common and proper nouns questions

[joshua2004]

In the sentences:

The creator of the Nike symbol was paid $35 for the design.

and

Michael Jordan was cut sophmore year from his high school basketball team.


is "Nike symbol" a proper noun? And could you consider "symbol" a common noun in that sentence?

And with "high school basketball team," which parts are nouns and which are adjectives?

thanks,

Josh

[fluffyhamster]

Maybe you could call things like that 'compounds'?

As a whole, they function as noun phrases, so you could also look at heads and dependents/modifiers.

Obviously, it's been a while since I read about stuff like this LOL.

Anyway, if it's you who's asking and not some students, can't it wait, or is your thirst for the truth that unquenchable?!

[Stephen Jones]

It's a noun phrase with the common noun head 'symbol qualified by the proper noun 'Nike'.

[joshua2004]

Thanks for the reply,
its an exam question that we are having printed today.

Thanks again both of you,

Josh

[jotham]

This brings up an interesting editing point. In the phrase high-shool basketball team, the compound high school is a noun that occurs before another noun. A hyphen is usually inserted between those words in such cases to facilitate better reading. It may be more an American custom than British — not sure — but I've seen it in Scott Foresman textbooks. Basketball also is a noun funtioning as an adjective.

[Stephen Jones]

In 'high-school basketball teacher' high-school is hyphenated to make it clear that he is a basketball teacher at a high school and not a school basketball teacher under the influence of banned substances.

Pinker and Pullum would be after your gonads for saying that basketball functions as an adjective. It is a noun qualifying the noun which is head of the noun phrase, 'teacher'. It is true that adjectives also qualify nouns but that does not make basketball an adjective any more than a woman's managing to pee standing up would mean she had changed sex.

[jotham]

I quite agree it isn't an adjective, but neither did I say it was. I said it was a noun. I only said it functioned as an adjective to make it understandable. Maybe I should have said that it appears to be an adjective. Function might make it seem like I was saying it was a noun. But this concept has a name: functional variation. Also enallage. Sorry if my earlier explanation confused.

[Stephen Jones]

I don't think it is enallage. 'basketball' is not substituting an adjective. It is merely performing the same function as an adjective would in a similar position.

Both nouns and adjectives can qualify other nouns, just as both nouns and pronouns can act as subject of a sentence. You wouldn't call using a pronoun instead of a noun enallage.

[jotham]

Well, I have a question then. The phrase have a good cry is considered enallage and functional variation because the word cry was originally a verb, but people started using it as a noun. Then dictionaries recognized it as such and started listing it as such as well. So one part of speech (noun) is used or substituted for another (verb).
Now, basketball originally started as a noun. Then people started putting it in positions that adjectives would go. I guess if it were "correctly" an adjective, it would be basketballish, or basketbally — but it kept the same form as the noun (whew). The dictionaries never recognized this as a true adjective (or I suppose any of the noun-to-adjective functional shifts) as far as I know. Why would this be appropriately called functional variability, but not enallage like in the verb-to-noun shift? Is it because dictionaries don't recognize it as an adjective?
Also, enallage includes incorrect grammatical substitutions, like "we was robbed." Isn't it possible that the noun basketball could be "incorrectly" substituting the adjective, if you look at it another way?
http://enallage.quickseek.com/

[Stephen Jones]

One of the functions of nouns is to qualify other nouns in a noun phrase.

Adjectives do the same but can also be used predicatively. Nouns can't

He's a good basketball teacher.
The basketball teacher is good.
*The good teacher is basketball.

[Stephen Jones]

Incidentally, I doubt if cry is an example of enallage. The noun form from the old French 'cri' is apparently as old as the verb form from the old french 'crier'. It is much more likely that the verb and noun both entered the language at the same time.

[jotham]

But the link I posted says it is, which I assume was made by linguists. Maybe this is the case: functional variation requires a progression from one part of speech to another, but enallage doesn't — it just describes the substitution, progression or not. If that is the case, then all functional-variation examples would also be enallage, but all enallage examples are not necessarily functional variations. So if what you are saying about cry is correct, and my hypothesis, then cry would be enallage, but not functional variation; and basketball would be both functional variation and enallage. Am I making any sense?
Incidentally, is this all helping you with your test question, Joshua? I couldn't have asked for more detailed answers to my simple questions.
http://enallage.quickseek.com/

[Stephen Jones]

I would say all three examples in the wikipedia stub are wrong.

I think you are needlessly confusing yourself.

One function of a noun is to qualify another noun in a noun phrase. Simple as that.

[barista]

Nike is a proper noun as it's the name of a company, while symbol is just a common noun. However, if you described Nike's Swoosh, Swoosh is the name of the symbol and is a proper noun.

I don't think I've ever seen high school hyphenated, but maybe I've missed it. I know I wouldn't hyphenate primary school, elementary school, or middle school. I don't think it's incorrect, but I wouldn't use it, even in describing a high school basketball teacher.

IMO, school is usually qualified by name or level, unless there is only one school (The school's basketball teacher was high).

[jotham]

Well, now you're getting into a legal issue. Trademarks, like Nike or Coke, are not usually defined as a proper noun, but are better used as a proper adjective only (or maybe I should say as a proper noun-modifier), to prevent genericide...in the eyes of the law. Some dictionaries, like American Heritage, don't treat them as any part of speech; and others, like Merriam-Webster's, treat them as a unique part of speech on its own called trademark. That's a wise policy, I think. If a company started using their trademark as a proper noun — Buy a pair of Nikes — they could legally lose their trademark for being careless and for inviting the public to use their trademark generically. It happened before with escalator. Editors and publishers also have to be keen on these issues — although a test question may not incite any unwarranted attention. Besides, it was used appropriately.
Recently, Google had to deal with the issue, uncomfortably. They set themselves up as a casual company not concerned with the elitism of other powerful corporations. Yet they understand what losing their trademark would mean in the long run. They sent legal letters to newspapers (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01536.html) telling them how to properly use their trademark as an adjective (or noun modifier) and very politely and comically requested them not to use it as a verb (or other part of speech). They were ridiculed for losing their vision and for turning into an elite organization.
The hyphen is probably an American custom; careful writers, editors, educators, or any one else (American) concerned with either carefulness or clarity try to include it. Scott Foresman textbooks (for kids) are an example.