5.2.1 Nouns as nominal pre-modifiers

The shift towards the present-day reliance on nouns as nominal pre-modifiers in academic written prose is perhaps the most dramatic quantitative–historical change in English witnessed in the last three centuries. As Figures 4.5 and 4.16 showed, pre-modifying nouns were rare in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and even nineteenth centuries, but then they rapidly increased in use over the course of the twentieth century, to the extent that they are now ubiquitous in modern written academic texts.

This change is not merely a quantitative shift in stylistic preference. From a discourse perspective, texts are now constructed in fundamentally different ways from earlier centuries, relying to a large extent on phrasal devices rather than dependent clause structures. But deeper consideration reveals linguistic change at a more fundamental level, involving a steady expansion of meaning and function. In the present section, we describe five factorsFootnote ¹ related to the functional extension of pre-modifying nouns:

1. A) pre-modifying nouns used as an alternative to ’s-genitive and of-genitive phrases

2. B) semantic classes of the nouns used as pre-modifiers

3. C) nominalizations as pre-modifiers

4. D) sequences of multiple pre-modifying nouns

5. E) the meaning relationships between nouns

To investigate these factors, we undertook detailed qualitative analyses of noun–noun sequences in science prose, medical prose, and newspaper articles from the ARCHER Corpus.

A) Pre-modifying nouns used as an alternative to ’s-genitive and of-genitive phrases

One major reflection of the functional extension of pre-modifying nouns is that they are now commonly used to express genitive meanings, replacing the functional domain of ’s-genitive and of-genitive phrases. Thus, consider the following example from a newspaper article:

… the Pope met […] the Communist Party chief…

The final noun phrase in this example expresses a genitive relationship that could be paraphrased with either of the other two genitive variants:

noun-’s + head noun:

the Communist Party’s chief

head noun + of-phrase:

the chief of the Communist Party

Previous studies have argued that ’s-genitives have been historically expanding in use at the expense of the of-genitive (see, e.g., Rosenbach Reference Rosenbach2002; Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi Reference Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi2007; Leech et al. Reference Leech, Hundt, Mair and Smith2009: chapter 10.4). These studies, which are based on analysis of linguistic tokens that are interchangeable, show strong patterns of historical change during the twentieth century. For example, Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi (Reference Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi2007: 448) show that in 1961, ’s-genitives accounted for only c. 37% of all interchangeable ’s-genitives and of-genitives in the newspaper registers from the Brown and LOB corpora. By 1991, that pattern of use had changed so that ’s-genitives accounted for c. 50% of all interchangeable ’s-genitives and of-genitives in newspaper texts from the Frown and FLOB corpora.

These previous studies have been restricted to only two linguistic variants: ’s-genitives versus of-genitives. However, when pre-modifying nouns are considered as a third genitive option, a different picture emerges (see Biber et al. Reference Biber, Egbert, Gray, Oppliger, Szmrecsanyi, Kyto and Paivi2016; Szmrecsanyi et al. Reference Szmrecsanyi, Biber, Egbert and Franco2015), with pre-modifying nouns becoming the preferred option for expressing genitive relationships.

The findings presented in Chapters 3 and 4 are based on the textual rates of occurrence for grammatical features (i.e., rather than the percentage use of a variant as a proportion of interchangeable occurrences). This type of research design has been called a ‘text-linguistic’ perspective on linguistic variation, because it tells us how often we will encounter a linguistic feature in texts (see Biber Reference Biber2012; Biber et al. Reference Biber, Egbert, Gray, Oppliger, Szmrecsanyi, Kyto and Paivi2016). Text-linguistic findings regarding post-nominal of-phrases show that this feature has declined in use in fiction and newspaper prose (see Table 4.3). Although the historical change for of-phrases is less strong in the sub-registers of academic prose, there has been a consistent historical decline in those registers as well, with the strongest declines seen in science and social science research articles (see Figures 4.8 and 4.15). In contrast, pre-modifying nouns have increased dramatically in use from a text-linguistic perspective, and that increase has been strongest in science research articles (see Table 4.3; Figures 4.5, 4.16). The text-linguistic rates of occurrence for ’s-genitives are not reported in Chapters 3 and 4, because they are quite rare in academic writing (only c. 2.5 per 1,000 words in present-day academic prose; see Biber et al. Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999: 302).

The text-linguistic perspective can be contrasted with a variationist perspective, based on analysis of linguistic tokens that are interchangeable with other structural options (see discussion in Biber et al. Reference Biber, Egbert, Gray, Oppliger, Szmrecsanyi, Kyto and Paivi2016; Szmrecsanyi et al. Reference Szmrecsanyi, Biber, Egbert and Franco2015). Variationist research designs are based on analyses of each token of a linguistic feature, identifying the particular linguistic variant used in that occurrence, and predicting the use of linguistic variants by reference to other contextual factors. The results in such analyses are proportional, comparing the percentages of a particular variant out of all interchangeable constructions.

From a variationist perspective, ’s-genitives are expanding in use relative to of-genitives (see earlier discussion). However, when we include pre-modifying nouns as a third variant, it turns out that this newer structural variant is expanding in use relative to both ’s-genitives and of-genitives.

Thus, Figure 5.1 plots the proportional use of interchangeable nouns as pre-modifiers (versus ’s-genitives). In most cases, these two construction types are in general not interchangeable. As a result, the proportions shown in Figure 5.1 are based on very small samples, causing some fluctuations in the historical trends. For example, the nineteenth-century proportions of 55% pre-modifying nouns (versus 45% s-genitives) in science prose is based on a sample of only forty tokens that occurred in the ARCHER Corpus (22 noun pre-modifiers that are interchangeable with s-genitives, and 18 s-genitives that are interchangeable with noun-pre-modifiers). However, despite the relatively small sample sizes, the overall historical trends are consistent across registers, with a notable increase in the proportional use of noun pre-modifiers (and thus a corresponding decline in the proportional use of ’s-genitives) across the centuries. Science prose shows the strongest increase, with noun pre-modifiers being used over 95% of the time in interchangeable constructions in the twentieth century.

Figure 5.1 Historical change in the proportional use of pre-modifying noun genitives (versus 's-genitives)

Based on all occurrences of pre-modifying nouns and 's-genitives that are interchangeable

The sample of interchangeable occurrences in ARCHER for the of-genitive versus noun pre-modifier alternation is much larger (see Biber et al. Reference Biber, Egbert, Gray, Oppliger, Szmrecsanyi, Kyto and Paivi2016; tables 2 and 3), and correspondingly, the historical trends shown in Figure 5.2 are much more consistent across centuries. For all three registers, there is a strong increase in the proportional use of noun pre-modifiers at the expense of of-genitives. Letters and newspaper reportage take the lead in this change during the nineteenth century, while science prose shifted strongly towards increased noun pre-modifier variants during the twentieth century.

Figure 5.2 Historical change in the proportional use of pre-modifying noun genitives (versus of-genitives)

Based on all occurrences of pre-modifying nouns and of-genitives that are interchangeable

These findings provide strong evidence for the functional expansion of pre-modifying nouns, related specifically to the increasing use of these features to express genitive meanings. In Chapter 4, we discussed the increased use of ‘other’ prepositional phrases as nominal post-modifiers (e.g., in, on, for, with), and compared that trend to the overall decline in frequency of of-phrases as nominal post-modifiers (see detailed discussion in Section 5.3.1). In the present section, we have shown that this decline in use is also related to the historical increase of nouns used as pre-modifiers, related in part to the functional extension of these structures to express the same kinds of genitive meanings that have traditionally been expressed by of-phrases (and the ’s-genitive). We return to this wider perspective (i.e., considering both pre-modifying and post-modifying structures) in Section 5.4.

5.2.2 Attributive adjectives as nominal pre-modifiers

Attributive adjectives differ from most other types of phrasal noun modifiers in their historical development. As we showed in Chapter 4 (see especially Table 4.4 and Figure 4.5), attributive adjectives were already well established and frequent in use in the seventeenth century (in popular registers as well as informational registers), and their rate of occurrence has changed little over the subsequent centuries. However, this stability in quantitative patterns masks historical linguistic change in the use of this linguistic feature.

As described in Biber et al. (Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999: 508ff ), attributive adjectives can be grouped into two major semantic categories: ‘descriptors’ and ‘classifiers’ (cf. Feist Reference Feist2012: 9–10). Descriptors are prototypical adjectives describing attributes of the head noun, including physical characteristics, evaluations, and emotional states. They are used to describe a wide range of physical characteristics, such as color or physical appearance (e.g., red, pale), size or weight (e.g., large, thin, heavy), age and frequency (e.g., old, new, daily, recent). Descriptors are also used to denote a wide range of evaluations or emotional states (e.g., bad, nice, beautiful, appropriate, strange, happy, sad).

In contrast, adjectives functioning as classifiers delimit or restrict the reference of the head noun, identifying the category of the noun (e.g., final, previous, German, chemical, legal). Classifiers are usually not gradable, while descriptors usually are (compare very large versus *very chemical). There are two major subcategories of classifiers: relational/classificational adjectives, which serve to delimit the referent of a noun in relation to other referents (e.g., additional, average, different, general), and topical/affiliative adjectives, which identify the type or subject area of a noun, or designate the group that a referent belongs to (e.g., commercial, human, official, social, Chinese, European).

There are major differences across present-day registers in the reliance on descriptor versus classifier adjectives: conversation (and fiction) tend to use descriptors to a much greater extent than classifiers, while newspaper prose and academic prose tend to use classifiers to a much greater extent than descriptors (see Tables 7.2 and 7.3 in Biber et al. Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999: 511–513). However, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, academic prose was similar to popular registers (e.g., fiction and letters) in that it mostly utilized descriptor adjectives.

To further investigate the extension of attributive adjective functions in academic prose, we coded the functions of attributive adjectives in science research articles from two historical periods: seventeenth/eighteenth century versus twentieth century. One difference that quickly became apparent was the range of different adjectives (‘adjective types’) used in these two historical periods. That is, although the overall rate of occurrence for attributive adjectives is similar for eigtheenth versus twentieth century research writing (see Figure 4.5 in Chapter 4), the number of different adjective types used in these periods is dramatically different, with nearly four times more adjective types in the most recent period. That is, eighteenth century science writing tended to rely on the frequent use of relatively few different adjectives, whereas modern science writing employs a much larger inventory of different adjectives.

Figure 5.3 shows that the typical functions of attributive adjectives in science writing have similarly shifted over time. This figure is based on a categorization of the one hundred most frequent adjectives in eighteenth century versus twentieth century science articles, distinguishing descriptive versus classifying functions. In the eighteenth century, descriptive functions (physical and evaluative) were the most prevalent for this set of adjectives (c. 65% of the top 100 adjectives), while that preference was reversed in the twentieth century (with c. 75% of the top 100 adjectives serving classifier functions). In both historical periods, descriptive adjectives that identify physical attributes (e.g., great, large, high) are almost twice as common as descriptive evaluative adjectives (e.g., good, important, special), although physical descriptors are often used for evaluative functions in academic writing (a large difference, a small effect, high ability). Within the classifier category, relational adjectives (e.g., same, different, general, major) are more common than topical/affiliative adjectives (e.g., social, political, public), and this relationship also holds for both historical periods.

Figure 5.3 The 100 most frequent adjective types, categorized for descriptive versus classifier functions

When we consider adjective types that occur with lower frequencies in academic science writing, we see that topical/affiliative adjectives dominate these lists, especially in the twentieth century. For example, in a sample of less common attributive adjectives (occurring c. one time per million words), 50% served topical functions (e.g., perimental, cultural, ellipsoidal, coniferous), compared with c. 25% with relational functions (e.g., middle, eligible, existent, contrary). Surprisingly, descriptive-evaluative functions are much more important among these lower frequency adjectives than descriptive-physical functions: 20% of these adjectives serve descriptive-evaluative functions (e.g., famous, urgent, erroneous), compared with only 5% with descriptive-physical functions.

In sum, while there has been little historical change in the overall frequencies for attributive adjectives, there have been important changes in the diversity of adjective types, and in the typical functions of those forms. In particular, present-day science writing employs a much wider set of different adjectives than in previous centuries, with most of those new adjectives serving classifying-topical functions.

5.2.3 Noun–participle compounds as nominal pre-modifiers

Noun–participle compounds (e.g., correlation-based category) are another phrasal feature associated with present-day academic writing. As noted in Chapter 4, noun–participle compounds were rarely used in eighteenth century academic writing. While they are still not especially frequent in absolute terms, they have increased in use by a factor of ten during the last half century (see Figure 4.6). This increase has been especially noteworthy for N + -ed compounds (e.g., cue-focused processes, mood-induced states, stress-induced anisotropy).

Similar to the grammatical features described in the preceding sections, noun–participle compounds were comparatively restricted in function in earlier historical periods (in addition to being infrequent). By the mid-nineteenth century, several relatively lexicalized compounded forms were already in use, such as home-made, self-made, star-spangled, frost-bitten, heart-broken, lion-hearted, fun-loving, blood-curdling, and awe-inspiring. Certain words were repeatedly incorporated into these compounds. For example, numerous compounds were formed with the prefixed nouns self and heart (e.g., self-made men, self-imposed discipline, self-taught artist, self-organized vigilance, self-destroying evils, self-denying Jesuit, self-relying men, self-sacrificing traits; heart-broken Incas, heart-rending cry, heart-cheering salute, heart-chilling scenes, heart-sickening scene). Similarly, the participles shaped (e.g., heart-shaped muscle, spindle-shaped globules, spoon-shaped extremities) and colored (e.g., saffron-colored powder, coffee-colored discharge) were used to form multiple compounds in texts from this period.

Beyond those relatively fixed forms, nineteenth century authors used noun–participle compounds to express a range of relatively concrete meanings, combining nouns that refer to physical entities with participles expressing tangible actions. These included both compounds formed with –ed participles (e.g., the surf-beaten shore, blood-drenched plains, storm-beaten trees, ivy-covered towers, the ice-choked Delaware River) as well as compounds formed with –ing participles (e.g., flesh-eating barbarians; money-squandering community; nostril-dilating power; fur-bearing animals; a health-seeking, pleasure-loving man; ship-building operations; salt-producing carbonate; air-breathing reptile).

Many of these noun–participle compounds that were used in eighteenth and nineteenth century academic writing have now become relatively informal, being used regularly in modern popular spoken and written texts (e.g., fictional novels and even conversation regularly use forms like home-made, self-made, heart-broken, fun-loving, awe-inspiring). However, innovative uses of this grammatical construction in present-day English are restricted primarily to informational academic prose, and in that register, the lexical associations of this feature have been extended greatly from the nineteenth century.

In modern science and social science research articles, the two most common participial forms incorporated into noun–participle compounds are based and related. Interestingly, these are both abstract and relational in meaning, in contrast to the tangible actions/events described by the compounded participial forms in the nineteenth century. In addition, most of the nouns incorporated into these structures are abstract in meaning, in contrast to the nouns referring to physical entities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Examples include:

• space-based observations

• matrix-based analysis

• XML-based modelling

• GT2-based services

• grid-based mechanisms

• performance-based measures

• object-based competition

• standards-based tests

• age-related increases

• health-related problems

• education-related income disparities

• science-related skills

• accountability-related pressures

• time-related covariates

• instruction-related activities

• the PTdins(3,5)P2-related fission cascade

• three Rb-related genes

• systemic sclerosis-related symptoms

Beyond the participial forms based and related, there is an extremely diverse set of nouns and participles incorporated into noun–participle compounds in present-day science and social science research writing. As observed earlier, most of these involve abstract nouns combined with process, stative, or relational participles. For example:

• service-oriented architecture

• disease-associated Prpres

• GPI-linked proteins

• protein-lined canaliculus

• stress-induced anisotropy

• HPC-enabled simulations

• climate-driven changes

• atom-resolved evidence

• scrapie-infected mice

• fluorescence-activated cell

• river-supplied sediment

• basin-distributed temperature

• HIV-infected individuals

• placebo-controlled design

• investigator-designed questionnaires

• teacher-reported behavior problems

• life-threatening conditions

• number-crunching simulations

• light-scattering measurements

• voltage-sensing apparatus

• ligand-binding domains

• protein-signaling networks

• population-averaging effects

• sediment-gauging activities

• mountain-draining rivers

• colony-forming units

• answer-changing behavior

Thus, noun–participle compounds have undergone an extension in functionality similar to that of the other devices used for the pre-modification of nouns in academic written English. Most obviously, that extension has involved a large increase in the inventory of words used to form these compounds. However, this extension also entails a shift in the kinds of nouns and participles that can be combined to form a compound. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these words were restricted primarily to concrete physical objects (expressed by the nouns) and concrete actions/events (expressed by the participles). In contrast, the noun–participle compounds found in present-day academic writing usually consist of abstract nouns combined with an abstract process/relational participle.

5.3.1 Prepositional phrases as nominal post-modifiers

In Chapter 4, we described the strong decline in frequency for finite relative clauses and of-genitive phrases in academic prose over the last century. At the same time, though, ‘other’ prepositional phrases (e.g., phrases headed by in, on, for) functioning as noun modifiers strongly increased in frequency. Specifically, Figure 4.8 showed that ‘other’ prepositional phrases functioning as noun modifiers nearly doubled in frequency in academic prose from 1850 to 2005. Post-nominal prepositional phrases headed by two specific prepositions have been especially important in this historical change: in and for (see Figure 4.9). Post-nominal phrases headed by in are especially prevalent in science research writing, while post-nominal phrases headed by for are more common in the social sciences. For example:

However, this grammatical change extends well beyond the increased use of those two prepositions. In fact, the most notable finding here is the large number of different prepositions that function as the head of prepositional phrases modifying nouns, reflecting the extent to which this structural device has been generalized in modern academic writing. Six other prepositions (in addition to in and for) occur with moderately high frequencies heading post-nominal phrases in modern academic prose: about, between, from, on, to, and with:

In addition, a wide range of other prepositions are used at lower frequency levels for this function in modern academic writing, including across, after, against, along, among(st), around, as, at, before, behind, by, into, like, near, over, toward(s), under, upon, within, and without:

Thus, this structural feature (prepositional phrases as nominal post-modifiers) is currently in advanced stages of being generalized to the full set of prepositions, rather than being restricted to only a small subset of specialized prepositions.

Academic research writing often incorporates sequences of these prepositional phrases as noun modifiers, creating dense information structures with few verbs. In the following example, four of the noun phrases in the sentence contain prepositional phrases as noun post-modifiers, including multiple modifiers for a single head noun, and prepositional phrase modifiers embedded in other modifiers. For example:

Thus, at one level, modern academic prose is similar to eighteenth century science writing in employing extensive structural embedding. The main difference, though, is that the embedding in modern texts is phrasal, while the embedding in eighteenth century texts is clausal.

Similar to the historical changes for nominal pre-modifiers, the increased frequency of prepositional phrases as nominal post-modifiers has been accompanied by a large expansion in function and meaning. The most obvious indication of this expansion is the increase in the range of meaning relations that can be signaled by prepositional phrase (PP) noun modifiers. For example, in present-day academic prose, the prepositions in and on can express both concrete locative meanings (blood flow in skin and in skeletal muscle; many places on the slopes below) and abstract meanings (evolution in Roosevelt's imperialist thought; the influence of evolutionary ideas on his public policies). However, the use of these prepositions to express abstract meanings is a relatively recent development restricted primarily to writing. Thus, in conversation, over 90% of these PPs as noun modifiers express concrete/locative meanings, as in:

• somebody in the neighborhood

• a vault in his house

• those kids in California

• stuff on the dash

• that thing on the roof

• did you read that dedication on the first page

This is similar to the typical uses of these prepositions in written texts from the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries, where they normally expressed concrete/locative meanings even in academic written prose. Consider the following examples.

Concrete meanings expressed by noun-modifying PPs with in; seventeenth century medical prose:

Concrete meanings expressed by noun-modifying PPs with on; seventeenth century medical prose:

As Figures 5.4 and 5.5 show, these concrete meanings were dominant for in/on noun-modifying PPs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In contrast, abstract meanings were uncommon. Abstract meanings with on were especially rare, restricted to an identification of ‘topic’, as in:

• a poem on the virtue of a laurel leaf

• some remarks on the late debate about X

• occasional notes on Dr. George Thompsons

• a learned author on this subject

PPs with in had a similar abstract use in the seventeenth century, identifying a general research domain:

• my studie in ciuile and humane learnynge

• that Axiome in philosophie

• his learning in all sciences

• our work in the Astrological or chymical way of physic

• new discoveries in medicine

• my sentiments in these matters

Figures 5.4 and 5.5 show that the functions of both in PPs and on PPs as noun modifiers in academic writing has changed dramatically from the seventeenth century to the present day: in present-day academic prose, c. 60% of these constructions are used to express abstract meanings rather than concrete/locative meanings. Those abstract uses include the identification of topical domain, as in seventeenth century medical prose. However, there are other abstract uses that were only beginning to emerge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Three of these abstract functions are especially important in modern academic science writing:

1. 1. nominalization + on PP, corresponding to a nominalized equivalent of a prepositional verb construction; for example:

   • abiological dependence on physical conditions

     • [compare: it depends on physical conditions]

   • his reliance on the evolutionary thesis

     • [compare: he relied on the evolutionary thesis]

   • a focus on measures of student outcomes

     • [compare: someone focused on measures of student outcomes]

2. 2. process noun + on PP, corresponding to a transitive verb with a direct object that is the ‘patient’ of the verb; for example:

   • a profound influence on student responses

     • [compare: something profoundly influenced student responses]

   • A significant impact on sea-bird numbers

     • [compare: something impacted sea-bird numbers]

   • a much greater effect on the attitudes of other students

     • [compare: something affected students’ attitudes]

3. 3. constructions with an ing non-finite clause following the preposition on; for example:

   • an effect on determining choice

   • emphasis on providing support

   • any restriction on publishing it

   • research on promoting science learning

Prepositional phrases with in have also developed two especially common abstract uses in modern academic writing:

1. 1. process noun + in PP, corresponding to an intransitive verb with a subject that is the ‘patient’ of the verb; for example:

   • a decline in mean IQ

     • [compare: mean IQ declined]

   • a sudden increase in metabolic rate

     • [compare: metabolic rate suddenly increased]

   • a change in the food supply

     • [compare: the food supply changed]

2. 2. constructions with an ing non-finite clause following the preposition in; for example:

   • invaluable assistance in recording electrocardiographs from canaries

   • difficulty in separating the sarcoplasmic proteins from the myofibrils errors in rounding the total score

One of the more interesting aspects of these historical changes with in and on PPs is that each of these prepositions has developed a specialized abstract function that marks the modifying noun as the semantic ‘patient’ of the process described by the head noun. For example:

• an increase in efficiency

  • [compare: something increased efficiency, or efficiency increased]

• influence on dropout rates

  • [compare: something influenced dropout rates]

For PPs with in, these head nouns usually correspond to intransitive verbs:

For PPs with on, these head nouns correspond to transitive verbs. Many of these are simple transitive verbs, as in:

Other head nouns taking on-PPs correspond to prepositional verbs, although the object of the verb still serves the same semantic role of ‘patient’:

In present-day informational writing, there are numerous head nouns that can take these patterns. Seven head nouns are especially frequent with prepositional phrases with in followed by an NP (‘patient’): change, decrease, difference, fall, increase, rise, and variation. (Other head nouns that occur with this pattern include: advances, breakdown, decline, development, evolution, growth, improvement, reduction, and shift.) Similarly, there are numerous head nouns that take on plus an NP (‘patient’): effect and emphasis are especially frequent with this pattern, but other nouns include attack, constraint, debate, decision, discussion, impact, influence, limit, limitation, restriction. There are fewer prepositional verbs that have been nominalized to occur as head nouns in this pattern, but examples include bearing on, dependence on, focus on, insistence on, and reliance on.

Figure 5.4 IN as noun modifier: concrete versus abstract meanings

Figure 5.5 ON as noun modifier: concrete versus abstract meanings

These specialized grammatical uses have been introduced gradually over the past four centuries in informational written texts. The semantic ‘patient’ pattern with the preposition in historically precedes the ‘patient’ pattern with on, corresponding to the more general development of in and on PPs as nominal modifiers (see Figure 4.9). In PPs with this meaning seem to have first occurred in the sixteenth century with the head nouns difference and change, and this pattern then gradually spread to other process nouns during the following four centuries. We list here the first attested examples for selected process nouns + in + NP (‘patient’) from the OED:

1. 1530 no difference in sounde

2. 1585 to attempt alteration and change in the church of God

3. 1627 one inch of decrease in the growth of men

4. 1760 improvement in the art of … defending strong places

5. 1804 a fall in the price of the article

6. 1806 great variation in its composition

7. 1817 a small rise in the annual payment

8. 1823 a sudden increase in the circulating medium

9. 1869 quick growth in intellectual and moral force

As noted earlier, the development of on-PPs as abstract noun modifiers lagged behind in-PPs. The phrase dependence on (derived from the prepositional verb depend on) occurs at a relatively early stage, but nominalized equivalents of other prepositional verbs with on appear considerably later. We list here the first attested examples of these combinations from the OED:

1. 1605 dependence on the Latin

2. 1754 reliance on the promises of God

3. 1798 insistance on tradition

4. 1908 a focus on passing pedestrians

Simple process nouns that take on + patient NP (i.e., nouns that are not derived from prepositional verbs) lagged behind these other structures by about a century; for example:

1. 1696 Absence, Madam, has had the same effect on my Passion

2. 1869 their impact on the atoms

3. 1899 their emphasis on the partial nature of all physiological analysis.

Another major reflection of functional expansion is the increasing ability of all prepositions to occur as a nominal post-modifier with an -ing clause as complement. In essence, these structures function to express a process in a nominal structure, while at the same time retaining clausal constituents in the ing-clause, such as objects and adverbials. For example:

• the first step in seeking quicker treatment

• difficulty in separating the sarcoplasmic proteins from the myofibrils

• errors in rounding the total score

• the value of full doses in treating cancer

• a book on managing large organizations

• a critical study on reducing hardware development time

• emphasis on providing support

• motives for committing a violent crime

• plans for creating a UFO

• procedures for selecting cluster structure

Early occurrences of this structural pattern are attested from Middle English and Early Modern English; the following examples are from seventeenth century medical prose:

• the vertues and worth of this Medicine in helping and curing many diseases

• pains in making water

• the difficulty in searching out the causes of them

• the truth of the marchaunt in transporting the same

As shown in Figure 5.6, this structure was rarely used during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, but it has increased in use over the course of the twentieth century. Prepositional phrases with in and for take the lead here, while phrases with on + -ing clause are expanding in use more slowly.

Figure 5.6 Noun + preposition + ing-clause in academic prose

It is possible to track the historical progression of this structure to an increasing number of different controlling nouns. In many cases, these structures have an earlier historical counterpart with a prepositional verb + -ing clause. The prepositional verb later becomes nominalized (or converted to a noun), but the structure retains the co-occurrence with an ing-clause as complement. Thus, compare the following examples from the OED, showing the first attestation of a verb + in + -ing clause versus the corresponding noun + in + -ing clause:

• VERB: 1572   such as men use in searching ore

• versus

• NOUN: 1620   it hath special use in illustrating [something]

• VERB: 1647   assist in procuring [something]

• versus

• NOUN: 1742   assistance in apprehending [something]

• VERB: 1730   succeed in forcing [something]

• versus

• NOUN: 1820   success in capturing [something]

• VERB: 1606   persist in doing wrong

• versus

• NOUN: 1874   persistency in seeking a pacific settlement

• VERB: 1940   [they] specialize in hunting big game

• versus

• NOUN: 1970   specialisations in printing [something]

Interestingly, only abstract meanings occur with post-modifying in followed by an –ing clause. This is in part due to the non-finite verb phrase coming after the preposition, as it represents a process rather than a concrete entity. However, this is also due to the abstract nature of all head nouns that occur with this pattern (e.g., accuracy, difference, effect, degree, value, confidence, error, and diligence). As the following examples illustrate, many of these nouns are nominalizations, and the meaning relationship between the head noun and the process represented in the prepositional phrase + –ing clause is one of simultaneous time or place. That is, the abstract state (usually expressing a stance or evaluation) referred to by the head noun exists at the same time and/or place as the process in the verb phrase.Footnote ² For example:

• Boldness in foretelling the Emperors death (1702)

• the greater ease and convenience in solving all the necessary geographical and nautical problems (1777)

• his diligence and exactness in making observations for a long series of years (1786)

• difficulty in conceiving how this is possible (1811)

• difficulty in expanding his religious conceptions (1858)

In post-modifying –ing structures with the preposition for, two major types of meaning are expressed. In the first, for + –ing clause modifies head nouns like equation, machine, or formula – nouns that are somewhat more concrete and tangible in meaning than cognitive abstract nouns like idea, reason, or caution. These for-phrases function to identify the purpose of the entity referred to by the head noun, and they can usually be paraphrased with a relative clause like ‘which function(s) to’ or ‘which serve the purpose of ’. For example:

• the Rules for directing Ships into Ports through the vast ocean (1715)

  • [compare: rules that direct ships]

• equations for reducing the mean Place of the 4^th Satellite (1749)

  • [compare: equations which function to reduce]

• a machine for subdiving the arc of this quadrant (1790)

  • [compare: a machine for the purpose of subdiving]

• a formula for finding the dominical letter in any century (1822)

  • [compare: a formula which functions to find the dominical letter]

• the data for computing the distance of the heavenly bodies (1860)

  • [compare: data for the purpose of computing the distance]

• operations for determining the figure of the earth (1893)

  • [compare: operations for the purpose of determining the figure of the earth]

A second less common meaning expressed by N + for + -ing clause is more abstract: the head noun refers to the evidentiary basis of an argument, and the for-phrase presents the argument (or conclusion, hypothesis, etc.) itself:

• good reasons for thinking that the adjustment may be performed (1790)

  • [compare: reasons to think that the adjustment may be performed]

• good grounds for concluding that such was the case (1889)

  • [compare: grounds to conclude that such was the case]

The functional extension of noun-modifying PPs headed by ‘other’ prepositions could be described in much more detail. We have focused here primarily on the development of in/on/for as noun-modifying PPs, but similar extensions in function have occurred for many of the other prepositions that head post-nominal PPs. The descriptions in this section have documented linguistic innovation and change at multiple levels: in the overall extent to which a structure is used; in the particular structural variants that occur; and in the meaning relationships expressed by the structure.

5.3.2 Appositive noun phrases as nominal post-modifiers

Chapters 3 and 4 show that appositive noun phrases are common in informational writing but extremely rare in conversation. Examples like the following are commonplace in present-day newspaper prose (head noun phrase bolded, appositive noun phrase underlined):

The only comparable feature that occurs in conversational discourse is a sequence of a noun with vague reference followed by a more precise noun phrase, as in:

These ‘prefaces’ and ‘tags’ in conversation are used by speakers to clarify the meaning of noun phrases. They are attached to the beginning or end of a clause, rather than modifying a noun phrase within a clause (see Biber et al. Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999: 1072ff); for example:

• That little shop – it’s great.

• He’s had a blind put up – a special blind that leads straight across the

• fanlight.

In contrast, appositive noun phrases modify a head noun, and the entire complex noun phrase structure is embedded in a clause. For example:

• Last month the nine pages at issue were leaked, apparently by someone within the military, since the Pentagon memo, an internal document, was attached.

As Figure 4.10 (in Chapter 4) showed, it is only in recent decades that appositive noun phrases have become common, even in informational written discourse. These structures were attested but rare in the eighteenth century, but they have increased in use considerably over the past one hundred years.

A more detailed consideration of these structures shows that they have also expanded greatly in function, similar to the patterns of use seen for NN sequences and PPs as noun modifiers. In the eighteenth century, most appositive noun phrases were used to identify the title or position of a person, as in the following examples.

This function continues to be one of the most common uses of appositive noun phrases in modern newspaper writing, as in:

However, additional functions began to develop in academic research writing in the nineteenth century. First, appositive noun phrases began to be used to provide additional descriptive information about the head noun. In many examples, the first NP is a common noun referring to a person, and the second NP gives descriptive characteristics of that person. The following examples are all from mid-nineteenth century science/medical writing:

This pattern of use was further extended in the nineteenth century to provide descriptive information about inanimate head nouns, as in:

A specialized function introduced around this time is to explain a technical term with an appositive noun phrase, providing a common‐place description of the term:

In addition, a structural/textual innovation was introduced in the nineteenth century: the use of parentheses to mark the appositive noun phrase, rather than separating the two by commas. For example:

Despite this variation in form and meaning, appositive noun phrases throughout the nineteenth century retained the primary meaning relationship of being directly co-referential with the head noun. Thus, in the examples mentioned earlier, Mr. William Young is Botanist to their Britannick Majesties; the patient was a young girl about 13 years of age; the root is the only efficient part; tinca (herpes) tonsurans is ringworm of the scalp, and so on.

This directly co-referential meaning relationship continues to be the primary one expressed by appositive noun phrases in present-day newspaper prose. However, in twentieth century academic research writing, appositive noun phrases began to be used to express information having a wider range of implicit meaning relationships to the head noun. These noun phrases can be quite long and complex, and so they are usually contained in parentheses, rather than separated by commas.

Often, an appositive noun phrase is used to introduce an acronym, or to itemize the members of a group, as in:

However, in many other cases, the meaning relationship is more specialized in academic research writing. For example, consider the following sentence, where the appositive noun phrase is not strictly co-referential with the head noun:

In this sentence, the head noun gives the author’s interpretation of the findings (‘moderate quality’), while the appositive noun phrase provides the actual results.

Many other instances of appositive noun phrases in academic writing illustrate even more distant relationships. Thus consider:

In this example, the head noun identifies a variable that was used in a study, and the appositive noun phrase is used to specify methodological information, documenting how that variable (‘date of enrollment’) was measured in the study. The meaning could have been made more explicit through the use of clausal structures, something like:

Appositive noun phrases are commonly used for such functions in modern scientific writing. The following example illustrates the dense use of appositive noun phrases in a science research article, often with appositives embedded in other appositives:

The highest level appositive in this example expresses the classical co-referential meaning: the observed peak growth of our wild parr is a period when their growth effectiveness was high. However, the embedded appositive noun phrase (assimilation minus BMR) has a more specialized meaning that provides details about the methodology, specifying that ‘growth effectiveness’ was calculated by subtracting the BMR measure from the assimilation measure.

Appositive noun phrases with complex meaning relationships are common in modern science research articles. In all cases of apposition, there are no grammatical markers used to make the meaning relationship explicit. Thus, consider the following examples:

• Analyses that included all cases in each center (n = 3311; total follow-up: 19,990 person-years) yielded largely similar results.

• Our Girnock analysis (fig. 2a) shows that late autumn and winter (day 240 onwards) was the only period when…

• In multivariate analyses that adjusted for age and sex, renal involvement (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.9; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.4 to 2.5), cardiac involvement (HR = 2.8; 95% CI: 2.1 to 3.8), pulmonary involvement (HR = 1.6; 95% CI: 1.3 to 2.2), and anti-topoisomerase I antibodies (HR = 1.3; 95% CI: 1.0 to 1.6) increased mortality risk.

As these examples show, it is not at all unusual to have multiple appositive noun phrases in the same clause, often modifying a single head noun, and often embedded hierarchically. For example, ‘HR’ and ‘CI’ are embedded appositive noun phrases providing acronyms for ‘hazard ratio’ and ‘confidence interval’. These appositive noun phrases all provide additional descriptive information about the head noun, but many of them do not express a simple co-referential relationship. From a discourse perspective, these devices provide a way for authors to condense information into few words. We turn to this more general functional priority in the following section.