Talk:Noun adjunct

The premise and/or title for this article needs serious reconsideration

This article's attempt to define "noun adjunct" seems needlessly jargonistic. Yet, if the editors here decide to keep the article, the "noun adjunct" term is fitfully inadequate to the linguistic concepts of what a noun and an adjunct respectively entail. A term such as "noun adjunct" could reasonably be construed to include any of the words that are italicized in the following examples:

• "I ordered the best meal." (prepositive adjective that functions as an adjunct)
• "I ordered the best meal around. (postpositive adjective that functions as an adjunct)
• "I ordered the best meal around town. (attributive prepositional phrase that functions as an adjunct)
• "I ordered the best restaurant meal around town." (attributive noun that functions as an adjunct)
• "I ordered you the best restaurant meal around town." (dative object that functions as an adjunct)
• "I ordered you the best restaurant meal to be found around town." (attributive to-infinitive phrase that functions as an adjunct)

If, on the other hand, this article intends to describe only those instances in which a noun constitutes "an optional noun that modifies another noun," then attributive noun or adjunctive noun seem infinitely better terms not only for this article's underlying concept but also for its title. Kent Dominic 01:54, 6 April 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kent Dominic (talk • contribs)

attributive noun

Garner's fourth edition reads

The three-syllable form is used for the adjective, my beloved wife, or the attributive noun dearly beloved. 
As a modifier of an attributive past participle, dearly is familiar in the set phrase dearly beloved.

What attributive noun is it referring to? --Backinstadiums (talk) 20:23, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Backinstadiums. Good question. No answer. Sorry. Some nonsense is best left alone. Kent Dominic 14:20, 28 January 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kent Dominic (talk • contribs)

I'd say that beloved is the attributive noun (or adjectival noun) to which Garner refers, which in the expression dearly beloved alludes to an unexpressed ellipsis (excuse the redundancy), viz. 'friends' or 'persons' or some such. --Mark K. Jensen (talk) 20:08, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with M Jensen's reply.

Shame on Garner's for using on an example that raises more questions than it answers. DCDuring (talk) 18:08, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Using prepositions after such phrases

The section headed "Using prepositions after such phrases" is wrong. The problem in that example does not depend on understanding the term "regulatory impact analysis." It arises because syntactically the prepositional phrases modify the noun "analysis" but semantically they relate to the noun "impact." The section might be fixed by recasting it as a warning that even though a noun adjunct may modify any of the nouns that follow it, subsequent prepositional phrases can modify only the last noun in the sequence. But I can find no references for that statement. Both as it stands, and as I might modify it, the section rests on original research. Maybe the best fix is to delete it. Marty39 (talk) 13:27, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Ambiguity problems with chains of attributive nouns

A simple example is library book sale. Is that supposed to mean a "sale of books formerly lent out by the library" or is it a "sale of books donated for the benefit of the library"? In this case, context is not likely to offer much help. Sometimes the problem can be addressed by adding hyphens, eg, "library book-sale" or "library-book sale". The statement about the possibility of eliminating, one by one, the attributive nouns in the "pub car park cliff" example misleads casual readers by ignoring the common ambiguity problem. When added to the choice or article title, it is clear that the authors have created an article that will not reach much of the audience that could benefit from better knowledge about attributive noun usage.

One potential benefit would be to readers of WP articles that occasionally (often?) contain highly (sometimes laughably) ambiguous chains of attributive nouns. The benefit would only be realized were attention drawn to the ambiguity problem, perhaps by publicizing some laughable instances. DCDuring (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Much agreed. There is always ambiguity possible with these chains. So the section I'll bold here of the statement "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" is plainly wrong. An apprentice shoe maker doesn't make apprentice shoes!

But there also seems to be rule system that constrains possible interpretations: I think that each noun can only modify either its direct successor, or the final noun in the chain. But there's more to it than that: why is "shoe apprentice maker" unacceptable (at least, for what we mean by "apprentice shoe maker")? Someone smarter than I am should delineate this structural rule system! ~2026-12232-29 (talk) 18:41, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

I didn't want to change this myself, but maybe I will. I'll see what Huddleston have to say about this. DCDuring (talk) 00:25, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

The article itself is OR and there are contradictory definitions for the terms listed.

I simplified the lead to: "is gibberish for the first component of a compound composed of two nouns."

which is much shorter and less convoluted than "is an optional noun that modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun functioning as a pre-modifier in a noun phrase."

However one user (Vydrakk) that only uses copy paste to respond didn't like that and reverted twice. The only argument was OR. However it's clearly grade school stuff. Use common sense.

A few posts up there is also a definition by "Garner's fourth edition" that contradicts the current lead. The book calls "dearly beloved" an "attributive noun" even though it's two words (one adverb and one noun).

The reason this horseshit doesn't have articles in many languages is that only stupidest people on earth can come up with such a convoluted way to talk about noun+noun compounds. (compounds are widespead in languages).

I was once lectured by an American about language. He linked this very page claiming it was a type of word insisting that a compound word was In his view two words rather than one. The lead uses "chicken soup" as an example. Let me tell you "chicken soup" is one word. Inside the compound chicken is merely a component and not an own word.

It is also not related to noun phrase at all and Adjunct (grammar) is still wrongly linked despite describing "part of a sentence, clause, or phrase" and does not apply to compounds!

I also agree with user Kent Dominic who wrote here on the talk page in 2019. "This article's attempt to define "noun adjunct" seems needlessly jargonistic." If we do handle it, we should lead people back to proper words that actually have clearly defined meaning, not link all kinds of unrelated things like adjuncts or noun phrases. ~2026-42166-88 (talk) 16:21, 30 July 2026 (UTC)