# What kind of word is "science" in science fiction?



## Hutschi

Hi,

I have a question to the word form "science fiction".

What kind of word is "science" in "science fiction"? Is it a noun or is it an adjective here? Or is it another kind of word?

Context: after the spelling reform, the German spelling depends on the word form. I need some help to verify the form in the German Wikipedia.

Best regards
Bernd


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## cyanista

"Science" is a noun acting as a premodifier.


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## dec-sev

My textbook says that's it's an adjective. You're sure to know how to say the phrase in Russian.


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## Acrolect

It is probably not an adjective because it does not behave like one (no comparison is possible *_sciencer fiction_, no predicative construction is possible,  *_this fiction is science_, and modification is not possible either *_this extremely science fiction_). And there is nothing in the meaning that would suggest that we should ignore this evidence.

On the other hand, I do not believe it is a syntactic premodifier either, either rather assume _science fiction_ is a compound, i.e. one word (even though it is spelt apart). But even in the compound _science_ would be a noun.


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## Hutschi

I think, it is coumpount, too.

But there is a difference depending on whether it is an adjective or a noun.

Noun:
German translations:
1. Sciencefiction
2. Science-Fiction

Adjective:
German translations:

1. Sciencefiction
2. Science-Fiction
3. Science Fiction

The most German writers write "Science Fiction". 

This is right, if it is a compound form adjective+noun
It is wrong, if it is a compound form noun+noun.

I have now evidence, that there are different solutions, as far as I see, but mostly it is considered as noun.

PS: I thought I posted it into the English forum, because it is an English question about an English word. But I must have made a mistake. Sorry for my failure.


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## Acrolect

Does the question refer to English or to German (i.e. whether _science _is an adjective/noun in English or in German)? I suppose that you cannot analyse the word in German into its components because (at least) _Science_ is not a word of German at all. This suggests that the expression was adopted as a whole, originally together with its spelling. As it is being integrated into German more and more, there might be a feeling that being one word it should not be spelt apart - I do not believe that this version reveals anything about the grammatical status of _science_. 

I think the fact that people capitalize the S in _Science_ (if spelt apart, i.e. _Science Fiction_) indicates that they do not consider this an adjective either.

But grammatical categories and lexical borrowing, this is a very tricky topic.


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## Kajjo

Im Deutschen ist die Situation doch ganz klar: Science-Fiction (oder Science Fiction) ist ein Substantiv. Im Englischen handelt es sich meiner Meinung nach um ein Kompositum, das aus zwei getrennt geschriebenen Wörtern besteht.

Ob die verzwickten und willkürlichen Regeln der neuen Rechtschreibung nun nützlich sind oder nicht, ist sicherlich Ansichtssache. Richtig sind aber beide Schreibweisen, nämlich mit und ohne Bindestrich, denn es wird ja niemand gezwungen, das englische Wort als eingedeutscht aufzufassen.

Kajjo


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## Hutschi

@Acrolect
The question refers to English. I thought I had posted it in the English forum. Sorry for the mistake.

@Kajjo:
In Deutsch hängt die Sache von der englischen Wortform ab. Deshalb ist es eine englische Frage über ein englisches Wort. Die Transformationsregeln sind dann klar. Sicher wird niemand gezwungen, es eingedeutscht aufzufassen. Ich möchte nur Klarheit haben über die Form. 

Im Englischen ist es ein Wort, das aus zwei Bestandteilen besteht. 

In Deutsch gibt es auch die Übersetzung: "Wissenschaftliche Phantastik" (wahrscheinlich vermittelt über die russische Form "научная фантастика" ).


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## Acrolect

Im _Österreichischen Wörterbuch_ steht es gar nicht getrennt (auch nicht mit Bindestrich), sondern als ein orthografisches Wort: _Sciencefiction. _Wahrscheinlich würden aber die anderen Schreibweisen (besonders die ganz getrennte) auch akzeptiert werden, weil man es dann halt als Fremdwort auffasst.

_Wissenschaftliche Phantastik_ ist sehr schön (könnte fast von einer Interessentsgemeinschaft gegen Anglizismen sein), hat sich - so rein intuitiv gesprochen - aber noch nicht so recht durchgesetzt.


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## jester.

Ein Blick ins einsprachige Englischwörterbuch zeigt außerdem, dass "science" nichts anderes als ein Nomen sein kann.

Das selbe gilt für "fiction".

Somit ist science fiction, wie bereits gesagt wurde, ein Kompositum wie _apple tree _oder_ fire brigade_.


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## Hutschi

Das "Oxford English Dictionary" sagt nichts über die Bestandteile. Es gibt nur die Form "science fiction" komplett als Substantiv an. 

Die Frage ist, ist "science" in (englisch) "science fiction" als Nomen oder als Adjektive verwendet? Welches einsprachige Wörterbuch war es, Jester? Das würde sehr helfen, wenn darin steht, dass es so verwendet wird.


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## jester.

Es war das Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary. Vielleicht habe ich mich aber nicht deutlich genug ausgedrückt. Du musst nicht unter _science fiction_ sondern einfach unter _science_ nachschlagen, um festzustellen, dass _science_ garnichts anderes als ein Nomen sein kann.


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## Hutschi

Danke Jester. Es stimmt, ich hatte unter dem Gesamtwort nachgeschlagen.

Unter "science" steht u.a. noch "science fantasy". 

Das Einzelwort wird sicher als Nomen verwendet. 

Die Frage ist, ob es als "modifier" auch ein Nomen ist oder adjektivisch verwendet wird.


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## jester.

Hutschi said:


> Die Frage ist, ob es als "modifier" auch ein Nomen ist oder adjektivisch verwendet wird.



Wird denn "Apfel" in "Apfelbaum" adjektivisch verwendet? Nein. Genauso verhält es sich im Englischen mit zusammengesetzten Nomen wie "apple tree" oder eben "science fiction".


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## elroy

_Science_ is an adjective in this sentence.

In English, what part of speech a word is depends *solely* on its function within a particular sentence.

An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun. Because _fiction_ is a noun being modified by the word _science_ (which tells us what kind of fiction), _science_ is an adjective.

That the word _science_ has no comparative or superlative forms is irrelevant, as is the fact that it cannot be used as a predicate adjective or be modifed by an adverb. None of these is a conditio sine qua non for a word to be an adjective.

Jester, the dictionary does not list every possible usage of a word. The word _science_ is *most frequently* used as a noun, and its adjectival use is not common enough to merit a separate dictionary entry (same goes for the word _dictionary_ in my sentence). Besides, the meaning does not fundamentally change: _science fiction_ is _fiction that is related to science_; a _dictionary entry_ is _an entry found in a dictionary_.

English is a syntactically flexible language. The same word can often be used as many different parts of speech. There is nothing innately "nominal" about the word _science_.


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## gaer

jester. said:


> Wird denn "Apfel" in "Apfelbaum" adjektivisch verwendet? Nein. Genauso verhält es sich im Englischen mit zusammengesetzten Nomen wie "apple tree" oder eben "science fiction".


There was a very long thread about this subject recently in English.

In "apple tree", the word "apple" is often labeled as an "attributive" or "attributive noun". As Elroy has pointed out, "apple" can also be analyzed as an adjective. Grammarians have long debates and even arguments about which is most correct or useful.

I prefer to call this "chaining nouns", my term, because that is what happens in German.

English is insane about such things. 

Science fiction?
Science-fiction?

The hyphenated version is at best very rare, but is there a reason?

No. Figuring out which words in English are written as a compound, as two words hyphenated, or as two words separated is a guessing game.

Thank God German is more logical. 

Note that "sci-fi" exists as a single word entry in MW.

Again, you may think of "science" as an attributive noun or an adjective, in English. I would suggest you use whatever is most useful.

Gaer


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## jester.

Well, ich hätte mir die Hand dafür abhacken lassen, dass _science_ ein Nomen ist, elroy.

But according to Gaer, this is a highly disputed subject. So it seems I'm rather on the side of those who see _science_ as a noun.


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## gaer

Kajjo said:


> Ob die verzwickten und willkürlichen Regeln der neuen Rechtschreibung nun nützlich sind oder nicht, ist sicherlich Ansichtssache. Richtig sind aber beide Schreibweisen, nämlich mit und ohne Bindestrich, denn es wird ja niemand gezwungen, das englische Wort als eingedeutscht aufzufassen.


Nevertheless, I would much prefer, at the very least, to see "Science-Fiction" in German. The fact that there is a space in English is an English weakness, totally illogical and confusing. Why transfer this problem into German?

Notice also "Fantasy & Sciencefiction"

I like this even better. One of the best things about German is its ability to chain nouns as one word. Why not use it? 

Gaer


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## Hutschi

Thank you very much for this insight.

I prefer "Science-Fiction", too. I do not like "Sciencefiction", because this changes the pronuciation - at least in the feeling. But there are a lot of struggles to exclude "Science Fiction" - which is preferred by the most and well established. I do not see that this form is wrong according to the new rules - "science" is considered by many as adjective or a noun used as adjective. In this case "Science Fiction" is right, too.

The former Duden form "Science-fiction" is obsolete now.


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## gaer

Let me point out that "Sci-Fi" is used a lot by people who LIKE sci-fi.

Results 1 - 10 of about 194 for "neue Sci-Fi Serie".
Results 1 - 10 of about 317 for "neue Science-Fiction Serie".

It's the Sci-Fi Channel, not the Science Fiction Channel.

When you go into a bookstore to buy sci-fi books, they are in the sci-fi section.

I have two German friends who love sci-fi, and they always type "Sci-Fi".


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## Acrolect

> An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun. Because _fiction_ is a noun being modified by the word _science_ (which tells us what kind of fiction), _science_ is an adjective.



This is theoretically correct, but only if we are dealing with syntactic constructions (which means if _science_ and _fiction_ are indeed two separate syntactic units). In English syntax, nouns can actually just be premodified by adjectives. But my point is that _science fiction_ is not a syntactic combination, but rather a morphological one, i.e. a compound (which means it is one syntactic word, not two). For compounds, the syntactic rule does not apply, which means that here nouns can be modified by nouns (e.g. _girlfriend_, _eyebrow, armpit_).

How can we decide whether something is a syntactic combination or a morphological one? I think that spelling is not a good indicator (heterogenous data), so I still go with the evidence that _science_ never occurs in positions in which other adjectives can appear, and there is nothing in the meaning of the whole that suggests that it is an adjective. In addition, the word _science _always classifies as noun elsewhere. In such a case, the compound hypothesis seems more plausible to me (even if the conditions are neither sufficient nor necessary).

There are also grammarians that also accept the possibility of nouns being premodified by other nouns syntactically. But this is just an aside.


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## Acrolect

Interestingly, there are words where we can witness a change of word status, e.g. _key_ as in _key question. _I would probably have opted for the compound solution, too. But there is enough evidence to suggest that _key _is actually turning or has already turned into an adjective here. It can occur in predicative position.

_The question is key to the solution...

_It can be intensified.

_A very key factor.

_It can even be separated from the head noun.

_A key cultural question_


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## The dboy

I would call it an adjective, the phrase 'Science Fiction' kind of means 'scientific fiction' it is describing the fiction as scientific, so for me it is an adjective.


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## Acrolect

The dboy said:


> 'Science Fiction' kind of means 'scientific fiction' it is describing the fiction as scientific.


 
You have a point there, but the combination _science fiction_ still qualifies as one word for me because the combination is semantically more specific than fiction that is scientific (with science/scientists as their main topic or drawing upon a scientific register), a typical sign of whole words rather than syntactic combinations of words.

Besides, I think that the head noun in a compound (the more central word, in the case of _science fiction_ it is _fiction_, because SF refers to a kind of fiction not a kind of science) can have different relations to the modifier. For instance, if a _psychology course_ is not necessarily a _psychological course._


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