Noun or adjective

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Knowledgeseeker88

#245985 Sun, 16 Jul 06 06:09 AM

Hi, I am new here. Sorry if I posted this in the wrong place. Smile [:)]

Here I have three phrases:

The university guard is...

The Chinese Embassy is located ...

The Japanese economics professor...

Can anyone please tell me whether the underlined words are noun or adjective? University on its own is a noun but when you put it in front another noun, does it considered to be describing the noun, thus becomes an adjective? Thanks in advance.

Knowledgeseeker88

Joined on Sun, Jul 16 2006

New Member (02)

Nouns, Universities

Mister Micawber

#245995 Sun, 16 Jul 06 07:15 AM

Welcome to EF, Kseeker. You should be careful to distinguish form from function. I myself like to write it out like the following, to avoid any confusion by the reader:

The university guard -- noun used as adjective

The Chinese Embassy -- adjective used as adjective (the noun is China, unless you are speaking of the people)

The Japanese economics professor -- noun used as adjective

cf:

Running is a healthy hobby -- verb used as noun
The rich get richer -- adjective used as noun