ABSTRACT
The object of this contribution to the memorial volume is to suggest that for any explanation of why the genitive should be preferred to the of-construction in such cases, we need to look beyond the bounds of the sentence in which the construction occurs, and even beyond the paragraph. As Strang points out, the relationship of possession is in such cases probably the dominant factor: ‘there is a tendency to avoid the genitive of nouns whose referents cannot possess (are not, or are not thought of as being, human or at least animal)’. An instructive parallel to this use of the genitive for theme-words may be provided from the history of capitalisation in English. The initial capital has been used at least since the sixteenth century as a sign of personification, and it is of course still recognised as being that, thus occupying some part of the grey area between inanimate and human animate.
