Eva Berlage is Junior Professor of English Linguistics at Universität Hamburg.

1. Introduction; 2. The variationist framework; 3. Methodology I: defining the syntactic complexity of NPs; 4. Methodology II: modes of data presentation, statistical procedures and electronic corpora; 5. Optional verb phrases in topic-restricting as far as constructions; 6. Word order variation involving the collocations take prisoner, hold prisoner and take hostage, hold hostage; 7. Word-order variation involving pre- and postposed notwithstanding; 8. Infinitival variation following help; 9. NP-complexity and change; 10. Conclusion and future directions.