Revision of Germanic possessive -s : an empirical, historical and theoretical study from Mon, 05/07/2010 - 13:31
Grant Holder:
Professor Kersti Börjars
Two much-debated questions in recent theoretical linguistics concern the historical origin of grammatical markers and their synchronic status. Researchers have adduced key evidence for both from the evolution of English possessive -s and the related but subtly different constructions in Swedish and Dutch. What has not to date been attempted, and what the present proposal offers, is a systematic synchronic and diachronic comparison of these constructions across all three languages. The aim is threefold: to provide a consistent multi-lingual dataset; to compare detailed historical trajectories; to develop a theoretical account of these items within a typology of grammatical markers. The basic method will be to extract examples systematically from existing databases of present-day English and Swedish. The historical part of the project will be based largely on existing studies, supplemented by use of historical corpora when required.
Data exported, interface built to replicate functionality of FileMaker layout
| Project start date: 2006-09 | Project end date: 2009-08 |
Subject domains:
Era(s):
Country/region(s):
| Methods used | Category |
|---|---|
| Desktop publishing and pre-press | Data publishing and dissemination |
| Documentation | Strategy and project management |
| Text encoding - descriptive | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Text encoding - presentational | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Interface design | Data publishing and dissemination |
| General project management | Strategy and project management |
| Use of existing digital data | Data capture |
| Manual input and transcription | Data capture |
Funding sources:
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Content types created:
Dataset/structured data
Software tools used:
MySQL, Filemaker Pro, Cygwin
Source material used:
Possessive constructions found in two corpora of spoken language:
* British English: the spoken component of the British National Corpus (c. 10 million words) http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/
* Swedish: the Gothenburg Spoken Language Corpus (c. 1.2 million words) http://www.ling.gu.se/projekt/tal/index.cgi?PAGE=3
Digital resource created:
Online database.
The Possessives database consists of the possessive constructions found in two corpora of spoken language:
* British English: the spoken component of the British National Corpus (c. 10 million words) http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/
* Swedish: the Gothenburg Spoken Language Corpus (c. 1.2 million words) http://www.ling.gu.se/projekt/tal/index.cgi?PAGE=3
Each possessive construction found in the two corpora has its own record, in which information about the nature of the example is listed.
At the top of each record, information about the example's location in the corpora is given, and the entire sentence or utterance in which the example occurred is given. In most cases the whole sentence is included; extraordinarily long sentences are truncated (truncated sentences are marked as such).
Access to digital resource:
Open Access
Data Formats created:
MySQL database with a custom, PHP-based web interface
Metadata standards employed:
Other
Publications:
Papers:
Börjars, Kersti & Pauline Harries. 2008. The clitic-affix distinction, historical change, and Scandinavian bound definiteness marking. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 20, 289-350.
Denison, David, Alan Scott & Kersti Börjars. to appear. The real distribution of the English "group genitive". Studies in Language.
Scott, Alan, Kersti Börjars & David Denison. submitted. The development of possessive constructions in the Germanic languages.
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott. in prep. Expression of possession: Structural factors. To appear in Börjars, Denison & Scott (eds.).
Book:
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott (eds.). in prep. Morphosyntactic categories and the expression of possession. Amsterdam and Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins.
Conference presentations:
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott. 2007. Dimensions of clitics. LAGB, King's College London, 31 August 2007.
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott. 2008. What makes clitics tick? IMM 13, University of Vienna, 3-6 February 2008.
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott. 2009. Expression of possession: structural factors. Morpho-syntactic categories and the expression of possession, 3-4 April 2009, The University of Manchester. http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/possessives/Borjars&Denison&Scott.pdf
Denison, David, Alan Scott & Kersti Börjars. 2008. What's wrong with possessive 's? ISLE1, University of Freiburg, 8-11 October 2008. http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/possessives/ISLE1_Freiburg.pdf
Harries, Pauline. 2008. Double definiteness and the Faroese Noun Phrase. 3rd Newcastle Postgraduate Conference in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 9 July 2008.
Harries, Pauline. 2008. The Faeroese sa(r) and the s-possessive. 23rd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Uppsala University, 1-3 October 2008.
Scott, Alan, David Denison & Kersti Börjars. 2007. Is the English possessive 's truly a right edge phenomenon? The Second International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (ICLCE2), University of Toulouse-le Mirail, 2 July 2007. http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/possessives/poss-iclce-2.pdf
Scott, Alan, Kersti Börjars & David Denison. 2009. The development of possessive expressions in the Germanic languages. 19ICHL, Radboud University Nijmegen, 10-14 August 2009. http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/possessives/19ICHL_Nijmegen.pdf
Börjars, Kersti & Pauline Harries. 2008. The clitic-affix distinction, historical change, and Scandinavian bound definiteness marking. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 20, 289-350.
Denison, David, Alan Scott & Kersti Börjars. to appear. The real distribution of the English "group genitive". Studies in Language.
Scott, Alan, Kersti Börjars & David Denison. submitted. The development of possessive constructions in the Germanic languages.
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott. in prep. Expression of possession: Structural factors. To appear in Börjars, Denison & Scott (eds.).
Book:
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott (eds.). in prep. Morphosyntactic categories and the expression of possession. Amsterdam and Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins.
Conference presentations:
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott. 2007. Dimensions of clitics. LAGB, King's College London, 31 August 2007.
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott. 2008. What makes clitics tick? IMM 13, University of Vienna, 3-6 February 2008.
Börjars, Kersti, David Denison & Alan Scott. 2009. Expression of possession: structural factors. Morpho-syntactic categories and the expression of possession, 3-4 April 2009, The University of Manchester. http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/possessives/Borjars&Denison&Scott.pdf
Denison, David, Alan Scott & Kersti Börjars. 2008. What's wrong with possessive 's? ISLE1, University of Freiburg, 8-11 October 2008. http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/possessives/ISLE1_Freiburg.pdf
Harries, Pauline. 2008. Double definiteness and the Faroese Noun Phrase. 3rd Newcastle Postgraduate Conference in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 9 July 2008.
Harries, Pauline. 2008. The Faeroese sa(r) and the s-possessive. 23rd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Uppsala University, 1-3 October 2008.
Scott, Alan, David Denison & Kersti Börjars. 2007. Is the English possessive 's truly a right edge phenomenon? The Second International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (ICLCE2), University of Toulouse-le Mirail, 2 July 2007. http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/possessives/poss-iclce-2.pdf
Scott, Alan, Kersti Börjars & David Denison. 2009. The development of possessive expressions in the Germanic languages. 19ICHL, Radboud University Nijmegen, 10-14 August 2009. http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/possessives/19ICHL_Nijmegen.pdf
Project staff and expertise:
| Principal staff member: | Professor Kersti Börjars, Professor David Denison, Dr Alan Scott |
|---|---|
| Other staff: | Computing officer(s) / Technical supporter(s), PhD student(s) |
| External expertise: |
| Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) of record | Alan Scott |
| Title | Germanic possessive -s : an empirical, historical and theoretical study |
| Record created | 2010-07-05 |
| Record updated | 2011-01-24 15:45 |
| URL of record | http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3542 |
| Citation of record | Alan Scott: Germanic possessive -s : an empirical, historical and theoretical study. <http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3542> created: 2010-07-05, last updated 2011-01-24 15:45 |