2024-09-30

Is the adjective of a compound proper noun still an adjective?

Apparently, this is a pretty tricky question. Doing a quick Google search, I didn't find any answer that actually answered this question. (The closest I found was this Reddit thread, but I'm not satisfied with the discussion.) While I'm not claiming to be the absolute authority on the topic of (American) English grammar, what follows is my best understanding at the moment; so this is what I'm going with:

No, an adjective within a compound word should not be analyzed as distinct from the compound.

As an example, consider this snippet from this website:

The text reads:

In the first sentence, "South Carolina" is certainly compound; it's also certainly proper. So the question is, is the word "South" still considered an adjective here? (Remember the questions adjectives answer: "which one," "what kind," "how many," and "whose?") Which Carolina? The South Carolina?

Wrong. To my knowledge, once you conclude that "South Carolina" is a compound thing, you should no longer evaluate "What part of speech is 'South'?" and "What part of speech is 'Carolina'?" but rather "What part of speech is 'South Carolina'?"

Ok, so "South Carolina" is a single, proper noun, right? Not so fast.

While I'd agree that "South Carolina" is a proper noun when considered in isolation, I actually believe that it's a proper adjective in this context.

How in the heck can you consider a proper noun to be a proper adjective?

coming soon

Back to the list of Miscellany