I had a mini-rebellion in my 090 Intro to Writing class yesterday. We are covering punctuation, and a few students demanded to know exactly why the adjectives in the following sentence should not be treated as coordinate:

>He wanted the red convertible Porsche.

I explained that "convertible" was a noun functioning as an adjective and that therefore "convertible Porsche" should be regarded as a noun phrase unit. But is this the right (or complete) explanation? For example, in the sentence, 

>She wanted the large, silk purse.

"silk" is an adjectival noun which could, it seems, be treated as coordinate with "large" (its quality of silkiness) *or* as belonging to "purse" (like "living" would to "room," say). Does this come down to a matter of subtle emphasis, or is there some kind of "rule" to which one can point more inquiring students? The textbooks I've seen more or less treat the punctuation of adjectives as a closed and shut case, but it does seem there is some ambiguity involved.

Thanks for any responses before my class with my independent-thinking students tomorrow, Wednesday, at 3 pm Central Time. I promised them an answer.

Kent

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