Noun adjunct

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(Redirected from
Attributive noun
)

In

fieldhouse".[1]

Related concepts

Adjectival noun is a term that was formerly synonymous with noun adjunct but is now usually used to mean "an adjective used as a noun" (i.e. the opposite process, as in the Irish meaning "Irish people" or the poor meaning "poor people").[citation needed] Japanese adjectival nouns are a different concept.

English

Singular vs plural

European Railway Agency
, in which the noun modifier "railway" is singular

Noun adjuncts were traditionally mostly singular (e.g. "trouser press") except when there were lexical restrictions (e.g. "arms race"), but there is a recent trend towards more use of plural ones. Many of these can also be or were originally interpreted and spelled as plural possessives (e.g. "chemicals' agency", "writers' conference", "Rangers' hockey game"),[2] but they are now often written without the apostrophe, although decisions on when to do so require editorial judgment.[3] There are morphologic restrictions on the classes of adjunct that can be plural and nonpossessive; irregular plurals are solecistic as nonpossessive adjuncts (for example, "men clothing" or "women magazine" sound improper to fluent speakers).

Fowler's Modern English Usage
states in the section "Possessive Puzzles":

Five years' imprisonment, Three weeks' holiday, etc. Years and weeks may be treated as possessives and given an apostrophe or as adjectival nouns without one. The former is perhaps better, as to conform to what is inevitable in the singular – a year's imprisonment, a fortnight's holiday.

Recursive use

Noun adjuncts can also be strung together in a longer sequence preceding the final noun, with each added noun modifying the noun which follows it, in effect creating a multiple-word noun adjunct which modifies the following noun (e.g. "chicken soup bowl", in which "chicken" modifies "soup" and "chicken soup" modifies "bowl"). There is no theoretical limit to the number of noun adjuncts which can be added before a noun, and very long constructions are occasionally seen, for example "Dawlish pub car park cliff plunge man rescued",

headlinese, the condensed grammar used in newspaper headlines
.

Use when an adjectivally inflected alternative is available