Chapter 7

Register and modification in the noun phrase

Our study differs from previous studies on the relation between modifiers in the noun phrase and register in that we do pairwise comparisons of ten registers based on the frequency of a modifier form relative to the number of nouns in the register. Using effect size to measure the differences between any two registers, we find that the largest interregister differences correspond to distinctions made in previous multi-dimensional studies. Registers with high proportions of premodifiers tend to be informational and differ most from registers that are more ‘oral-involved’. Large differences in postnominal phrases and non-finite clauses correspond to the information-narrative distinction.