Nouns used as adjectives

[teleostomi]

Style rules, of which adjective order quite likely may be one, are often arbitrary, and frequently make little logical or grammatical sense. I ignore them as much as I can. Nouns used as adjectives especially are notorious for not conforming to any sensible rules Anglo-Saxon once applied to true adjectives, and I'd hate to use them as models in any pattern of adjective order. Their use is left over from old Anglo-Saxon cases such as dative, genitive and instrumental. So they just plop into sentences willy-nilly.This is what danmahaffey wrote in another thread. Could you explain the blue and green parts with some specific examples? :)

[danmahaffey]

This is what danmahaffey wrote in another thread. Could you explain the blue and green parts with some specific examples? I haven't forgotten my comments. I have not taken the time to develop the examples. Grant me 48 hours, if you will, and I will provide them.:o

[teleostomi]

Ok, take you time:D tick, tack, tick, tack, I'm not prodding you! 23:45, 23:44,...

[danmahaffey]

Ok, take you time tick, tack, tick, tack, I'm not prodding you! 23:45, 23:44,...Arigatou, sakana-san.:)

[teleostomi]

sakana-san? Finally, you found out one of my secrets! Actually, I've been keeping it low not to give out my identity. :o How fishy am I!

[danmahaffey]

sakana-san? Finally, you found out one of my secrets! Actually, I've been keeping it low not to give out my identity. :o How fishy am I!Oh, I have been hooked for awhile now.

[teleostomi]

You mean, "you've been addicted, or infatuated"? If so, I got you hook, line, and sinker.

[danmahaffey]

You mean, "you've been addicted, or infatuated"? If so, I got you hook, line, and sinker.I meant, I "caught on" early. I have a lake in my back yard. I think tomorrow I will go fishing after breakfast.

Are you studying marine science of some sort?

[taniya]

I haven't forgotten my comments. I have not taken the time to develop the examples. Grant me 48 hours, if you will, and I will provide them.:oplz can u help me 4 telling linking verb

[danmahaffey]

This is what danmahaffey wrote in another thread. Could you explain the blue and green parts with some specific examples? :)I was going to write a scholarly discussion of dative and genitive cases and how nouns that once held these cases became used as adjectives.

As I was searching for examples, I remembered a time when I was waiting in my car for someone to come out of his office building and join me for the ride home. While I waited, I looked around the city streets that I could see from my car. I looked at all the signs, and became amused by one particular collection of signs that I began to assemble in my mind. They looked like this:Customer Parking
Valet Parking
Hotel Parking
2-Hour Parking
No Parking
Motorcycle Parking
Delivery Parking
Emergency Parking
I may not now remember them all, but these are enough to work with, I think.

Of all the words preceding parking, only no is an actual adjective, and only no can trace its roots to Anglo-Saxon, unfortunately. The others are nouns that entered the language (probably) from the Romans (emergency, motor, cycle) and (probably) from the Normans (customer, valet, hotel, hour, delivery).

But let's look at what case the adjectival use of the noun might be substituting. (These are my suppositions here, since I am neither a linguist by profession, nor a speaker of Anglo-Saxon.)Customer Parking = parking for the customer (dative)
Valet Parking = parking by the valet (dative)
Hotel Parking = parking at the hotel (dative)
2-Hour Parking = parking for the duration of 2 hours (instrumantal)
Motorcycle Parking = parking of motorcycles (genitive)
Delivery Parking = parking for the purpose of delivery (instrumental)
Emergency Parking = parking on account of emergency (instrumental)
You can imagine more.Underground Parking = parking in the underground (dative)
Self-Service Parking = parking by one's self (dative)
Football Parking = parking to attend football (instrumental)
Rooftop Parking = parking on the roof (dative)
The weakness of nouns as adjectives is that the characteristics of the noun are not imparted to the thing modified. The implied prepositional phrase, which further implies a long-lost grammatical case, carries the meaning. There is little about a football or a hotel that describes the kind of parking available. We need to know the relationship of the two nouns.

So, back to my offhand remark about dropping nouns willy-nilly into sentences to modify words. If you want to say, I found a nice place on Saturday near the hotel to park for the football game where the valet parked the car for me, you could say just that, which I recommend. Or you could say, I found myself nice Saturday hotel valet football parking. Or maybe, I found some nice hotel valet Saturday football parking . Or some other junk sentence. We say this stuff all the time. It's horrible, but we live through it. I don't recommend it.

I'm open for questions.