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Grammar - Everyday Grammar - When Nouns Act Like Adjectives |
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| When Nouns Act Like Adjectives |
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 When
Nouns Act Like Adjectives
The lesson includes an audio program explaining this
grammar topic, the script for the audio program, a words in this story section,
and other important information. |
Audio Program
Listen to the audio program explaining this grammar
topic. Then read the following written information. |
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When Nouns Act Like Adjectives |
Welcome back to Everyday Grammar from VOA Learning
English.
The English language has an interesting way of
classifying words. We organize words by their function
or purpose. These functions are parts of speech. You
might find that a noun acts like a verb, as with the
word impact. Once you would talk about something having
an impact. This is the noun form of impact. Now you can
say you want to impact a decision process. That is the
verb form of impact.
You know that an adjective modifies, describing a
quality of a noun. For example, you drink a cup of hot
tea. The adjective is hot and the noun is tea. What
about lemon tea? Lemon is a noun, isn’t it? Why is it
modifying tea?
English often uses nouns as adjectives - to modify other
nouns. For example, a car that people drive in races is
a race car. A car with extra power or speed is a sports
car. Nouns that modify other nouns are called adjectival
nouns or noun modifiers. For our purposes, they are
called attributive nouns. So we will use that term.
Did you notice something unusual about the expressions
with the noun car? A car used to race other cars is a
race car. Both nouns are singular. A car that has power
and speed is a sports car. Why is the first noun,
sports, plural? A search of the Internet shows us that
people started using this phrase back in 1914. Cars were
a new thing then.
There is no rule about whether the attributive noun is
singular or plural. Most of the time it is singular. But
if the combination of nouns includes a plural noun, it
usually stays that way. The result is phrases like
ladies room – not lady room, for a room meant for women
and girls, and bean soup but not beans soup for a soup
made of beans.
Some grammar experts think that English speakers are
using more plural nouns in this way. We have arms race,
benefits office, and women leaders. At times, a singular
noun changes the meaning. An arts degree recognizes
completion of a study program at a college or university
in the humanities (or liberal arts). But an art degree
is a degree in the fine arts.
When writing these attributive nouns in English,
learners sometimes wonder about whether to use an
apostrophe to show possession. Is it a ladies’ room? No,
it is a ladies room. Attributive nouns do not need the
apostrophe. So we write Veterans Day in American English
and not Veteran’s Day or Veterans’ Day. That means the
day is in honor of military veterans, not owned by
veterans.
Try to identify the attributive nouns George Harrison
uses in The Beatles’ song Piggies.
Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives
To eat their bacon
For Learning English Everyday Grammar, I’m Jill Robbins.
Dr. Jill Robbins wrote this story for Learning English.
George Grow was the editor. |
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Words in This Story |
- part of
speech - grammar.
a class of words (such as adjectives, adverbs, nouns
and verbs) that are ordered by the kinds of ideas
they express and the way they work in a sentence
- impact
- v. to have a strong
and often bad effect on (something or someone) n. a
powerful or major influence or effect
-
attributive - grammar.
joined directly to a noun in order to describe it
- modify
- grammar. to limit or
describe the meaning of (a word or words)
-
apostrophe - n.
the punctuation mark ʼ used to show the possessive
form of a noun or to show that letters or numbers
are missing
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Additional Information |
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Now it’s your turn. Write a sentence that uses an
attributive noun in the Facebook comments section below. |
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Source: Voice of America |
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Grammar Tips |
Can You Catch These Native Speaker Mistakes?
(Beginner - Listening)
An audio lesson to
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spoken at 75% of normal speed.
Click here to visit the lesson page with the written script for this
audio program. |
Commonly Confused Words: Part One
(Beginner - Listening,
reading)
A video lesson to
help with your understanding of commonly confused
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The English is
spoken at 75% of normal speed.
Click here to visit the lesson page. |
Commonly Confused Words: Part One
(Beginner - Listening)
An audio lesson to
help with your understanding of commonly confused
words. The English is
spoken at 75% of normal speed.
Click here to visit the lesson page with the written script for this
audio program. |
Commonly Confused Words: Part Two
(Beginner - Listening,
reading)
A video lesson to
help with your understanding of commonly confused
words.
The English is
spoken at 75% of normal speed.
Click here to visit the lesson page. |
Commonly Confused Words: Part Two
(Beginner - Listening)
An audio lesson to
help with your understanding of commonly confused
words. The English is
spoken at 75% of normal speed.
Click here to visit the lesson page with the written script for this
audio program. |
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