From A+ Club Lesson Planner & Study Guide
- one type of consecutive nouns may be a noun acting as a modifier, as if an adjective (but not one)
- such nouns are called "attributive" nouns
- also called "adjunct" (supporting of) nouns or "apposite" (related to)
- attributive nouns modify or qualify another noun
- modify = change or add to the meaning of
- qualify = limit the meaning of
- attributive = provides an "attribute" or characteristic or quality to the other noun
- ex.: "dog food"
- i.e.: "dog food" = "a type of food that is for dogs"
- "dog" thereby indicates an attribute, or type or characteristic, of "food"
- example of multiple objects + a attributive nouns:
- "The pitcher threw the batter a hardball pitch"
- S: pitcher V: threw IO: catcher ADJ: hardball (appositive noun) DO: pitch
- could also be expressed as: "the pitcher threw a (hardball) pitch to the catcher"
- "hardball" = a noun, but here it is describing the direct object "pitch"
- thus "hardball" is acting like an adjective
- the attributive noun is (almost) always singular
- = because it is acting like an adjective, which always remains in the singular form ("red shoes" as opposed to "reds shoes")
- = as a category or type, the noun must remain singular
- exception for plural attributive nouns = special words such as "arms race" or "rewards card"
- possessive attributive noun:
- ex.: "the National's game"
- these are often morphed into plural attributive, thus "National's game" becomes "Nationals game", "reward's card" becomes "rewards card", or "lady's night" becomes "ladies night"
- multiple attributives
- ex.: "beef dog food" or "
- news headlines often use multiple attributives, such as "South Park man Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick dies again"
- strict grammatical terms does now apply the "attributive" label for "adjective homograph" nouns (such as "iron" or "paper") or "compounds" or "open compounds"
- attributive nouns are not adjectives
- the only syntactic form of an adjective that the attributive noun employs is the "prepositive" position
- i.e., preceding the noun it modifies
- attributive nouns cannot operate as post-positive adjectives (following the noun):
- whereas an adjective can be a subject complement:
- boring meeting >> the meeting is boring
- dog food >> food dog or business meeting >> meeting business << don't work
- attributive nouns cannot operate as subject complements (as do adjectives)
- the food is dog or the meeting is business << don't work
- attributive nouns cannot take on a comparative form (as do adjectives)
- whereas nouns can go from big to bigger
- attributive nouns cannot: businesser meeting << doesn't work
- see also additional entry on
- "appositive phrase"
- compound noun
- noun adjunct
- see: