[iconoclast]

I’m afraid I’ve never understood the term “adjectival noun”, as in the examples keenlearner provides: water tank, dog house, and computer programme. I’d always viewed them nominal compounds, i.e. two nouns or a gerund plus noun joined to create a new vocabulary unit.

To call the first noun “adjectival” seems misleading, for the role of an adjective is to “modify” its noun. Thus, ‘a green CAR’ is a car that is green – capitals indicate the primary-stressed syllable – and ‘a friendly NEIGHbour’ is a neighbour who is friendly, etc. Also, participial adjectives do a similar job, so ‘a tired WORKer’ is a worker who has become tired, and ‘an interesting BOOK’ is a book that engages your interest, and so on.

But ‘a WATer tank’ is obviously not a tank that is water, just as ‘a SWIMming pool’ is hardly a pool that is swimming, so the relationship cannot be adjectival. Rather, there seem to be two main relationships involved in nominal compounds.

1. Purpose-Instrument-Use: ‘a WATer tank’ is a tank built to hold water, ‘a DOG house’ is a house built to house a dog, and ‘a comPUTer programme’ is a programme designed to be run on a computer. Similarly, ‘a TORTure implement’ is an implement designed or used to apply torture, and ‘a BEDroom’ is a room set apart to hold beds for us to sleep in.

2. Transitive Verb-Object (which may also involve the first relationship): ‘a FUND-raiser’ is an event held to raise funds, ‘a NAIL cutter’ is a device designed for us to cut our nails with, and ‘an ENGlish teacher’ is a person who teaches English.

We can have fun with the difference in the stress (and intonation) patterns between nominal compound and adjective plus noun. Thus, ‘an ORange tree’ is not ‘an orange TREE’, ‘an ENGlish teacher’ is not necessarily ‘an English TEACHer’, and ‘a dancing GIRL’ need not be employed as ‘a DANCing girl’. There are also some instances of adjectives becoming “nominalised”, e.g. ‘a HIGH school’, ‘a DARKroom’, and ‘a BLACKbird’.

At least two exceptions exist to the nominal-compound stress rule whereby primary stress falls on the primary-stressed syllable of the first element in the compound.

3. Ingredients: we speak of ‘an apple PIE’, i.e. a pie that is baked using apples, of ‘a steak DINNER’, of ‘a rhubarb TART’ and of ‘a Caesar SALad’, i.e. a lettuce salad prepared à la Caesar, but cakes seem to be an exception to the exception, e.g. ‘a CHOColate cake’.

4. Location (commonly with the definite article): we speak of ‘the city WALLS’, of ‘a town HALL’, of ‘the kitchen SINK’, and of ‘the livingroom SOFa’.

To conclude, the rule whereby primary stress in nominal compounds normally falls on the primary-stressed syllable of the first element appears to be a feature of Germanic languages. In German, for example, ‘an ENGlish teacher’ is ‘ein ENGlischlehrer’ (and not ‘ein englischer LEHRer’), ‘a SPEED limit’ is ‘eine geSCHWINDigkeitbegrenzung’, and the Black Forest is rendered using a “nominalised” adjective, ‘der SCHWARTZwald’ (and not ‘der schwartze WALD’). Is it not time the idea of “adjectival noun” was banished from our thoughts?