popularity of s-genitives could be driven by economy rather than colloquialization and Americanization.

Four groups of factors are mentioned in this webpage: semantic and pragmatic factors (animacy, text frequency of the possessor head and givenness), a phonological factor (final sibilant in the possessor), factors related to processing and parsing (weight and persistence) and economy-related factors (type-token ratio and “nouniness”). It has also been explained how these factors affect the choice of genitive and which ones of them have the strongest effect on the choice of genitive (the hierarchy of the influence of factors).

This webpage has summarized the factors which might influence the genitive choice and has also aimed to explain recent changes of some factors. It also hopes to have given readers a clearer understanding of the two genitive constructions.

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