0 INTRODUCTION

3. NOMINAL COMPLEMENTATION AND ARGUMENT STRUCTURE
this tendency, Deane (1987: 67, 71-72) uses the Silverstein hierarchy and the notions of
focus and topic. As Deane (1987: 67) explains, the Silverstein hierarchy ranks NPs taking
into account their lexical content. Context-dependent forms such as first, second and third
person pronouns, proper names and other indexical elements are situated at the top of the
hierarchy. Just below, there appear NPs which denote salient referents (i.e. humans, nonhuman
animates and concrete inanimate objects). Finally, those NPs denoting relatively
undelimited or abstract entities are placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. He proposes that
the Silverstein hierarchy can be useful to predict the acceptability of prenominal and
postnominal possessives in English. The higher the possessor NP on the Silverstein
hierarchy, the more acceptable it will be as prenominal possessive, and the less acceptable
as postnominal possessive. Conversely, the lower an NP is on the Silverstein hierarchy, the
more acceptable it will be as postnominal possessive, and the less acceptable as
prenominal possessive. Furthermore, Deane (1987: 71-72) also directs his attention to the
function of the English possessive in the discourse, especifically to the concepts of topic
and focus. He defines topic as “what the discourse is about.” It usually appears in subject
position, and it is central but backgrounded in discourse. Focus is then understood as “the
information about the topic.” It generally occurs later in the sentence and is foregrounded
because it represents new information. In general, prenominal possessives (i.e. PossPs)
occur in constructions where the possessor is topical, whereas postnominal possessives
(i.e. of-PPs) are preferred in constructions where the possessed noun is topical.
According to Altenberg (1982: Chapter 6), the form of the genitive is also crucially
determined by the style of the text, and, in particular, by the stylistic category of “status.”
This term covers “a whole range of factors related to contacts between people from
different positions on a social scale –factors intuitively associated with such notions as
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