Noun Phrases in a corpus of medical reports

Abstract

The aim of this study is to describe some Noun Phrases collected in a corpus of medical reports. As is well known, this kind of texts is characterised by a wide use of Noun Phrases. In particular, the analysis focuses on action noun constructions formed by an action noun and its argument introduced by a preposition. In addition to this, non-prototypical structures also occur in the corpus. One case consists of an action noun which is juxtaposed to a concrete noun. Another case consists of a structure without the action noun in which only the concrete noun is attested. This paper will thus attempt to demonstrate the role played by certain textual features of medical reports on the emerging of nonprototypical Noun Phrases as a result of a variety of ellipse phenomena.

Keywords

• linguaggio medico
• frase nominale
• nominalizzazione
• ellissi