Abstract

This study examines the numbers of relative clauses and the percentages of subordinate clauses they comprise in two sets of research reports from the Physical Review, one from the earliest years (1893-1901) and one from 1980. It finds only a slight decrease in percentages of relative clauses from the first set of articles to the second, but it also finds some striking differences in patterns of what the relative clauses modify, particularly in references to experimental instruments and materials, experimental results or products, and equations. This study also shows evidence of a stylistic shift between the two sets of articles, from what Halliday (1987a) calls the dynamic style (that reflects processes, happenings, and actions) to the synoptic style (that reflects structures, categories, and hierarchies). It speculates that this shift would have been motivated by later physicists' wish to use tenseless expressions and to communicate effectively in an increasingly built-up web of information.