Stages

Grammatical features

Modifiers

IEEE writers’ abstracts (IWA)

CNKI writers’ abstracts (CWA)

Raw freq.

Per 100 words

Percent

Raw freq.

Per 100 words

Percent

2

Attributive adjectives

AP/AAP

1872

5.08

21.63%

3869

4.87

23.68%

3

Participial premodifiers

PP

463

1.26

5.35%

756

0.95

4.63%

That relative clauses, especially with animate head nouns

RC

299

0.81

3.46%

124

0.16

0.76%

Nouns as premodifiers

NP

1140

3.09

13.17%

3029

3.82

18.54%

Possessive nouns

PNP

52

0.14

0.60%

135

0.17

0.83%

Of phrases

OF

807

2.19

9.33%

2842

3.58

17.39%

Simple prepositional phrases other than of

PR

1188

3.22

13.73%

480

0.60

2.94%

4

Nonfinite relative clauses: -ed

ED

196

0.53

2.27%

320

0.40

1.96%

Nonfinite relative clauses: -ing

ING

107

0.29

1.24%

60

0.08

0.37%

Multiple modifiers of Attributive adjectives and nouns

ANP

568

1.54

6.56%

1103

1.39

6.75%

NNP

301

0.82

3.48%

884

1.11

5.41%

Other multiple modifiers

1238

3.36

14.31%

2523

3.18

15.44%

5

Preposition + Nonfinite complement clause

PNCC

48

0.13

0.55%

102

0.13

0.62%

Complement clauses controlled by nouns

CN

30

0.08

0.35%

22

0.03

0.13%

Multiple prepositional phrases, with levels of embedding

EPE

121

0.33

1.40%

61

0.08

0.37%

To-clauses

TO

223

0.61

2.58%

32

0.04

0.20%