Word order restrictions in adnominal constructions: the case of the German pre- versus postnominal genitive

This paper focuses on variation between pre- and postnominal genitives of proper names in German. It refines and completes previous studies, in that it provides a systematic corpus study of all factors described in the existing literature and offers a thorough analysis of factors that may hamper genitive variation. The two constructions are not ‘equivalent’, since (1) the prenominal genitive has a specifying, determinative function, (2) certain factors exclude variation and (3) a variety of other factors hamper the alternation in so-called ‘choice’ contexts, such as the semantic factor ‘Agent/Patient role’, the syntactic factor of prosodic weight and a number of pragmatic factors like minor relevance of N1, further elaboration of N2, contrastive meaning, and higher participant identifiability of the genitive proper noun.This paper focuses on variation between pre- and postnominal genitives of proper names in German. It refines and completes previous studies, in that it provides a systematic corpus study of all factors described in the existing literature and offers a thorough analysis of factors that may hamper genitive variation. The two constructions are not ‘equivalent’, since (1) the prenominal genitive has a specifying, determinative function, (2) certain factors exclude variation and (3) a variety of other factors hamper the alternation in so-called ‘choice’ contexts, such as the semantic factor ‘Agent/Patient role’, the syntactic factor of prosodic weight and a number of pragmatic factors like minor relevance of N1, further elaboration of N2, contrastive meaning, and higher participant identifiability of the genitive proper noun.B