limiting adjectives vs possessive adjectives

[Stuart Rogers]

On 2015-Mar-16 5:42 PM, Fred Ridder wrote:
> Yes, there are restrictive [and non-restrictive] adjectives, which is 
> what I assume you are referring to as "limiting adjectives" (a term I 
> failed to find in any of my handy grammar/linguistics references).
>
> But I don't think that's what we are dealing with here in the 
> non-possessive case, because I don't believe we're dealing with 
> adjectives at all.
>
> Most people remember that adjectives modify nouns, but forget that 
> they are not the *only* things that modify nouns. In some cases verbs 
> modify nouns (e.g., the sitting president), and in many cases -- 
> particularly in technical writing -- nouns modify nouns. Nouns that 
> modify nouns are referred to as "attributive nouns" or "noun 
> adjuncts". They almost always appear before the noun they modify (an 
> attributive or prepositive position) and they typically identify a 
> property or attribute of the noun that follows rather than directly 
> modifying the noun itself.
>
> The classical example of an attributive noun phrase in English is 
> "chicken soup". Both words are nouns, but it is undeniable that the 
> first noun modifies our understanding of what the second noun 
> represents. Exactly what the relationship is varies widely; the second 
> noun could be made from the first (e.g., chicken soup), intended for 
> the first (e.g., user manual), composed of the first (e.g., butterfly 
> migration), dependent on the first (e.g., church wedding) -- basically 
> any semantic relationship other than simple possession by. And you can 
> string a bunch of them together without any of the usual concerns 
> about commas in adjective series. (E.g., The chicken soup tureen ladle 
> handle was covered with schmaltz.)
>
> Both "user manual" and "butterfly migration" fit this pattern. Both 
> "user" and "butterfly" are nouns that modify the sense of the nouns 
> that follow them. And they are unlike adjectives because they cannot 
> be used predicatively.
>
> -FR
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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-- 
Stuart Rogers
Technical Communicator
Phoenix Geophysics Limited
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