FAQ 2.5 quibble

[Philip Potter]

The comp.lang.c FAQ (available at http://c-faq.com/) question 2.5 is called
"Arithmetic Operators" and has the following final paragraph:

"By the way, the word ``arithmetic'' as used in the title of this section is
an adjective, not a noun, and it's pronounced differently than the noun: the
accent is on the third syllable."

While I think this is a valid point of view, I tend to think of "arithmetic"
in "arithmetic operators" as being a noun modifier[1] - a convenient way of
saying "the operators of arithmetic". Hence my pronunciation has the stress
on the second syllable.

The two interpretations are equally valid; the FAQ is being pedantic beyond
its scope. I do use the adjective form (stress on third syllable) for
"arithmetic sequence", where it is much more clearly an adjective.

(No, I'm not entirely serious ^_^)

Philip

[1] Similar to "baseball bat", "milk float", or "chicken feed". No
adjectives here!

 

[Michael Wojcik]

"By the way, the word ``arithmetic'' as used in the title of this section is
an adjective, not a noun, and it's pronounced differently than the noun: the
accent is on the third syllable."

While I think this is a valid point of view, I tend to think of "arithmetic"
in "arithmetic operators" as being a noun modifier[1] - a convenient way of
saying "the operators of arithmetic".

In English, the conventional term for "noun modifier" is "adjective".

[1] Similar to "baseball bat", "milk float", or "chicken feed". No
adjectives here!

Except for "baseball", "milk", and "chicken", all of which are
adjectives there. Some grammarians might say those are compound
nouns formed from noun phrases consisting of an adjective and a
noun, but at the word level there are still adjectives there.

In English, part-of-speech is contextual, not inherent in the word.
An English word is as it does. While "arithmetic" may most often
serve as a noun, it is perfectly capable of being an adjective when
placed in the syntactic position of an adjective - ie, when modifying
a noun or noun phrase.

In some other languages, part-of-speech is not (entirely) contextual,
for example because of inflection. In Japanese, for example, true
adjectives must have particular endings according to declension; a
noun might serve gramatically as an adjective but is technically an
"adjectival noun". (There are many Japanese words, typically loan-
words from Chinese dialects, that are usually adjectival nouns.)

So I'd have to argue that the FAQ remains correct, insofar as part
of speech goes. Whether it's correct about pronunciation is less
clear, that being a matter of dialect and convention.

--
Michael Wojcik (e-mail address removed)

Unfortunately, as a software professional, tradition requires me to spend New
Years Eve drinking alone, playing video games and sobbing uncontrollably.
-- Peter Johnson

 

[Default User]

While I think this is a valid point of view, I tend to think of
"arithmetic" in "arithmetic operators" as being a noun modifier[1]
- a convenient way of saying "the operators of arithmetic".

In English, the conventional term for "noun modifier" is "adjective".

Not really. The other term for what he's describing in "noun adjunct".
That's using a noun in an adjective's role.

<http://www.bartleby.com/68/41/4141.html>

There is an adjective form of "arithmetic", but it's "arithmetical".





Brian

 

[lawrence.jones]

[1] Similar to "baseball bat", "milk float", or "chicken feed". No
adjectives here!

Except for "baseball", "milk", and "chicken", all of which are
adjectives there.

Strictly speaking, they're nouns being used attributively.

-Larry Jones

It's not denial. I'm just very selective about the reality I accept.
-- Calvin

 

[Michael Wojcik]

While I think this is a valid point of view, I tend to think of
"arithmetic" in "arithmetic operators" as being a noun modifier[1]
- a convenient way of saying "the operators of arithmetic".

In English, the conventional term for "noun modifier" is "adjective".

Not really. The other term for what he's describing in "noun adjunct".

Yes, really, though if you prefer I'll amend that to "*a* conventional
term for 'noun modifer' is 'adjective'". While Kenneth G. Wilson may
be stumping for "noun adjunct" for this case, that's hardly a
universal convention. The _Oxford Companion to the English Language_,
for example, uses "adjuct" exclusively for non-sentential adverbials,
which most definitely do not include nouns-used-as-adjectives; and
its description of adjective (and for that matter, of part of speech)
is quite compatible with what I wrote.

As far as I can tell, the phrase "noun adjunct" is an invention of
1950s linguists who wanted to formalized grammar. ("adjective", on
the other hand, is a Medieval coinage.) This is a fine distinction
if you're a linguist talking about "word class", but not very useful
if you're just discussing part of speech, which is not formalized.
If you *are* talking about word class, then this whole discussion is
far too imprecise.

Other grammarians simply say that modifying other nouns is one of the
things nouns can do, and so in this case a noun-modifying-noun is
still just a noun.

There is an adjective form of "arithmetic", but it's "arithmetical".

There's a form of the base "arithmetic", "arithmetical", which
usually serves as an adjective. That doesn't mean that
"arithmetical" is the only adjective formed from that base.

It appears our friend Skarmander has taken this discussion to AUE,
where Donna Richoux opines:

I would say that "arithmetic book" is noun-noun, and the stress is on
"rith". But "arithmetic mean" is pronounced with the stress on "mean,"
and yes, I would guess that dictionaries would classify that use as an
adjective.[1]

So I am not alone in my opinion that "arithmetic" can be an
adjective. And this is hardly surprising, because as I noted in my
previous post, English largely lacks syntactic markers of part-of-
speech, and so there is little hard evidence on which to found
inflexible assignment of words to parts. Indeed, that was one of the
motives for the invention of "word class".

I tend to feel that the migration of terms like "noun adjunct" from
linguistic terms of art to the vernacular is a matter of excessive
pedantry - some armchair grammarians (a group in which I fear I must
be included) want to demonstrate esoteric knowledge, and why not?
But while I sympathize with that impulse (which of course I share),
I also appreciate the contrary effort to keep matters of grammar and
usage relatively simple and clear (an effort that I often see
demonstrated on AUE).

So "arithmetic" may not be an adjective at home, but if it plays one
in the phrase in question, then that's what I'll call it.


[1] http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/5659d47d99517639

--
Michael Wojcik (e-mail address removed)

The Utahraptor's been having a bad time here, and I'm to credit! I
wonder how long he'll stay? (I can't wait till he finds out I replaced
his toothpaste with A COMPETING BRAND OF TOOTHPASTE!) -- Ryan North

 

[Michael Wojcik]

[1] Similar to "baseball bat", "milk float", or "chicken feed". No
adjectives here!

Except for "baseball", "milk", and "chicken", all of which are
adjectives there.

Strictly speaking, they're nouns being used attributively.

I'm afraid that's no "stricter" than my classification, and
somewhat less strict than the "noun adjuct" Brian proposed, since
the latter comes from the linguistic concept of "word class".