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4. RHETORIC AND THE WORLD OF SCIENCE IN THE EModE PERIOD<br />

allows another NP to be placed at the end of the clause, being attached to the previous NP<br />

by a verb acting as a kind of nexus. This syntactic distribution favours the “constant<br />

movement” pointed out by Halliday and Martin (1993) in the quotation cited earlier.<br />

Thus, a relation between processes is created. This relation may be either internal “b<br />

causes me to think y” or external “a causes x to happen” (Halliday and Martin 1993: 61).<br />

As a result of the nominalization of much of the lexical content, the verb loses its lexical<br />

value, and often acts only as a mere copula. The resulting pattern is a clause with the<br />

structure shown in (98) below.<br />

(98) process 1 (NP) + relation (VP) + process 2 (NP/ PP)<br />

Gerbert (1970, quoted from Gotti 2003: 80) suggests that this pattern is reminiscent<br />

of mathematical equations, in which the copula acts as the = sign, and the two parts of the<br />

equation, namely, the two NPs, are interchangeable. This pattern is rhetorically<br />

significant since it favours the flow of information. In those cases when the subject is far<br />

longer than its complement (cf. [99]), inversion allows the writer to match the principles<br />

of end-weight and end-focus.<br />

(99) More important is the solution of any priority problems that may<br />

arise.<br />

Another textual reason for the increasing preference for nominalizations is that they<br />

serve as cohesive devices. In English, information is distributed according to the patterns<br />

of Theme + Rheme and Given + New. The Theme is “the element that constitutes the<br />

point of departure for the message” (Halliday and Martin 1993: 60). It is placed at the<br />

beginning of the sentence, and it is given information, that is, known information. The<br />

93

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