UDK 81'42:81'367.622=111=163.6
DISCOURSE FUNCTION OF NOMINALIZATION: A CASE STUDY OF ENGLISH AND SLOVENE NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
Katja Plemenitas
Abstract
The article deals with nominalization as a linguistic form with a universal discourse function. It offers an explanation of the discourse function of nominalization as a topicalization mechanism. From this stems the assumption that the use of nominalization is associated with specific text types, which is supported by a comparative study of nominalizations carried out on a sample of English and Slovene newspaper articles from two different periods. The study tests some predictions with regard to the use and frequency of nominalizations in the sample, which are based on general assumptions about the function of nominalizations arid some previous observations about nominalizing tendencies in English and Slovene. The results of this study show that both English and Slovene newspaper articles yield similar global patterns in the distribution of nominalization in connection with the text type.
1. INTRODUCTION
The simplest definition of nominalization states that nominalization is essentially "turning something into a noun" (Comrie and Thomson 1985). Nominalization thus always involves the functional reclassification of a non-nominal into a nominal unit (Heyvaert 2003:51) To this category belong nomináis such as action nouns derived from action verbs and state nouns derived from stative verbs or adjectives, the so-called deverbal and deadjectival nouns. Nominalization also includes other categories of nouns, for example agentive nouns, but here we limit our discussion to nominalizations with abstract meaning. Nominalization as a linguistic expression is often presented as a structure with a kind of intermediate status. Action nouns, for example, contain one or more reflexes of a proposition, while their internal structure parallels that of an ordinary nominal phrase. Comparative studies of action nomináis in English and other languages show that nominalization is a category that has an intermediate status between verbs and nouns, although its structure differs to some degree from language to language. Regardless of structural differences among languages, nominalization seems to have a universal discourse function: it allows a notion which is verbal or adjectival in origin to be inserted into a proposition as if it were a noun. It should be noted that in functionalist approaches (e.g. Halliday 2004), the definition of nominalization extends beyond the morphological derivational cat-
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egorization. Rather, nominalization is considered as a part of a wider phenomenon called grammatical metaphor, i.e. a phenomenon created through untypical selections following through from the semantics to the phonology. For example, semantic representations of people, places and things are typically realized by verbs; actions by nouns; quality by adjectives; logical relations by conjunctions and so on. Nominalization thus makes it possible for meanings which are typically realized by verbs or adjectives to occupy prototypical nominal position of subject, direct object and indirect object.
2. NOMINALIZATION AND DISCOURSE
In the last twenty years, pragmatically oriented studies of discourse genres have increasingly stressed the role of nominalization in written language. However, the importance of nominalization for linguistic studies was first recognized by linguists working in the generative tradition, as it provided many insights which proved to be important for the development of transformational-generative theory itself (Milojevic-Sheppard 1980: 24). The interest of generative linguistics was primarily in nominalization as a structural phenomenon. In those studies, nominalization was used as a perfect example for illustrating the construct of 'transformation'. However, as Haeyvert (2003: 53) notes, often such relationships of agnation have not been interpreted with regard to the semantics of the nominalized constructions in question, and have concentrated more on formal characteristics.
As opposed to generative approaches, functionalists in general concentrate more on the semantic and pragmatic import of nominalized structures. In a recent approach to the categorization and explanation of nominalizations from a cognitive-functional point of view, Heyvaert (2003:52) argues for a multifunctional account of the semantics of nominalization based on Halliday's three linguistic metafunctions, that is his representational, interpersonal and textual functions (e.g. Halliday 1994,2004). Heyvaert (2003:61) claims that "only when the parallelisms between the functional organization of nominals and clauses are clear can the process of nominalization itself be elucidated and the mechanisms that lie behind specific nominalization types be identified." However, despite the fact that she takes into account all three linguistic functions in her explanations of relationships of agnation between nominalized structures and their clausal agnates, Heyvaert does not go beyond the semantic level of the structures in question.
A different perspective on nominalizations is offered by Halliday and Martin (1993), who treat abstract nominalized structures as part of a broader phenomenon called grammatical metaphor, a phenomenon which is to a large extent defined by its discoursal function. They define grammatical metaphor broadly as a marked or untypical correlation between syntactic and semantic categories, whereby nouns typically correlate with the semantic class of objects, verbs with the semantic class of actions, and adjectives with the semantic class of properties. Word classes are inextricably connected with certain pragmatic functions, a view also held by Vidovic Muha (2000:30) when she talks about the categorical properties of world classes. However, word classes can have an untypical correlation with semantic classes. In the case of nominalization, nouns
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mostly correlate with the semantic class of actions or properties. Nominalizing as an untypical relation between the syntactic category and semantic class thus has two important discoursal effects: " (1) packaging a complex phenomenon into a single semiotic entity, by making it one element of clause structure, so that (2) its rhetorical function - its place in the unfolding argument - its rendered fully explicit (Halliday and Martin 1993:60)." This makes it a kind of integrative device.
In his explanation of grammatical metaphor M.A.K. Halliday (Halliday and Martin 1993:12) explains these discourse functions as closely connected to the nature of written language and the rise of scientific discourse in some cultures. He claims that the language of science is the main source of the language of literacy in western society and as such has a significant impact on the development of language registers used in other spheres of life (Halliday and Martin 1993: 12-13).
While focusing on the discussion of the development of English scientific discourse, Halliday (Halliday and Martin 1993:13) recognizes that similar conclusions also apply to other European languages. The reason Halliday gives for confining his account to western science is that "it was in the west that the move from technology into science first took place" (Halliday and Martin 1993:12). Halliday suggests that nominalization and its related features should be treated as innovations that first evolved in the context of science in ancient Greek and classical Latin, developing further from the Renaissance onwards in English and other languages of Europe, such as Italian, English, French, German and Russian (Halliday and Martin 1993:80).
When explaining nominalization as an innovation tied to a specific type of discourse, such as the discourse of science, Halliday presents its development and distribution as discourse-driven and mainly context-dependent, but at the same time seems to imply that it is a part of the typology of the European languages.
However, typological research indicates that integrative devices such as nominalization are also present in most if not all unwritten languages (e.g. Chafe 1982). In light of these observations we propose to view nominalization as a construction which is not closely tied to any particular culture, language or any one type of discourse, but suggest instead focusing primarily on the universal discourse functions which make its distribution dependent on the universal demands of discourse.
In cognitive linguistics, syntactic categories are usually ascribed certain pragmatic or cognitive properties. So the overall function of a nominal is to refer to a thing and make it "a momentary focus of attention" within the speech event (Langacker 1991:53). Similarly Croft (1991: 108) claims that referring "creates an autonomous entity and makes it into a kind or and individual of the kind (with its attendant stereotypes and connotations)." This also makes nominalization an integrative device. Its effect is actually twofold - first it integrates the information of a clause into a single nominal element, and second, it enables this information to be promoted to the subject or object position in the clause, the positions which are used to code the primary clausal topics (Givon 1984). The heavy use of nominalization in these positions thus results in texts with a highly abstract content. Subject matter, however, does not itself entail formal complexity and marked structures, although there is a strong frequency-association between written discourse, formality (distance on the interpersonal level) and abstract academic topics. These topics are formally and semantically complex, so
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they take the opportunity for planning and revising offered by written transmission. This explains the frequent use of nominalizations in written language.
Corpus studies of nominalization so far have mainly been in the context of the difference between spoken and written language as a typical feature of the integration in written style as opposed to fragmentation of spoken style (Chafe 1982, Biber 1986, Halliday 1989). Many of these studies (e.g. Chafe 1982) discuss the use of nominalization primarily with regard to the restrictions of real-time production in speech versus opportunity for extensive editing in writing. Some studies also include the cognitive explanations of nominalization as the topicalization of verbal and adjectival meanings (e.g. Biber 1986). Most of the corpus research has been carried out on texts in English, so it is not completely clear to what extent such findings are universal and how far they apply to similar text types in different languages. Studies of other European languages suggest similar tendencies in their written varieties, for example the nominalizing tendency in written German (e.g. Petrič 1994).
Biber's analysis (1986) clearly indicates three textual dimensions distinguishing written types from spoken types. The dimension which he labeled 'Abstract vs. Situated Content' is marked by nominalization (along with some other features such as passives, specific conjuncts, prepositions etc.). The identification of this dimension reaffirms the cognitive view of nominalization as a referring expression and a topicalization device. As Biber (1986: 395) puts it: "Nominalizations compress the information of a clause into a single nominal element...; this again results in ... the promotion of a more abstract concept." Givon (1990: 740) holds a similar view in his discussion of topicality. He claims that topicality is actually a property of nominal participants. Givon (ibid.) says: "When whole events or states are made topical, they are almost always nominalized. That is, they are made morphologically and syntactically noun-like." Topics as nominalizations typically depend on written transmission, since writing allows for extensive editing and more time for decoding. At the same time written transmission usually also entails a higher level of formality and a greater degree of interpersonal distance between the producer and the receiver of the text. An even better understanding of the discourse function of nominalizations can be achieved through further empirical research of the textual use of nominalization in different languages
On the structural level, the comparison of English and Slovene nominalizations shows that both languages display nominalizations characterized by the genitivization of both subject and object of their sentential agnate. Some structural differences do exist. English, for example, has two types of genitives, i.e. the's genitive and the -of genitive, the difference between which is used in action nominals to correlate with that between subject and direct object of a verb, whereas in Slovene action nominals the same difference is expressed by a possessive adjective and the adnominal genitive, for example English the enemy's destruction of the city versus Slovene sovražnikovo uničenje mesta. Slovene also lacks the gerundive nominalization which belongs to the sentential type of nominalizations (Kotptjevskaja-Tamm 2003: 726)) of the type his drawing the picture rapidly.
In comparisons of English and Slovene it has been assumed that English is a more nominalized language, in other words, that it often shows an inclination to use
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abstract nouns where Slovene prefers adjectives, verbs or phrasing. Klinar (1996: 193) thus talks about a noun-oriented tendency in English in comparison with Slovene, defining it in the following way: "English shows an inclination to use nouns where Slovene prefers adjectives, verbs, or (idiomatic) phrasing." Klinar (1966) views the nominalized character of English from the perspective of the translatability of English nouns, focusing his attention on English abstract and agent nouns not directly translatable into Slovene. His discussion, however, is limited to the translatability of nouns at the level of phrases and clauses..
Empirical contrastive studies of this issue across larger corpora are still in the initial stages. In order to establish how the distribution of nominalizations in English discourse compares to that of other languages such as Slovene, which at the micro level have a less pronounced nominalization tendency, the analysis has to move away from a search for a general correlation between spoken or written register and the distribution of register-specific features. In light of the discourse function of nominalization as a topicalization or thematization of verbal and adjectival meanings, one also has to take into account the level of specific text types in specific languages. The notion of text-type in functional linguistics stands for the purpose of the text and the combination of textual variables of field (subject matter, theme), tenor (interpersonal distance, i.e. level of formality) and mode (the role of language in the speech situation, e.g. written or spoken). The distribution of nominalization, as indicated above, reflects all these three variables, and consequently the text-type. By taking this into account, we can establish a more reliable taxonomy of text types in English and show how they differ, if at all, from text types in other languages, in our particular case Slovene.
3. STUDY
Random observations so far have shown that - as expected - Slovene, similarly to English, uses nominalization on a massive scale in text types with a high degree of specialization and technicality, i.e. in text types with a predominantly abstract content, such as expository prose (c.f. Plemenitaš 1998). Below we present an example of a more systematic comparative study focusing on the use of nominalization in English and Slovene news articles (Plemenitaš 2004). It focuses on the analysis of nominalization in a sample of English and Slovene newspaper articles. The sample consists of eight English and eight Slovene newspaper articles from two different periods, from the years 1961 and 2001 respectively, 16 articles in total.. The sample consisted of 5265 words for the English articles and of 4318 words for the Slovene articles. The articles were taken exclusively from broadsheet newspapers, the English ones from the Guardian and the Times, and the Slovene ones from Delo and Večer. The results of the analysis presented here are part of a wider investigation into the patterns of nominalization in Slovene and English newspaper discourse. The original study (Plemenitaš 2004) also included a sample of newspaper arts reviews. Due to space limitation we concentrate here on the analysis of the sample of newspaper articles, comparing the two languages and the two periods in this text-type. However, in order
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to show some notable characteristics of the distribution of nominalization in newspaper articles, we also compare some of the results obtained for newspaper articles with the results obtained for newspaper arts reviews.
We present the results obtained for the distribution of nominalizations in the sample of newspaper articles with regard to their overall frequency. The distribution of nominalizations according to meaning is also considered. The category of meaning takes into account the functional organization of the agnate clauses of action and gerundive nominalizations, and the lexical semantic class of the agnate words of other nominalizations (e.g. deadjectival nominalizations with the meaning of property, different kinds of modality). The classification of clause types which are agnate to nominalizations is based on Halliday (1994:108), who distinguishes - in general lines -among the processes of doing belonging to the physical world (i.e. material processes), processes of sensing belonging to the world of consciousness (mental processes of cognition, affection and perception), and processes of being belonging to the world of abstract relations (relational processes). Behavioural, verbal and existential processes are on the borderlines between these processes All these processes are included in the analysis under the category of meaning of nominalizations. It has to be noted that in this analysis nominalization is not viewed as a word-formational phenomenon alone, but also includes untypical semantic classes in typical nominal positions (e.g. circumstances as subject or direct object). The analysis does not include agentive -er nominalizatons. Lastly, the analysis also takes into account the type of formation of nominalizations and their grammatical function (subject, object). Where necessary, the results obtained for that sample are compared with the results obtained for the sample of newspaper reviews. The results were calculated using the computer program SPSS.
4. RESULTS
Some of the predictions about the results of the analysis were anticipated in the form of five hypotheses (Plemenitas 2004: 62).
The first two hypotheses are based on the assumption about the connection between the text type and the use of nominalizations. They compare newspaper articles with newspaper arts reviews.
1)	The frequency of nominalizations with the meaning of verbal processes in newspaper articles is higher than in reviews in both English and Slovene.
2)	The frequency of nominalizatons with the meaning of property in newspaper articles is lower than in reviews in both English and Slovene.
The text type in our sample is that of newspaper news or newspaper articles. It mainly includes what Kosir (1988) calls extended news. Lord and Dahlgreen (1997: 326) describe this text type in the following way: "These articles typically report a news event and provide a discussion of its background and significance along with comments from participants, observers, and/or knowledgeable sources". It is defined here as the text type of which the main purpose is to inform the reader about an event or happening. The sample did not include editorials, which belong to a separate genre
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of argument texts. We assumed that the feature distinguishing new articles from reviews would be a higher frequency of nominalized verbal processes, presenting comments from participants etc. as topics. At the same time we expected a lower frequency of nominalizations with the meaning of property, which would typically be made into topics in reviews as the text type of which the main purpose is to inform and convince the reader about the value of a certain work of art.
First, we present some general findings regarding the category of meaning. As Tables 1 and 2 show, the proportion of nominalizations in the category of meaning in both languages and periods yields certain patterns which we primarily associate with the text type of newspaper articles. The results show, regardless of language and period, the highest proportion of nominalizations in the category of meaning is made up of nominalizations with the meaning of material processes, followed by verbal processes and states. The second largest proportion in newspaper articles, in all the subsamples, is made up of nominalizations with the meaning of verbal processes. There is a less clear pattern with lower proportions, however there is a fairly high proportion of nominalizations with the meaning of state and mental processes. It is concluded from these results that the larger proportions of nominalization in the category of meaning depends on the field typically associated with a specific text type. We also assume that smaller proportions which do not yield any consistent pattern depend on the even more specific field of individual texts. Our findings reaffirm the assumption about the role of nominalizations in turning meanings normally associated with non-referential expressions into the topics of the text.
Below are some typical examples of nominalizations in English and Slovene newspaper articles from different categories of meaning.
Material processes
political, economic events:
English examples: in further moves on IRA arms , without suspension, after yesterday's vote, the public support of his ministerial colleagues
Slovene examples: iz spomladanske napovedi gospodarskih gibanj, po padcu naložb še padec izvoza, z omejevanjem napredovanja in novega zaposlovanja
Concrete events:
English examples: the bewildering speed of the continuing Taliban collapse. their northern headquarters lost in heavy fighting a year ago, electrification, the reconstruction of Euston Station
Slovene examples: nadaljevanje krvavih spopadov, umik civilistov, toleriranje albanskega nasilja, umor osmih pripadnikov varnostnih sil
Verbal processes:
speech acts (declarations, comments, talks, promises):
English examples: appeals from Tony Blair, fighting for days against mounting criticism, the announcement that the US shed 415,0000jobs
Slovene examples: sporočilo Adulove vlade, so izrazili mnenje, ponavljali so izjave o ustanovitvi palestinske države, Britanski premier Tony Blair po pogovorih s
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Šaronom
information sources (reports, opinions):
English examples: unconfirmed reports suggested, , it is not good news for America; according to reports from his delegation meeting today
(slovenščina) se po nekaterih informacijah ...zbirajo skrajneži, Po Kerimovem mnenju, po podatkih albanskih virov, bo po Powellovih besedah
States:
English examples: recession in America, Mcleish leaves labour in chaos, contest for the Scottish Labour leadership. railway solvency
Slovene examples: varnost Makedonije. prizadevanje za mir, katanški problem. sporazum o premirju, rušenje ravnotežja z Moskvo
Mental cognitive processes:
English examples: firmer estimates than ever before, unanimous in thinking that..., a happier memory of their deliberation, the dilemma of whether to call assembly elections, a sign of faith in Republicans
Slovene examples: nove ocene makroekonomskih dejavnikov, v pričakovanju dokončnega sklepa, po starih zaključkih.
Mental affective processes:
English examples: the concerns of people of Scotland, absence of any disposition towards hatchet-burying, the time for repentance is now, plunging labour into turmoil, private unease
Slovene examples: premierove besede o izražanju lojalnosti albanskega prebivalstva, nasilje razširja etnično sovraštvo
Mental processes of volition:
Slovene examples: a general desire to improve the flexibility, a comprehensive scheme with proposals for phasing the investement, no intention to leave for another party, Mr. George Brown's desire for a change
English examples: ne kaže pretirane volje, da bi ZDA vztrajale na območju,, upanje, da bojo pogajanja žela uspeh, poudarjajo svojo odločenost, izraz pripravljenosti premiera
Table 1. The English sample: proportion of nominalizations according to meaning
material	199	41.5
verbal	51	10.6
state	38	7.9
mental/cognitive	33	6.9
mental/affective	32	6.7
mental/volition	25	5.2
ability	23	4.8
degree	11	2.3
obligation	10	2.1
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property	9	1.9
consequence	8	1.7
time	8	1.7
theme	7	1.5
fact	5	1.0
manner	4	0.8
role	3	0.6
condition	3	0.6
possibility	2	0.4
behavioural/material	2	0.4
space	2	0.4
behavioural/mental	2	0.4
reason	2	0.4
circum stance/general	1	0.2
total	480	100
Table 2. The Slovene sample: proportion of nominalizations according to meaning
	No. of occurences	%
material	281	59.5
verbal	73	15.5
state	52	11.0
mental/cognitive	10	2.1
mental/volition	9	1.9
degree	6	1.3
fact	6	1.3
mental/affective	5	1.1
property	5	1.1
ability	5	1.1
obligation	5	1.1
circumstance/general	4	0.8
consequence	3	0.6
time	2	0.4
theme	1	0.2
reason	1	0.2
role	1	0.2
space	1	0.2
manner	1	0.2
existential	1	0.2
total	472	100
The results relating to the frequency of nominalizations in the category of meaning help to test the first two hypotheses. Tables 3, 4, 5 and 6 show the frequency index in both periods in English and Slovene newspaper articles. The obtained frequencies indexes completely agree with the hypotheses since they show that the frequency of nominalizations with the meaning of verbal processes in news is, in all the subsamples, higher in comparison with that of reviews (an average of 6.7 for news compared to an average of 2.1 for reviews).
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At the same time the frequency of nominalizations with the meaning of property is generally lower compared to that of reviews (an average of 0.7 for news compared to an average of 10.7 for reviews).
The third hypothesis is based on the assumption that English generally has a stronger nominalized tendency than Slovene.
3)	The frequency of nominalizations in Slovene newspaper articles is lower than in English newspaper articles.
However, this hypothesis is rejected. It was assumed that the text type of news as a less theoretical text type than reviews would show a weaker nominalising tendency in Slovene, however, the overall frequency of nominalizations in Slovene news is not lower than that of English news, but actually exceeds it. The comparison between news and reviews also shows that the overall frequency index is higher in news, which at the same time contrasts with the general assumption about a more nominalized character of the text type of reviews.
Table 3. English newspaper articles 2001 - frequency index
total material mental circumstance verbal state	modality property
Frequency 41.8 18.3 7.5 5.1	5 3.1	2.6	0.3
index
Table 4. English newspaper articles 1961 - frequency index
total material mental modality verbal state circumstance	property
Frequency 50.5 20.1 10.5 4.9	4.7 4.5 4.1	1.5
index
Table 5. Slovene newspaper articles 2001 - frequency index
total material verbal state mental circumstances	property modality
Frequency 53.6 34.6 7.4 4.3 2.9 2.7	0.8 0.8 index
Table 6. Slovene newspaper articles 1961 - frequency index
total material verbal state mental modality circumstance property Frequency 56 29.8 9.8 8.5 2.6 3.2 1.8	0.3
index
The fourth hypothesis refers to the proportion of nominalizations according to the category of word-formation (Tables 7, 8, 9 and 10). This hypothesis is based on the previous findings which show that the development of nominalization in journalistic Slovene is directed to a more extensive use of nouns derived by morphemes other than -je, which in general stress the resultative rather than processual meaning (Žele 1996:198), which is a step up in the development towards more nominalized expression.
4)	In Slovene, the proportion of non-gerundive nominalizations in the modern period is higher in comparison with that from the past period.
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The comparison of Slovene gerunds between the two periods in the sample of newspaper articles indeed shows a slight decrease in the proportion of gerunds in the modern period, which agrees with our hypothesis, whereas in English it stays the same. It is also interesting that in our sample the proportion of Slovene gerunds (nouns derived by -je) is in general higher in comparison to the proportion of English verbal and nominal gerunds (i.e. gerundive and action nominalizations) combined.
Table 7. English newspaper articles 2001 - the type of word-formation
No. of occurences	%
deverbal conversion 74	30.5
noun (non-derived) 66	27.2
deverbal derivation 54	22.2
gerundive nominalization 16	6.6
action nominalization 14	5.8
deadjectival derivation 10	4.1
deadjectival conversion 5	2.1
denominal derivation 2	0.8
deadverbial conversion 2	0.8
total 243	100
The proportion of gerundive and action nominalizations: 12.3%	
Table 8. Slovene newspaper articles 2001 - the type of word-formation	
No. of occurences	%
deverbal derivation 72	27.7
deverbal conversion 71	27.3
gerundive nominalization 52	20
noun (non-derived) 44	16.9
deadjectival derivation 20	7.7
denominal derivation 1	4
total 260	100
The proportion of gerundive nominalizations: 20%	
Table 9. English newspaper articles 1961 - the type of word-formation	
No. of occurences	%
Deverbal derivation 74	31.4
Deverbal conversion 63	26.7
Noun (non-derived) 63	26.7
Action nominalization 11	4.7
Deadjectival derivation 9	3.8
Gerundive nominalization 7	3
Denominal derivation 6	2.5
Deadjectival conversion 3	1.3
total 236	100
The proportion of action and gerundive nominalizations - 12.3%
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Table 10. Slovene newspaper articles 1961 - the type of word-formation
	No. of occurences	%
Deverbal conversion	74	34.9
Deverbal derivation	64	30.2
Gerundive nominalization	47	22.2
Noun (non-derived)	16	7.5
Deadjectival derivation	10	4.7
Deadjectival conversion	1	5
total	212	100
The proportion of gerundive nominalizations: 22.2%
The fifth hypothesis refers to the proportion of nominalizations with the function of subject and (direct) object. It is based on the concept of subject and object as the most important topics in the text.
5) The largest proportion of the functions of subject and direct object in the analysed sample, in both languages and periods, belongs to nominalizations which have the highest proportion in the category of meaning.
The results obtained from the sample of newspaper articles show that the functions of subject and object are occupied by the nominalizations which have the highest and the second highest proportion in the category of meaning (Tables 11, 12, 13 and 14). The highest proportion of subjects is thus made up of nominalizations with the meaning of material processes. In news, the second highest proportion of subjects consists of nominalizations with the meaning of verbal processes, whereas in reviews it is nominalizations with the meaning of property. There is a similar pattern with objects, with the exception of English news from the past period, where nominalizations with the meaning of verbal processes in the function of subject are in fourth place. This inconsistency is probably connected with specific fields of individual texts.
Table 11. English newspaper articles 2001 - subjects and objects
	material	verbal
subject	44.9%	18.4%
object	41.7%	16.7%
Table 12. Slovene newspaper articles 2001- subjects and objects
	material	verbal	state
subject	78.9%	7.9%	
object	61.7%	8.5%	10.6%
Table 13. English newspaper articlesl961 - subjects and objects
	material	verbal	ability	mental/affective
subject	36.2%	10.6%		
object	29.2%	10.4%	16.7%	12.5%
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Table 14. Slovene newspaper articles 1961 - subjects and objects
material subject 47.6% object 37%
verbal 28.6% 24.1%
5. CONCLUSION
The results of this study show that both English and Slovene newspaper articles show similar global patterns in the distribution of nominalization according to the text types. This reaffirms our assumption about the relation between the use of nominalizaton and text types. We assume that this relation stems from the universal discourse function of nominalization as a topicalization device. The results of this study suggest that the global nominalising tendency in Slovene in written text types is at least as strong as in English. The contrastive differences in the degree of nominalization between English and Slovene seem to be local rather than global, restriced to typological differences which are not significantly reflected at the discourse level. There are a lot of open possibilities for further research in this area. Future investigations of this kind should include a wider variety of text types from different languages.
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