AbstractThis paper presents the results of an investigation into information structures in natural language science texts. A novel hypothesis was tested; namely, that the literature of a science subfield has characteristic restrictions on lanugage usage which can be used to develop information formats for text sentences in the subfield. The formats provide a standard representation of the specific types of information found in sentences of subfield articles, thougha priorisemantic categories are not used. The method of sublanguage grammars for obtaining information formats is described. Illustrations are drawn from a sublanguage grammar written for a subfield of pharmacology. Parts of the procedure are computerized or are being implemented.