The good news is that such a term already exists: adjectivals. It allows for
the distinction between single-word adjectives, which Dick has described as
"pure" adjectives, and phrases that function as adjectives do. 

 

Richard

 

 

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Philip Bralich
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2012 10:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Good article in The Chronicle

 

This is actually a very significant proposal.  You ought to write it up and
get it in print.  I have always seen that as a gap myself and your choice of
"adnominal" really hits the mark.  I see no problems with it at all or
exceptions.

 

Phil Bralich

Author: Blaming Japhy Rider

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dick Veit
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2012 6:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Good article in The Chronicle

 

Geoff, thanks for sending the article link. My ESOL students puzzle about
why noun-modifiers are singular.

What English lacks is a good general word for all modifiers of nouns.
Currently, and confusingly, we use "adjective" in two senses. First there
are the "pure" adjectives, modifiers like "happy" and "bold," most of which
take comparative and superlative forms. But we also use "adjective" in a
more general sense (as Metcalf did in the article) as a catchall for all
modifiers of nouns, so that articles, demonstratives, pure adjectives,
nouns-modifying-nouns, and prepositional phrases are also called adjectives.


Too bad there isn't a widely used general term. A good candidate might be
"adnominal," since it nicely parallels "adverbial." Then we could restrict
"adjective" to just the pure adjectives. We could say, "Nouns can be
modified by a variety of adnominals. Among them, determiners, adjectives,
and noun-modifiers all precede nouns (in that relative order), while
prepositional phrases usually follow them."

By the way, noun-modifiers (and is there a better name for nouns that modify
nouns?) can themselves be modified, which leads to some interesting
ambiguities: "Dick Veit dusted off his dirty book shelf."

Dick

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 8:39 AM, Geoffrey Layton <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

What happens when nouns become adjectives
 
http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/07/27/the-murmuring-of-innumera
te-nouns/?cid=at
<http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/07/27/the-murmuring-of-innumer
ate-nouns/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en> &utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Geoff Layton

 

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