Re: Question about a grammatical term

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> Another analysis of the examples which could be valid is to consider the
first
> part of the compounds as an adjective, which qualifies thus the second
noun.
> Since parts of speech in English have somewhat blurry frontiers, it could
be
> valid.
Nik Taylor replied:
> Not really.  You can't say, for example "A more water cooler" or "That
> cooler is very water" or any other characteristics of adjectives.  The
> only characteristic they share with adjectives is modifying.  I'd call
> the first component a modifying noun.
Lurking through these messages and the others on this topic, I want to drop
my two kopecks/cents/pennies :-)
1. The phrases like "water cooler" or "school bus" seem strangely similar to
what is known as "idhafah" in Arabic, "izafet 1" in Turkic, "smikhut" in
Hebrew. A juxtaposition (ugh! what a word!) of two nowns, where one is a
modified, and another a modifier...
2. "Modifying noun" in some langs may correspont to a certain type of
adjectives. In Russian and Ukrainian they are called "relative adj.", and
have NO degrees of comparison, in contrast to normal, so-called "qualitative
adj."

Cheers,
Yitzik
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