proper adjectives?

[joshua2004]

I recently posted a question about identifying the common and proper nouns in this sentence:

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

I am reading about proper adjectives in my English book. "Nike symbol" is a noun phrase and "Nike" is a proper adjective? But I can't say that "Nike" is in that sentence a proper noun, right?

Thanks,

Josh

[Stephen Jones]

Didn't this already come up on the General Discussion forum?

Nike symbol is a noun phrase: symbol is the head of the phrase and Nike is the qualifier.

Both words are nouns.

[metal56]

Nike symbol is a noun phrase: symbol is the head of the phrase and Nike is the qualifier.

Both words are nouns.

And the noun "Nike" is adjectival there.

[Stephen Jones]

I'm not sure that the term 'adjectival' serves any real purpose. Wikipedia calls Kleenex in 'Kleenex tissue' a proper adjective, but the concept seems to add a further needless complication.

How is the phrase 'Nike symbol' different from the phrase 'door handle'? They are both noun phrases made up of two nouns, a head noun 'symbol' or 'handle' and a second noun which qualifies the head noun.

It seems much simpler to say that both nouns and adjectives can modify the head of a noun clause then to talk about the noun acting as an adjectival.

[metal56]

I'm not sure that the term 'adjectival' serves any real purpose. Wikipedia calls Kleenex in 'Kleenex tissue' a proper adjective, but the concept seems to add a further needless complication.

For many students, it doesn't. If you can get your head around verbals, you can easily understand adjectival use. Mind, if you can't, you can always describe "Nike symbol" as a compound noun. In the end, it's probably all the same.

[Stephen Jones]

It is simplest of all to describe 'Nike symbol' as a noun phrase.

The point is that we should be defining parts of speech according to what constructions they take (nouns take articles, sometimes have plurals, often have genitives, whilst adjectives in English rarely do the first and don't do the other two, but most can be used predicatively, which nouns can't).

Describing parts of speech by function tends to confuse things.

[metal56]

<Describing parts of speech by function tends to confuse things.>

Again, for whom?

And, BTW, "shoe" (or dog, house, inflatable, etc) can also be seen as a noun phrase. So, you first have to define "a noun phrase".

[Buddhaheart]

&#65279;In the question sentence the possessive of “Nike Symbol” is formed by the PP (prepositional phrase)
“of the Nike Symbol”. The other form would be to add an ending written with an apostrophe and an
“s”, i.e., “Nike symbol’s Creator ...” I concur the term “Nike Symbol” is a N-E (noun-equivalent)
or NP (noun phrase) with “symbol” being the Hd (head) of the phrase and “Nike” the Qr (qualifier).

I think students of ESL have trouble figuring out how a PN (proper noun) like “Nike” could be used
as an adjective in “Nike symbol” . He should remember very often an English N (noun) including
a PN can indeed be used as an ADJ (adjective) and vice versa. A N can be used to describe another
N; the 1st N is a Qr, the 2nd the Hd and this is the case here. You can even have a situation where the
1st N qualifies the 2nd and together the 2 qualifies the 3rd N. A good example would be this phrase
“computer printer cover”. The question with this construction would be should a hyphen be used
between the 1st & the 2nd nouns?

If I may, I would paraphrase Stephen’s ‘And the noun ”Nike” is an adjectival there‘ thus: “”Nike”
is PN but functioning as an ADJ and hence it’s an adjectival.”

We may indeed describe “”Nike symbol” as a CmpN (compound noun) but contemporary
grammarians would probably prefer the term NP and “”Nike symbol” is just one of the many
syntactic categories that is subject to analysis using phrase structure rules.

[metal56]

I think students of ESL have trouble figuring out how a PN (proper noun) like “Nike” could be used as an adjective in “Nike symbol” .

Believe me, most don't have trouble.

[jotham]

I'm not sure that the term 'adjectival' serves any real purpose. Wikipedia calls Kleenex in 'Kleenex tissue' a proper adjective, but the concept seems to add a further needless complication.

It serves a real purpose as far as law is concerned. Trademarks can only be used as an adjective by their owners; and publishers are usually advised to follow suit. If we can't distinguish the adjective-noun from the noun-noun, what's a trademark owner or publisher to do? Xerox company tried to appeal to the reason of even the common public at large — "If you use Xerox the way you use zipper, our trademark could be left wide open" — and succeeded.