# Adjectives and nouns



## lazarus1907

Recently there was a short grammatical discussion in this forum, because some argued that “enemy” could not be an adjective, and others gave arguments to prove otherwise. What I understood from all these explanations is that a noun can be modified by adjectives and adverbs (not excluding other categories), and that some people sometimes are not aware that some words can be adjectives as well as nouns. I have put together a few (random) examples of typical combinations of words that appear to be just a couple of nouns connected together. Am I right?

Toilet seat
Power outlet
Horror movie
Hand cream
Clothes hanger
Fire exit
Shoe lace

  Assuming that I haven’t made any mistakes and they are all pairs of nouns, then it appears that some nouns can also modify (or combine with) other nouns the same way adjectives do. How can we differentiate nouns from adjectives (e.g. enemy lines) without checking the dictionary? I don’t often mistake them for each other, but I don’t know why either. Are there any handy rules here?

I hope I am not asking something stupid, because I know very little (or nothing) about English grammar.

Regards,


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## cuchuflete

The grammarians are in a bit of confusion about this one, it seems.  Every source I have looked at...just about a dozen so far...says that a noun may be used to modify another noun.

Then the waffling begins!  Some call such uses of nouns 'attributive', and as the OED does for 'fire', they list an entire page full of examples, all hyphenated.  [Thanks to Panjandrum for providing this, in regard to the word 'fire'.]   Others invent terms for such noun>noun combinations.

Here are some examples.  All agree that a noun may be 'used as an adjective', but they differ on whether that makes the noun, in such cases of adjectival use, (1)just another noun used as an adjective, (2)an adjective, or (3) a something else, named or unnamed.


# Nouns used as Adjectives:


> Sometimes nouns can be used as adjectives to define or describe another noun.
> 
> Examples:
> the *porch* light
> a _*house*_ fly


http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/grammar/course/speech/1_4a.htm




> *Adjectives*
> * (Nouns Used as Adjectives, Proper and
> Compound Adjectives) • Practice 1*​ Nouns Used as Adjectives
> A noun used as an adjective answers the question What kind? or Which
> one? about a noun that follows it.
> Nouns
> Nouns Used as Adjectives
> Snack
> snack food (What kind of food?)
> ring
> ring finger (Which finger?)
> Proper and Compound Adjectives
> A proper adjective is a proper noun used as an adjective or an
> adjective formed from a proper noun.
> Proper Nouns as Adjectives
> Proper Adjectives from Proper Nouns
> Boston newspaper
> Bostonian dialect
> India ink


 http://www.phschool.com/atschool/writing_grammar/gold/grammar_practice_activities/pdf/09GE1803.pdf.



> Noun Adjuncts (noun + noun)
> 
> In English we can put two nouns together. The first noun is used as an adjective to modify the second noun and is called a noun adjunct. The first noun is almost always singular because it follows the rule for adjectives, which do not have plural forms in English.
> 
> N1 N2 can mean that
> a. N1 is a kind of N2 (a grammar book is a kind of book)
> b. N1 is an object of an implied verb (an apple tree is a tree that produces apples)


http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/grammar/rules/nounadj.html


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## jdenson

lazarus1907 said:


> Recently there was a short grammatical discussion in this forum, because some argued that “enemy” could not be an adjective, and others gave arguments to prove otherwise. What I understood from all these explanations is that a noun can be modified by adjectives and adverbs (not excluding other categories), and that some people sometimes are not aware that some words can be adjectives as well as nouns. I have put together a few (random) examples of typical combinations of words that appear to be just a couple of nouns connected together. Am I right?
> 
> Toilet seat
> Power outlet
> Horror movie
> Hand cream
> Clothes hanger
> Fire exit
> Shoe lace
> 
> Assuming that I haven’t made any mistakes and they are all pairs of nouns, then it appears that some nouns can also modify (or combine with) other nouns the same way adjectives do. How can we differentiate nouns from adjectives (e.g. enemy lines) without checking the dictionary? I don’t often mistake them for each other, but I don’t know why either. Are there any handy rules here?
> 
> I hope I am not asking something stupid, because I know very little (or nothing) about English grammar.
> 
> Regards,



It is very common in English to use nouns as if they were adjectives. See "Nominal use of adjectives" in this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective

JD


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## cuchuflete

lazarus1907 said:


> Assuming that I haven’t made any mistakes and they are all pairs of nouns, then it appears that some nouns can also modify (or combine with) other nouns the same way adjectives do. *How can we differentiate nouns from adjectives (e.g. enemy lines) without checking the dictionary?* I don’t often mistake them for each other, but I don’t know why either. Are there any handy rules here?



Try placing the noun used as if it were an adjective after the other noun it modifies.  If it sounds awkward, it is more likely a noun than an adjective.


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## lazarus1907

jdenson said:


> It is very common in English to use nouns as if they were adjectives. See "Nominal use of adjectives" in this article.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective


At least now I have another name -apart from Cuchu's suggestion- to refer to this phenomenon, but it is unlikely that there are rules other than common sense and general agreement for the choice of a noun or an adjective in general, right?


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## lazarus1907

cuchuflete said:


> Try placing the noun used as if it were an adjective after the other noun it modifies.  If it sounds awkward, it is more likely a noun than an adjective.


Could you give me a couple of examples?


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## cuchuflete

Fire hydrant  
Hydrant fire   Completely different meaning.


Table stakes (as in poker, a card game)
Stakes table    a table for storing stakes?


Note that most adjectives in EN may come before the noun they modify, and may also be placed after it in some constructions.

I have a big house.  My house is big.
But... I have a hen house (noun>noun).  Not...I have a house hen.  (This implies that the hen is a house pet.)

Afterthought:  "House" in the example above, is yet another noun adjunct!  House>pet


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## panjandrum

This happens all the time.
There is a cat flap in our kitchen door. This flap is stuck. This flap is cat?
The house cat comes in and out at will. This cat is striped. This cat is house?
The garden cat stays outside.
I have a car key and a house key. This key is gold. This key is car/house?
Both keys are kept in a key safe (he lied).

None of cat, kitchen, house, garden, car, house and key are listed in the OED as adjectives.

All may be used attributively (I'm borrowing this word) - as if they were adjectives.

Does this matter?
To me, not at all.
Well, I don't think it matters.  It may make a big subconscious difference.


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## cuchuflete

Bringing this thread back to bitter life, to seek help with the most useful nomenclature for adjectives or other words that modify a noun that is used, in turn to modify another noun.  

Let's call the final noun  N2.
The noun that modifies it is N1.
N1 is used adjectively, attributively, nominatively, or however you wish to call such things.

Now take N1, and put an adjective in front of it to modify it.  Call the adjective A1.

Question:  When N1, with its accompanying adjective, A1, is used adjectively or attributively, does that
leave A1, formerly an adjective, as

a) an adjective
b) an adverb
c) something else?

In other words, if  an adjective modifies a noun, and that noun, together with the adjective, is then used to modify yet another noun, is the adjective still an adjective?


Example:

big.........dog
adj........noun

big.............dog..................................................collar
???...........noun used"attributively" to modify.........>noun


To avoid confusion, please consider big as a modifier of dog in both cases.


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## emma42

No, it isn't.  A word that modifes an adjective is an adverb.  It says so in the dictionary, so it must be true.

[Would it be a good idea to move some posts from the "bitter as an adverb" thread, so as to save repetition?]


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## cuchuflete

emma42 said:


> No, it isn't.  A word that modifes an adjective is an adverb.  It says so in the dictionary, so it must be true.


 But if the adjective is not explicitly an adjective, but a noun impersonating an adjective, is the original adjective an adjective impersonator?

Other than position, what is adverbial about a word modifying a noun, whether or not that noun is describing another noun?   Does the former and possibly present adjective do anything that an adverb normally does in modifying an adjective?


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## emma42

cuchuflete said:


> But if the adjective is not explicitly an adjective, but a noun impersonating an adjective, is the original adjective an adjective impersonator?  I don't think so.  I would liken the original adjective to a chameleon, rather than something in disguise.
> 
> Other than position, what is adverbial about a word modifying a noun, whether or not that noun is describing another noun?   Does the former and possibly present adjective do anything that an adverb normally does in modifying an adjective?


 Aha!  "other than position..."!  You can't just dismiss that important point, Mr C. Position, and the absence of a comma between the first and second modifiers are crucial.  Yes, the former/present adjective describes the way in which something is ---(insert adjective of choice):

Bitter cold night - the night is cold in a bitter way.
Light pink dress -  the dress is pink in a light way.
Bright white tidy-whities - the tidy-whities are white in a bright way.


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## winklepicker

emma42 said:


> the absence of a comma between the first and second modifiers are crucial


 
A dark blue comma? A pair of commas is dark blue? A pair of commas are dark blue?

Time I had a little lie down...


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## cuchuflete

winklepicker said:


> A dark blue comma? A pair of commas is dark blue? A pair of commas are dark blue?
> 
> Time I had a little lie down...



Would the lie down be in a "Position" that you overlooked while spreading honey on the knife?

Maybe it will be easier to detect in a more civil(ised?) color:

Position, and the absence of a comma between the first and second modifiers are crucial.


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## emma42

Abject apologies.  "The absence...IS crucial".  I will never leave the house again, for shame.

Edit:  Winkle and Cuch, PlEASe stop it.


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## gaer

cuchuflete said:


> In other words, if an adjective modifies a noun, and that noun, together with the adjective, is then used to modify yet another noun, is the adjective still an adjective?


I would answer that question with a question:

Does the meaning change, as in your examples:

"The bitter cold makes the river ice groan and wail."
"It's a bitter cold day."

In this case, the adjective "bitter" become and adverb because the implied meaning changes. I think this is very rare, but it may not be.


> Example:
> 
> big.........dog
> adj........noun
> 
> big.............dog..................................................collar
> ???...........noun used"attributively" to modify.........>noun
> 
> 
> To avoid confusion, please consider big as a modifier of dog in both cases.


Yikes! I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't avoid confusion here. You have confused me!

We have a problem in English that may not exist in many other languages and definitely does not exist in at least one: German.

English has no adjective/adverb endings to signal the difference between a noun and a "not-noun".

And this causes potential confusion because we are not allowed to shove words together:

A bigdog collar.
A big dogcollar.

In any such discussion, you can't underestimate the potential problems of a language that insists on treating two nouns as one by writing them as two spaced words, two words connected with a hyphen, or two words made into one. 

fire place
fire-place
fireplace

I believe only the third is considered correct, but has it always been so?

What about:

electronic mail
electronic-mail
e-mail
email

At what point does all this "attributive" bunk turn into a freaking noun? 

For those who object to email and who might object on the basis of the definition on MW, isn't it ironic that right below "e-mail", which is shown as the only correct form, there is a link: Free 5GB Email.

When I read "big dog", I saw a big dog. When I read "big dog collar", as illogical as it might sound, I could not decide if you meant a collar for a big dog or a big collar for a dog. I'm not splitting hairs. My mind went flip-flop. In order to understand this little, innocent-looking phrase, I need a hyphen: That's a big dog-collar (a big collar for a dog and not for some other animal).

Or: That's a big-dog collar (collar for a big dog, not a small one).

I wonder if after all this discussion we've done anything except chase our own tails. We started off with "bitter cold day", and then I was quite happy thinking of "bitter" as an adverb. 

However, once we got to things like "dark blue necktie", I think we wandered into the "Grammatical Twilight Zone". By then we had two words that CAN be nouns (the dark, the color blue) and a compound noun that might just as well be written "neck-tie" or "neck tie".

Am I the only person who thinks that we are sadly in need of better terminology? We can agree, I think, that "dark" describes or modifies "blue". What kind of blue? But why can't we do the same kind of thing with modifiers that we do with nouns?

a ridiculously long very ugly extremely dark blue necktie
a ridiculously-long, very-ugly, dark-blue neck-tie

or in what I think is in acceptable standard from:

a ridiculously long, very ugly, dark-blue necktie

Note that Wiki has an article on "dark blue (color)", yet it does not merit a hyphen.

I have never taken part in a discussion that has made me more positive that English is a totally insane language!

Gaer


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## sloopjc

English is an insane language, as you put it, and the reason I enjoy living in Spain! It's practically impossible here, to inflict any kind of subtle nuance using words alone. It's done with vocal expression and body language, making it a gloriously simple, yet exciting language to learn.


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## cuchuflete

Thanks for documenting the many potential sources of confusion, Gaer.  As to the hyphens, I can't recall which is which, but Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary and Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary typically take opposite sides on the use of a hyphen with compound nouns.  One uses the hyphen most of the time, while the other, perhaps more for commercial than lexicographic differentiation, generally omits it.

I don't really know what to do with something like

pale green pond scum

Starting at the end, it's rather uncontentious that scum is a noun.  Pond scum is either an attributive noun, pond, acting adjectively to modify scum, or its a noun+noun compound.  Note the lack of a hyphen!
Proceeding from right to left, we add green.  Simply enough so far. Green, in that setting, is clearly an adjective modifying/describing pond scum.  Here is where the fun begins...add "pale" to modify or describe "green", and all hell breaks loose.

Is pale + green the name of a color, hence a noun construction?
Is green a noun activing attributively (I don't think so...but...)?
Is pale modifying the noun 'green', and hence fulfilling its role as an adjective?
Is pale modifying the adjective 'green', and thus converted into an adverb?

That last one tries my patience, as "pale" doesn't behave as an adverb, regardless of its placement.
But we have seen people in this thread and the "bitter cold" thread who are happy to name it an adverb because of its position and the presumed part of speech of the word it modifies...

I await an expert or two or three for that many or more ideas.


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## Giordano Bruno

Nouns appear to be stored in one particular area of the brain.  Studies of stroke victims strongly suggest this to be the case.  If we accept that location in the brain is the definition of a noun, the use of nouns as adjectives is just a function of gramatical usage.  When we try to qualify a noun, we may dip into our store of adjuctives, or we may find something in the are where the brain stores nouns.  That we are doing this is shown by our reluctance to use irregular noun plurals as adjectives.  Presumably, the nouns which are regular in the plural do not have separate entries and therfore we do not find the plural forms when we look in this area.  Thus we may talk of mice droppings and teeth marks.  We may also come up with rat droppings and mouse droppings, but we don't say rats droppings and we don't say claws marks.  From this it seems perfectly reasonable to say that the leading noun in a noun pair is a noun acting as an adjective.  It is not an adjective, because its home is in the "noun" slot in the brain.


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## gaer

cuchuflete said:


> As to the hyphens, I can't recall which is which, but Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary and Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary typically take opposite sides on the use of a hyphen with compound nouns. One uses the hyphen most of the time, while the other, perhaps more for commercial than lexicographic differentiation, generally omits it.


I see the hyphen when used to connect two nouns as primarily a matter of style. When no difference in meaning results, I see no problem. Use a hyphen. Or don't.

I object to the absence of a hyphen in a situation in which
a hyphen would remove ambiguity.

Your "big dog collar" is an instance in which I would need a hyphen. Either: big-dog collar, or big dog-collar.


> I don't really know what to do with something like
> 
> pale green pond scum
> 
> Starting at the end, it's rather uncontentious that scum is a noun. Pond scum is either an attributive noun, pond, acting adjectively to modify scum, or its a noun+noun compound. Note the lack of a hyphen!


 
I don't see a need for a hyphen in this case. I read it as: pale-green pond-scum.

Green is a color. It describes the color of the scum on the pond. Pale describes the shade of green.

As I see it, pond scum=pond-scum=pondscum. The latter form does not exist, but there is no logical reason why it could not. I see it as a compound noun, but in compound nouns, the first clarifies what the second is—or modifies it. So I'm quite content with "attributive adjective".

Note: we have not mentioned a few special cases such as : knight errant. There the attributive adjective "errant" follows the noun it modifies. I don't believe such exceptions (in English) are hyphenated, much less combined.


> Is pale modifying the adjective 'green', and thus converted into an adverb?
> 
> That last one tries my patience, as "pale" doesn't behave as an adverb, regardless of its placement.


I don't like this solution either.

pale green pond scum

"Pale green" really means "pale green-color". The word "color" is understood. Of course the word "color" sounds very strange. If anything, it would be: pale green in color.

Because "pale green" is used to modify or describe "pond scum", the meaning is really: pale green-colored pond-scum. Here "colored" is also unnecessary, but it does not sound quite so awkward to me. I think we would omit it in almost all cases.

The reason that color names are used as nouns is that the fact that they describe colors is understood. These names can themselves be compound: blue-green is one example; silver-white is another.

Thus "colored" is clearly an adjective modifying "pond-scum", which I think is more convenient to analyze as a compound noun. Many words are often chained together to describe colors: pale blue-green color, pale-blue-green colored pond-scum.

There are many ways of analyzing this, so I would opt for one that is descriptive, practical and simple—if possible.

pale, adjective
green, short for green-colored, another adjective
pond-scum, compound noun

_*Now the question: can an adjective modify an adjective?*_

Usually when adjectives are chained, they are separated with commas: the pale, green-colored pond-scum.

That works, but now pale AND green(-colored) both modify pond-scum. Wrong idea.

It must be: the pale green[-colored] pond-scum.

adjective+adjective+compound noun

How do grammarians deal with this?

Answer: they "waffle", to use your word! Prescriptivists simply tell us that an adjective can NOT modify another adjective, so when exactly such a case arises, they have to invent a term that gives them a way out.

I don't like any of them. They are all illogical to me.

Here is one I like very much: "*differently weighted adjectives*", and the example ""dark red hat" is used.

link

Try reading through the comments on that page. The term appears to be the author's "invention", but I'd steal it in a heartbeat. It makes more sense than any other description I've read. 

Gaer


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## okey-dokey

In my reading of English and its grammar I have come across the terms 'parataxis' and 'hypotaxis' for syntactical arragements. In _pale green pond scum_ the arrangment for _pale_ and _green_ is hypotactical because pale modifies green (that is, it helps in giving more specific information about the colour). We show this in speech be uttering pale and green fairly close together. We show it in writing by not using punctuation - "See that pale green pond scum?". If we add smelly as a further epithet we have to show the paratactical arrangement (equality of weight - as introduced in an earlier post) between smelly and pale green. In speech we add a pause between smelly and pale green or use the conjunction _and._ In writing we use a comma or the conjunction _- "See that smelly, pale green pond scum?"_ or "S_ee that smelly and pale green pond scum?"._

Pond does a different job: whilst it helps to add specificity (moving from right to left in an English nominal phrase generally increases specificity) it does so by sub-classification. Pond is a classifier letting us know the type of scum. As a classify we tend in speech to give it tonic prominence in that we stress it rather than scum and, in writing, we do not precede it with a comma.


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## cuchuflete

I'm learning a lot from reading the last few posts.  Thanks to all for the different perspectives.

The article Gaer linked is especially clear and sensible:



> The use of an adjective to modify an adjective is long-established. In grade school, they taught us that you use a comma to separate equally weighted adjectives ("big, red hat"), but not differently weighted adjectives ("dark red hat"). ... I figured out that two adjectives are "equally weighted" when either can be used in isolation without altering the meaning (a big, red hat is both a big hat and a red hat), but differently weighted when one or more cannot be used in isolation (a dark red hat is a red hat, but it may not necessarily be a dark hat).


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## winklepicker

emma42 said:


> You can't just dismiss that important point, Mr C. Position, and the absence of a comma between the first and second modifiers are crucial.


 


> Position, and the absence of a comma between the first and second modifiers are crucial.


 
Thank you cuchu - it's so simple when you look at it like that. I couldn't for the life of me work out why emma42 was calling you Mr C Position.


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## cuchuflete

winklepicker said:


> Thank you cuchu - it's so simple when you look at it like that. I couldn't for the life of me work out why emma42 was calling you Mr C Position.



Modesty prevents one from suggesting a motive.

Is "Mr" an adverb?  Is "C" a noun masquerading as an adjective?

Pass the peas, please.


Returning to our topic, now that we seem to have exhausted interest in lime green pond slime, would anyone care
to identify the logical (as opposed to the grammatically prescriptive?) parts of speech of

hot pink hair curlers ?


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## winklepicker

cuchuflete said:


> Modesty prevents one from suggesting a motive.


 
 Oops. My mind was running on Kama Sutra lines again.



> Pass the peas, please.


 
Righto, honey. Or hon. Or hun.


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## cuchuflete

winklepicker said:


> Oops. My mind was running on Kama Sutra lines again.



I was, perhaps, skillfully curled around an attributive.  

Is that a case of an adjective pretending to be a noun?


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## gaer

okey-dokey said:


> In my reading of English and its grammar I have come across the terms 'parataxis' and 'hypotaxis' for syntactical arragements. In _pale green pond scum_ the arrangment for _pale_ and _green_ is hypotactical because pale modifies green (that is, it helps in giving more specific information about the colour). We show this in speech be uttering pale and green fairly close together. We show it in writing by not using punctuation - "See that pale green pond scum?". If we add smelly as a further epithet we have to show the paratactical arrangement (equality of weight - as introduced in an earlier post) between smelly and pale green. In speech we add a pause between smelly and pale green or use the conjunction _and._ In writing we use a comma or the conjunction _- "See that smelly, pale green pond scum?"_ or "S_ee that smelly and pale green pond scum?"._


That's why I like the terms "differently weighted adjectives" (hypotaxis?) and "equally weighted adjectives" (parataxis?)

"Parataxis" and "hypotaxis" seem like the right words, but I will never remember them. 

Gaer


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## gaer

cuchuflete said:


> Returning to our topic, now that we seem to have exhausted interest in lime green pond slime, would anyone care to identify the logical (as opposed to the grammatically prescriptive?) parts of speech of
> 
> hot pink hair curlers ?


hair curlers, hair-curlers, haircurlers, compound noun

pink, color-adjective
hot, unequally weighted adjective chained to hot. 

Gaer


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## cuchuflete

gaer said:


> hair curlers, hair-curlers, haircurlers, compound noun
> 
> pink, color-adjective
> hot, unequally weighted adjective chained to hot.



Thanks Gaer,

We both seem to like reading right to left.  It does make things simpler.
I have half a disagreement with the right side.  Hair curlers may be, as you say, a
compound noun.  It may also be a plural noun modified by the noun hair, performing attributively, or in drag as an adjective.  Adjectival in function in any case.  It only looks like a noun to confuse us or the prescriptivists. 

We agree about pink and hot.  Not an adverb in the bunch, regardless of position or part of speech of another word.


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## Giordano Bruno

In English, we may use both adjectives and nouns to specify other nouns.  That changes their functions, but not what they are.  If we could see the process and watch as the mind dips down into the wriggling mass of nouns that live in the noun box in our brains, we might see it selecting the noun "cannon" to qualify "fodder".  It is still a noun, because that's where it lives in the brain.  The French can't do that.  A hadbag is a "sac à main".  he word "main" needs a preposition to make it act as an adjective, but the French would have no doubt that it was still a noun as it needs a preposition to make it work.  English is just that bit snappier in this regard and does away with the preposition.


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## gaer

cuchuflete said:


> Thanks Gaer,
> 
> We both seem to like reading right to left. It does make things simpler.


I think so, because the most important "thing" is on the right, with each word, moving to the left, adding additional information (in most cases).


> I have half a disagreement with the right side. Hair curlers may be, as you say, a compound noun. It may also be a plural noun modified by the noun hair, performing attributively, or in drag as an adjective. Adjectival in function in any case. It only looks like a noun to confuse us or the prescriptivists.


My view: hair curlers, hair-curlers or "haircurlers" are just things. We know what they are. They are "rollers". They are also referred to as "curlers". I see three terms for the same thing. Why analyze one thing as two things merely because English is so capricious as to represent something visually (by means of a space and not hyphen) as two words? 

Question to you and to other people: is there any language besides German that allows as many nouns as you wish to be shoved together to make one noun?

Regardless, I find it ironic that the same thing that makes English so simple also makes it so complicated to analyze. Since our adjectives do not have case endings or gender endings, it's impossible to identify them by structure.

In the end, there is no getting around the fact that at any moment two nouns in English may be combined into one word, joined with a hyphen, or left separated, and I have yet to find any logic that helps me remember which are which. In fact, any number of words may be joined by a hyphen.

In fact, this is done, again according to caprice, with several words:

will-o'-the-wisp

Is this done with three or more nouns in English? I don't know, but I would not be the least bit suprised if someone comes up with an example that is standard.

Regardless, it is my opinion that grammar should be a tool to make speaking and writing easier/better; when the labels make it impossible for me to explain my own language to someone who is learning it and the labels, not the concepts, seem to be the real problem, I want to change the labels.

(Quite obviously people have no choice but to use the standard presciptivist terms to pass grammar tests, but I don't think we need them, necessarily, to help people speak or write better.)

Here are some tentative conclusions I have come to based on time I have spent helping people learn English:

1) There are phrases that describe colors, and such phrases may combine two colors or other descriptive words. It is simplest to treat them no differently than a simple, "one-word-name" for a color.

forest green
hot pink
honey dew
sea green
midnight blue
deep sky blue

I don't process "deep sky blue" as anything modifying anything. My mind interprets this as a color. Deepskyblue. 

2) When nouns are chained together, they also become one thing for me.

bed room light switch=BedRoomLightSwitch. It's one thing.

And to illustrate how totally illogical English is, bedroom IS written as one word, but living room is not. Flashbulb is OK as one word, light switch is not. Why?

3) Any way of analyzing grammar that tries to turn a word that is obviously an adjective into an adverb because it proceeds another adjective is going to be pure hell for anyone learning English.

In short, any system that attempts to describe how something works should be descriptive, or as much so as possible. That, at least, is the way I see it. 

Gaer


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## cuchuflete

gaer said:


> 1) There are phrases that describe colors, and such phrases may combine two colors or other descriptive words. It is simplest to treat them no differently than a simple, "one-word-name" for a color.
> 
> bed room light switch=BedRoomLightSwitch. It's one thing.
> 
> 
> 3) Any way of analyzing grammar that tries to turn a word that is obviously an adjective into an *adjective* because it proceeds another adjective is going to be pure hell for anyone learning English.



Did you mean "adverb" for the blue adjective?

The bedroom lightswitch is two things for my brain.  It's the lightswitch located in the bedroom.

Nice summary Gaer.


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## gaer

cuchuflete said:


> Did you mean "adverb" for the blue adjective?


Yes, and I just changed it. This is the second time I've typed adjective for adverb. Too long working, not enough brain left by the time I get home. 


> The bedroom lightswitch is two things for my brain. It's the lightswitch located in the bedroom.


If we go by spacing, it has to be three things.

However, I certainly see your point, Cuchu.

I can see it as one thing or two things. If I say it, I suppose I process it as a light-switch in the bed-room. So probably two things for me too.

I suppose my point was that "bed-room-light-switch" makes a nice "noun-string". Thought of in that way, you can string together as many nouns as you wish:

master-bed-room-hurricane-windows

I'm sure you can think of a better example, but we have them in our home now—the windows, not noun-strings. 

Using what I think is your view, you can even divide the string into two units that can be logically moved around:

masterbedroom hurricanewindows=hurricanewindows in the masterbedroom

The nice thing about this is that you can do this: broken masterbedroom hurricanewindows, broken hurricanewindows in the masterbedroom

I mention this because we, as native speakers, know instantly that "broken" refers to "hurricanewindows", not "masterbedroom". Furthermore, we know that it really describes "windows", since "hurricane" certainly is not "broken".

As you can see, I'm still thinking about how to explain this to someone learning to write or speak.

Is it possible, for instance, that anyone who is capable of constructing sentences that contain such combinations of words will do it so effortlessly and naturally that no analysis is necessary?

I really don't know, and for an answer to that we would have to get some feedback from people who are reading along but who have not yet mastered English.

I wonder if we have scared away such people?  

Gaer


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## winklepicker

gaer said:


> As you can see, I'm still thinking about how to explain this to someone learning to write or speak... we would have to get some feedback from people who are reading along but who have not yet mastered English.
> 
> I wonder if we have scared away such people?


 
I hope not, Gaer. Your analysis is masterly, and your intent clearly to dispel the fog for English learners - native and non-native alike. This phrase should be pinned onto the computer screen of all WRF foreros:

_Any way of analyzing grammar that tries to turn a word that is obviously an adjective into an adverb because it proceeds another adjective is going to be pure hell for anyone learning English._


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## Giordano Bruno

gaer said:


> I don't process "deep sky blue" as anything modifying anything. My mind interprets this as a color. Deepskyblue.
> 
> Gaer


 
So how do our brains process "deep blue dress" and "deep blue sea"?


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## gaer

Giordano Bruno said:


> So how do our brains process "deep blue dress" and "deep blue sea"?


You quoted what I said totally out of context. Please note that I am adding hyphens to make a point. Most are not normally written.

I said this:


> _1) There are phrases that describe colors, and such phrases may combine two colors or other descriptive words. It is simplest to treat them no differently than a simple, "one-word-name" for a color._
> 
> _forest green_
> _hot pink_
> _honey dew_
> _sea green_
> _midnight blue_
> _deep sky blue_
> 
> _I don't process "deep sky blue" as anything modifying anything. My mind interprets this as a color. Deepskyblue. _


I was referring to these terms, all of which are names of colors.

If you use any of these "color terms" to modify a noun, what you are really doing is this:

deep-sky-blue colored + noun (or string of nouns, noun-phrase)

"Deep blue dress" sounds quite strange. Normally we say "a dark blue (colored) dress", "the deep blue (colored) sea".

Regardless, the color is obviously describing something in all of these:

a navy-blue dress=a dress that is navy-blue [colored]

a bright-navy-blue dress=a dress that is bright-navy-blue [colored]

My only point was that if you choose to analyze "bright-navy-blue" as anything else but a single color description, it becomes more difficult. Of course you CAN analyze it in other ways. But is it necessary?

If you have an analysis that is simpler and more useful for teaching learners what is going on, please present it. 

Gaer


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## Giordano Bruno

No Gaer.  I don't have anything more to add here.  I just pose the question as it seems to me to be interesting and pertinent to the discussion.  Please don't think for a moment that I intended any criticism of your posts which I have been reading with admiration.

It just seems to me rather odd that "deep" in one phrase is clearly a colour reference, but in the next phrase is modifies the word "sea".


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## gaer

Giordano Bruno said:


> It just seems to me rather odd that "deep" in one phrase is clearly a colour reference, but in the next phrase is modifies the word "sea".


Ah! I definitely see your point. 

"Deep blue sea" appers to be a set phrase in English.

Actually, it seems that it could logically be either: 

1) deep, blue sea (since the sea is deep and blue)

OR

2) deep-blue sea (the sea is dark-blue in a way that may relfect the color, not the depth)

Perhaps this phrase is deliberately ambiguous!

What do you think?

Just when we think we have a way to describe how English works, some exception pops up to give us all headaches. 

Gaer


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## cuchuflete

And deep thinkers are neither blue, necessarily, nor under water.  I'll leave deep throat out of this.

I think Gaer's point is that multi-word color names act as single concepts, regardless of the number of component nouns and/or adjectives in the string.  I don't know where, if at all, such things are stored in the brain, but when we hear fire engine red,  we tend to think of a color, rather than a vehicle and then a generic color swatch.


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## Giordano Bruno

There seems to be some filtering that takes place in our brains which discards some meanings before presenting a single possibility to our conscious minds.  If I say to my wife, "I'll bring home some Chinese for dinner tonight". She will probably imagine only one possibility and would be surprised when I arrived with Mr and Mrs Wong.


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## gaer

cuchuflete said:


> And deep thinkers are neither blue, necessarily, nor under water. I'll leave deep throat out of this.


 


> I think Gaer's point is that multi-word color names act as single concepts, regardless of the number of component nouns and/or adjectives in the string.


Exactly.


> I don't know where, if at all, such things are stored in the brain, but when we hear fire engine red, we tend to think of a color, rather than a vehicle and then a generic color swatch.


I think this is especially true for any such "strings of words" that are used very frequently because they are set phrases. 

Gaer


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