This study applies multinomial regression analysis to a parallel corpus of Spanish medieval translations of the Bible in order to study the different factors that condition variation in the expression of possession in Old Spanish. Our methodology allows us to determine the degree to which less frequent possessive constructions (ART + POSS, as in la su casa ‘the his house’; GEN, as in la casa de él ‘the house of him’; and ART/BARE, as in la casa ‘the house’) can be considered competitors to the dominant POSS construction (as in su casa ‘his house’) as a function of usage context differences. In comparison to the POSS construction, the ART + POSS construction usually expresses pragmatic functions such as reverence, the GEN construction is typically used to disambiguate a reference, and the ART/BARE construction is bound to contexts in which the possessor is highly accessible. Crucially, the analysis also sheds light on historical changes in the balance between structural and contextual constraints on the use of these different variants. Whereas in the 13th century, structural and stylistic constraints are almost equally important, the importance of structural constraints diminishes in the 15th century. The study thus illustrates how in reductive processes of language change, variation due to structural constraints yields to stylistic variation.

中文翻译：

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天作之合：使用平行语料库和多项逻辑回归分析古西班牙语中的占有表达

本研究将多项回归分析应用于西班牙中世纪圣经翻译的平行语料库，以研究影响古西班牙语中占有表达变化的不同因素。我们的方法允许我们确定不太频繁的所有格结构（ART + POSS，如拉苏卡萨'他的房子'; GEN，如拉卡萨德埃尔“他的房子”；和 ART/BARE，如拉卡萨'房子'）可以被认为是占主导地位的POSS建筑的竞争对手（如苏卡萨“他的房子”）作为使用上下文差异的函数。与 POSS 结构相比，ART + POSS 结构通常表达尊重等语用功能，GEN 结构通常用于消除指称的歧义，而 ART/BARE 结构则绑定到拥有者高度可访问的上下文。至关重要的是，该分析还揭示了使用这些不同变体的结构和上下文限制之间平衡的历史变化。尽管在 13 世纪，结构和风格约束几乎同等重要，但在 15 世纪，结构约束的重要性逐渐减弱。因此，这项研究说明了在语言变化的还原过程中，由于结构限制引起的变化如何产生文体变化。