Noun-participle Compounds as Nominal Premodifiers

The analysis of the corpus revealed a mixed use of nouns with other constituents to premodify other nouns. For example, nouns formed a compound with participles and together modify a head noun. The following excerpts embody such examples.

• Egerton-Warburton et al. (2007) used deuterium-labeled water and fluorescent tracers to demonstrate that ectomycorrhizal and arbuscular mycorrhizal extraradical hyphae provide a potential pathway for the transfer of HLW between plants sharing common mycorrhizal networks. (agron-ra-025)

• This study explores task-based, synchronous oral computer-mediated communication (CMC) among intermediate-level learners of Spanish. (apling-ra-016)

• It has been shown that differences are evident when root-associated microbiomes are profiled via RNA-based methods, compared to DNA-based approaches. (agron-ra-024) • The impact of occupation-related low back pain (LBP) is considerable. (imse-ra-016) • Polymer-coated urea did not show a yield advantage over NCU during this research.

(agron-ra-006)

• The mean contents of most amino acids and protein for wheat-related species were higher than those for common wheat. (agron-ra-008)

• These three metrics were used to train an adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) to infer attentional tunneling. (imse-ra-018)

As shown in the examples above, noun-participle compounds were heavily used in science prose. It seems that some compounds are simpler and more tangible (e.g., wheat-related species),

whereas a great majority of these compounds are highly abstract and technical terms that are understood by the professionals/experts in respective disciplines (e.g., polymer-coated urea, network-based, root-associated). Noun-participle compounds also contribute to the condensation of information with a compressed structure. Otherwise, ‘occupation related low back pain’ would have to be expressed as ‘low back pain that is caused by reasons associated with occupation’ through a relative clause. Although a relative clause can be described as a nominal postmodifier that can describe a noun with a clausal entity, the same meaning could be conveyed with noun- participle compound and take up shorter space in discourse. In addition to noun-participle compounds premodifying a head noun, adjectives also form compounds with participles and modify nouns. The following example from agronomy shows this usage.

• Shallow-rooted plants growing within the rhizosphere of a deep-rooted plant conducting HL can benefit from this process, thus leading to water parasitism among neighboring plants. (agron-ra-025)

Similarly nouns also form compounds with bare adjectives and premodify other nouns. The following noun-adjective compounds exemplify this usage.

• This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of a site-specific approach in closing yield gaps due to nutrient limitations. (agron-ra-019)

• Water-stable aggregates (WSA) were measured in 2008 through 2010 for both soybean and corn phases of the rotation (agron-ra-014)

• In globalized turbulent markets, capital-intensive industries are often subjected to the risk of unprofitable underutilization of their production capacity. (imse-ra-008)

As the noun-adjective compounds represented in the preceding examples show, these compounds are formed with words that are relatively less abstract and technical compared to the compounds formed with nouns plus participles. However, this comparison needs to be verified with more quantitative analysis.

So far, the preceding section in this question has focused on explaining the usage and functions of nouns as nominal premodifiers. The next section reports another important noun phrase modification feature, adjectives as nominal premodifiers.

4.4.4 Adjectives as Nominal Premodifiers

Quantitative analysis of adjectives as nominal premodifiers has revealed that the mean differences across the disciplines were fairly small. That is, each discipline in the corpus had similar rates of occurrences for adjectives as nominal postmodifiers. The difference between the registers (research articles vs. master’s theses) was statistically significant, but the magnitude of the difference was not strong. This close distribution of adjectives as nominal premodifiers across the disciplines and between the registers is contrary to what we have observed for nouns as nominal premodifiers. This could be explained to some extent by the fact that adjectives appear earlier than nouns according to the developmental complexity stages proposed by Biber et al. (2011). Therefore, using adjectives to modify nouns may not be as challenging as using nouns to modify nouns. For this reason, it is plausible to expect early-stage graduate students who are supposedly less proficient in writing to be able to employ adjectives as nominal premodifiers

similar to the writers of the published journal research articles who are thought to be more proficient in writing. As for the distribution across the disciplines, adjectives are very close to each other. This is corroborating the findings reported in Biber and Gray (2016). The following excerpts from the corpus exemplify their use in science discourse.

• A diverse crop rotation is an integral component of a sustainable agricultural system. (agron-ra-023)

• Modern production practices also have negative impacts on the environment. (agron- ths-020)

• Holistic scales are most reliable when used by experienced raters, who have a richer framework on which to fall back (apling-ra-021)

One important type of adjectives that occur highly in academic discourse is the use of participial adjectives. A close-analysis of the corpus suggested that they are abundantly used by the writers in science prose. The following excerpts exemplify their usage.

• Crop species grown in a diversified crop rotation can influence soil N dynamics to varying degrees (agron-ra-023)

• A decrease in SOC negatively impacts soil by not providing binding material for aggregate formation and stabilization (agron-ra-014)

• The interacting effects of altered temperature and precipitation are expected to have significant consequences for ecosystem net carbon storage (agron-ra-018)

Similar to the use of participial adjectives to premodify head nouns, adverbs have also been observed to form a compound with participles and together premodify a noun. The following sentences from the corpus data show this use of participial adjectives with adverbs, and their compound modification to nouns.

• A reliable, reasonably priced supplyof electricity is essential to the quality of life for residents and industries. (imse-ths-010)

• It is motivated by the Canadian experience where a considerable portion of LTC beds are provided by publicly funded provincial health systems. (imse-ra-001)

• We speculate that lower soil moisture and increased aeration of these poorly-drained soils in the spring period… (agron-ra-006)

Up to this point, prenominal modifiers – adjectives as nominal premodifiers and nouns as nominal premodifiers – have had their wide range of usages explained through examples from the corpus. However, nouns are also post-modified. One of the most widely used nominal post- modifiers is the prepositional phrase (PP). The subsequent section describes PPs as nominal postmodifiers.