Re: Question about a grammatical term

En réponse à Nihil Sum <nihilsum@...>:

> Hello
>
> I need to find out something. Someone who has more knowledge of grammar
> than
> I do must know the answer to this: What is the term for the
> construction
> where a noun is placed in front of another noun to modify it? Almost
> like
> the first noun is acting as an adjective:
>
> water cooler
> basketball court
> road rage
> license plate
> Coke machine
> toilet humour
> store hours
>
> etc.
>
Actually, I'm wondering whether this is any different from compounding. True,
the two words are written separately. But that's a graphical issue only. Also,
both words are still pronounced as if they were independent, but that's true of
German compound words too, although those are written concatenated (my Teach
Yourself German insisted a lot on the fact that German compounds should be
pronounced as if the components were independent. So no assimilation, and each
component keeps its own stress. I don't know how true it is actually, but
according to this definition, those English structures wouldn't be any
different from German compounds).

For what is worth, in English classes in France we consider those as compound
words, just like connected ones, and we don't make any difference between them.

> I ask because I noticed that this construction is completely absent
> from
> Rhean. So I want to formalise this as a rule, and need to know the term
> for
> it. Rhean would either put the first word in the genitive, or use an
> adjective-forming suffix, or form a compound word (which is what a
> language
> like German does to these anyway).
>
As I said, to my understanding this construction is only superficially
different from compounding, the difference being only graphic.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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