[lojban] Re: Question to native English speakers

["Joel Shellman" <jshellman@gmail.com>]

On 9/26/07, Marjorie Scherf <mls1@rice.edu> wrote:
> Joel Shellman wrote:
> > After googling, I found one non-authoritive account stating that
> > adj-noun-noun combos should always be considered adj (noun noun)
> > unless there is a hyphen between the first two words.
>
> Man, that's a sweet ass car!

I'll take that both as humor and an example. I would not consider this
an adj-noun-noun combo as the first two words are a slang adjective
phrase--basically a compound word. To demonstrate, you would never say
that with the first word removed as you would say "World Map".

And on the flip side, I will reiterate what I said before--if we're
talking grammar, that's one thing (and that's what I was referring to
above), but if we're talking about how some English speakers speak,
that's entirely different and why I would say that there will be cases
where adj-noun-noun combos can and are interpreted both ways.

In fact, during my googling, I found a writing tips type of article
that was saying one should expand out noun phrases explicitly because
they can be confusing--especially long chains of them.


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