ABSTRACT This paper investigates regional variation in Superlative Objoid constructions (SOCs) and their prepositional variant ( at‐ SOCs). SOCs combine a possessive pronoun with a superlative adjective. These function as manner‐degree modifiers in a context where the possessive is in postverbal position and correlative with the subject, as in they tried their hardest (‘they tried very hard’). This study adds to previous research by focussing on the productivity and schematicity of SOCs in British and American English (AmE) but also by including analytic superlatives in the objoid slot. A total of 2753 instances from the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English are annotated for linguistic and contextual predictor variables. Collostructional and multifactorial analyses reveal that while both varieties share core verbs ( do, try, feel, look ), the British data display greater verbal diversity and higher use of at ‐SOCs, particularly with stative verbs and analytic superlatives (e.g., at your most confident ). AmE, by contrast, favours dynamic verbs and more idiomatic bare SOCs ( do your utmost, try your damnedest ). Overall, our results suggest differing degrees of productivity and constructional entrenchment, with British English showing broader extension of the SOC pattern.
Bouso et al. (Sun,) studied this question.