Noun adjunct

In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun functioning as a pre-modifier in a noun phrase. For example, in the phrase "chicken soup" the noun adjunct "chicken" modifies the noun "soup". It is irrelevant whether the resulting compound noun is spelled in one or two parts. "Field" is a noun adjunct in both "field player" and "fieldhouse".

Related concepts

The adjectival noun term was formerly synonymous with noun adjunct but now usually means nominalized adjective (i.e., an adjective used as a noun) as a term that contrasts the noun adjunct process, e.g. the Irish meaning "Irish people" or the poor meaning "poor people." Japanese adjectival nouns are a different concept.

English

Singular vs plural

Noun adjuncts were traditionally mostly singular (e.g., "trouser press") except when there were lexical restrictions (e.g., "arms race"), but there is a recent trend towards more use of plural ones (e.g., "sales department", "jobs program", "systems analyst"). Many of these can also be or were originally interpreted and spelled as plural possessives (e.g. "chemicals' agency", "writers' conference", "Rangers' hockey game"), but they are now often written without the apostrophe, although decisions when to do so require editorial judgment. There are morphological restrictions on the classes of adjunct that can be plural and nonpossessive; irregular plurals are solecistic as nonpossessive adjuncts (for example, "men clothing" or "women magazine" sounds improper to fluent speakers).