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Noun Premodification with Nouns

Understanding premodification

Nouns as Modifiers



Nouns as modifiers perform the same functions as adjectives in that they give more information about the headword (noun) in the noun phrase. The tightest connections between nouns occur in noun compounds where the two words have one well understood meaning, for example "bus station". And sometimes they have become just one word, for example "motorcycle".

But we are concerned with a looser connection between a noun as adjective and its headword. This construction is a very powerful means of packing a lot of information into a few words.

Like adjectives, we can use a series of nouns to provide more information about the headword or about another noun, for example greenhouse gas emissions.

Nouns as adjectives can be classified into various categories such as location: ocean trenches, specialization: health professionals, or composition: tomato sauce.

More examples

Mouse over the phrases for more context
health risks
.. new studies have shown that poor nutrition may not be enough to explain their health risks ..
sleep patterns
.. monitor your own sleep patterns to ensure that you are getting seven hours of sleep on a regular basis.
food additives
Some food additives common in ultra-processed foods (such as emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners) also increase inflammation..
hothouse climate
Our model shows that the Cretaceous hothouse climate was caused by very fast-moving tectonic plates..
carbon storage
The answer lies in the mountains that were responsible for slowing down the plates in the first place and in carbon storage in the deep sea.

See more examples of noun premodification.


These examples were sourced from articles in The Conversation: Plate Tectonics; Ultra-Processed Foods; Pizza; Sleep.
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