Adjectivization of nouns

There is also the question of the opposite phenomenon — that of nouns becoming adjectives. For a variety of reasons, this question presents a number of difficulties and has, ac-cordingly, given rise to prolonged and inconclusive discussions. The facts are, briefly stated, these. In Modern English a noun may stand before another noun and modify it. Witness numerous for-mations of the type stone wall, speech sound, peace talks, steel works, the Rome treaty, etc. The question, as usually asked, is, whether the first component of such phrases is a noun or whether it has been adjectivised, i. e. become an adjective. 1 Different views have been put forward here. The view that the first element of such phrases as stone wall is a noun has been de-fended by H. Sweet 2 and others, the view that it is an ad-jective or at least approaches the adjective state, by O. Jespersen 3 and others, and finally the view has also been expressed that this element is neither a noun nor an adjective but a separate part of speech, viz. an attributive noun. 4 The very variety of opinions on the subject shows that the problem is one of considera-ble difficulty.We shall become aware of that peculiar difficulty if we attempt to apply here the criteria serving to distinguish a noun from an adjec-tive. It must be stated at once, though, that one criterion, namely that of degrees of comparison, is useless here. The first el-ement of those phrases is indeed unable to form degrees of com-parison, but that in itself does not prove that the element is not an adjective, since many adjectives, e. g. wooden, woollen, Euro-pean, do not form degrees of comparison either. Thus, we reach the conclusion that no perfectly objective result can be attained in trying to determine what part of speech the first element in such phrases is. This explains the existing difference of views on the subject and we are compelled to recognise that the question can only be solved in a somewhat subjective way, according as we start from one premise or another. If we start from the premise that we shall not speak of homonyms, or indeed new parts of speech, un-less this is made strictly necessary by indisputable facts, we will stick to the view that the first element of such phrases as stone watt or speech sound is a noun in a special syntactical func-tion. It is this view that appears to be the most plausible.