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Descriptive genitives in English: a case study on constructional gradience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2006

ANETTE ROSENBACH
ANETTE ROSENBACH
Affiliation:
Dept of English Language & Linguistics (Anglistik III), Heinrich-Heine Universität, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, GERMANYar@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de
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Abstract

This article offers an in-depth treatment of a ‘nonprototypical’ s-genitive, i.e. the descriptive genitive (e.g. women's magazine), which has so far received little attention in the grammars of English. Various types of descriptive genitives are distinguished, i.e. classifying, metaphorical, and generic genitives. In addition, the article raises a number of theoretical issues of a more general nature, such as the delimitation of syntactic phrases from compounds. Most importantly, it is argued that descriptive genitives provide evidence for constructional gradience in the English noun phrase in two ways: (1) gradience between determiner genitives and descriptive genitives, and (2) gradience between s-genitives and noun + noun sequences. A central claim is made that semantic overlaps may give rise to constructional gradience. In this respect the present article complements earlier accounts of gradience that have emphasized the importance of structural criteria only. The article concludes with a brief consideration of measure genitives, which are in many ways similar to descriptive genitives.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , May 2006 , pp. 77 - 118
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2006

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Footnotes

I'm grateful to Laurel Brinton, Gerhard Jäger, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Dieter Stein, and Letizia Vezzosi for their comments on an earlier version of this article and/or discussions on the topic. I also thank the two anonymous reviewers of English Language and Linguistics and the editor Bas Aarts for various valuable suggestions. Any remaining errors are of course my own. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant Ro 2408/2-1).