The development of ‘strengthened’ possessive pronouns in English

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This paper investigates the developments of ‘strengthened’ possessives such as hers and hern (earlier her) through a fresh examination of a substantial number of Middle English texts. These forms are first found in North Midlands and West Midlands texts of the thirteenth century, with the later - n forms of Southeastern dialects representing dative case rather than true ‘strengthened’ possessives. While the - s forms developed in rather different ways, both resulted in a processing advantage, as they signal to the hearer that no head NP is following. It is suggested that considerations of language processing have the potential to give more coherence to the traditional concept of ‘analogy’.