For the expression of complex concepts, writers make use of various linguistic resources. One such resource is adjectival nouns. This category of modifiers highlights the characteristics of the head nouns in the noun phrases which is not possible with the use of adjectives. Further they help keep academic texts concise and expressive. In this regard, the major difficulty of the learning writers is to differentiate an adjectival noun from an adjective. This post will help the learning writers become aware how adjectival nouns can be used before the head nouns in noun phrases.
1. Role of Adjectival Nouns in Noun Phrase
In certain contexts, nouns describe head nouns in noun phrases and their role is similar to that of adjectives. Particularly, nouns take such role in academic and professional writing where nouns frequently stay before other nouns and describe them. An important point about these nouns is that these do not refer to some entities, ideas, or contexts as their head nouns do. They instead describe the objects, ideas or contexts referred to by their head nouns. On the whole these preceding nouns are quite similar to adjectives, e.g. Evening Time, A Computer Engineer, A Rest Area, Team Effort, etc. In addition, there can be two adjectival nouns also before the head noun in a noun phrase, e.g. health maintenance issues, market value determination, etc.
1.1 The Use of Article before Adjectival Nouns
When a pair of nouns carries an adjectival noun and head noun, the use of article depends upon the head noun (last noun). For example, the construction “… world economy is under stress these days” has a pair of adjectival noun and head noun, i.e., world economy. The article is to be used keeping in view the second or head noun. If this noun is general and countable, the will be used and if it is general and uncountable, the will not be used. If it is single and specific, a/an will be used (https://guinlist.wordpress.com/). For example:
a. Oil prices have gone very high.
b. A computer table was purchased from the market.
c. The health issues which hinder physical performance have not been addressed.
In example (a), zero article is required because though the noun ‘prices’ is plural, yet it has been used in general sense, i.e., not countable. In (b), ‘table’ is singular and specific, thus article ‘a’ is required. In (c), the noun ‘issues’ is plural as well as countable, so article ‘the’ is required.
1.2 Plurality of Adjectival Nouns
Most of the adjectival nouns are singular in form whether they bring plural or singular meaning to the head noun (e.g., table cloth). When the adjectival noun table is turned into non-adjectival, it can become cloth for tables. The singularity of the adjectival noun stays consistent even when a number precedes before the adjectival noun (e.g. a five-day tour, a hundred-meter race, etc.). However, some adjectival nouns can be plural as well (e.g., Sales department, data analysis). In addition, some adjectival nouns in noun phrases are inherently plural as they have no singular form, for example, statistics department, savings account, sports car, etc.
1.3 Possessive Adjectival Nouns Vs Attributive Adjectival Nouns
Commonly learning writers are faced with the problem of distinguishing possessive adjectival nouns from attributive adjectival nouns. The possessive adjectival nouns have an apostrophe ending while attributive adjectival nouns do not have such ending. For example, possessive adjectival noun, i.e. desk in “desk’s top is accompanied with an apostrophe ending and attributive adjectival noun, desk in “desk lamp” has no apostrophe. It is important to remember that the use of an apostrophe ending brings about a significant meaning difference as indicated by the examples given above. However, on the basis of meaning difference, sometimes the use of apostrophe ending of adjectival nouns is possible. For example, the phrases the night duty and a night’s duty have different meanings. The night duty indicates the type of duty and a night’s duty indicates the quantity of duty.
2. Distinguishing Head Noun Characteristics by Using Adjectival Nouns and Adjectives
The pre- and post-positioning of adjectival nouns and adjectives as noun-describing words in relation to head noun help distinguish between the characteristics of head noun concerned. For example, a female doctor is a phrase that is used for naming the area the doctor is related to instead of his/her own gender. It means a doctor of females and female will give sense of a noun. If a gender is being named, then ‘a doctor who is female’ will be the meaning. Thus, female will stay as an adjective. Further, the valid interpretation of the pre-modifying word of the head noun like female discussed above, is based on the context.
3. Variation in the Role Adjectives and Adjectival Nouns as Modifiers
Adjectives, when used before nouns, indicate the conceptual meaning of the head noun, i.e., quality, property or state of the head noun. On the other hand, adjectival nouns indicate the purpose, type or material of the head noun. For example, in ‘a silvery night’ the adjective ‘silvery’ indicates brightness (quality) of the night and in ‘a silver watch’, the noun ‘silver’ indicates a material.
4. Differentiating an Adjectival Noun from an Adjective
Commonly, the learning writers cannot differentiate the adjectival nouns from adjectives. For knowing whether the pre-modifying word(s) is an adjective or noun, the writers can place a preposition between the pre-modifiers and head noun. In case, it is possible to place preposition (e.g., of, at, for, with, etc.) before the pre-modifying word, the preceding word is a noun and if not, the preceding word is an adjective. For example, fruit market can be turned into market of fruit which shows that fruit is a noun. On the other hand, technical committee cannot be changed into committee of technical. If pre-modifying words are adjectives, they require that, which, or who after them, e.g., committee that is technical.
Example constructions that show the difference adjectival nouns and adjectives.
| Adjectival Nouns after Preposition | Adjectives after Relative Pronouns |
| People of village, the gate of the college, a struggle for freedom, problems with the management of roads | roads that are blocked, employees who are work-shirking, prices which are high |
Although the said inversion helps make the category of the respective modifier clear, yet its frequent employment goes against the principle of concision of academic texts.
5. Use of Adjectives vs Adjectival Nouns
Head noun in noun phrases may follow adjectives or adjectival nouns. For example, in the construction “Cancerous Hospital”, the head noun hospital follows an adjective which indicates that the hospital itself is cancerous, i.e., it causes cancer among its visitors. However, when adjectival noun, i.e., ‘Cancer’ precedes the head noun ‘Hospital’, the construction becomes “Cancer Hospital.” Now it means that the hospital is for the treatment of cancer patients. In such constructions, the writer has no choice between the use of adjective or adjectival noun. The use of adjectives or adjectival nouns is mandatory and is determined by the aimed at meanings. However, in some constructions, the choice is open, nevertheless, e.g., phrase/phrasal boundaries, structure/structural organization, syntax/syntactic rules, etc.
6. Participle Verbs as Adjectival Nouns or Adjectives
Similar to adjectival noun or adjective, -ing verbs stay before head nouns and perform the function of either a noun-like gerund or an adjective-like participle. For example, in the construction singing competition, singing is a gerund and in singing bird, singing is an adjective participle.
7. Adjective + Adjectival Noun + Head Noun
An adjective can be placed before adjectival noun + head noun. However, one problem can arise on account of this incorporation, i.e., the learning writers can link this adjective either with the adjectival noun or the head noun. This sort of dual possibility may be confusing for the reader because in some cases the right interpretation is easy (e.g., in ‘indecisive board speculations’, the adjective ‘indecisive’ modifies the noun, i.e. speculations) but in others the interpretation is difficult (e.g. basic rights moves).
8. Adjectival Nouns and Expression of Complex Concepts
In expressing complex concepts, nouns are frequently described by other nouns that are placed before them. The role of these pre-modifying nouns is different from appositives as these pre-modifying nouns do not refer to the thing or concepts mentioned by the head noun, rather these indicate the characteristics of these concepts. In other words, these pre-modifying nouns do the role of adjectives and for the same reason they are called adjectival nouns. The adjectival nouns that stay before head nouns in a noun phrase, can be more than one in number, e.g., the world health problems, word definition difficulties, etc.
In sum, adjectival nouns have a number of structural aspects. These are the use of articles before adjectival nouns, plurality of adjectival nouns, difference between possessive and attributive adjectival nouns. Further, there is difference between adjectives and adjectival nouns. Furthermore, adjectives can be positioned before adjectival nouns. In the end, it has been made clear how adjectival nouns help academic writers express their complex concepts.
