compound nouns

[Icarus]

I feel like I have a generally excellent grasp on proper grammar, syntax, and usage, but I can't remember the specific vocabulary of the fields. When I used to teach English, I more or less could, but I have a poor short-term memory, and a lot of those terms are not useful in terms of representing my thinking process when I use language. Of course, I remember the most common stuff, but not the phrases I didn't throw around constantly, but only when we got to them.

So, I came across this post on Sakeriver:

. . . can we use this guy as our new, liberal cabal attack robot?

I instinctively felt that the comma after "new" did not belong there, and I'm trying to articulate why. I know that adjectives in series are supposed to be separated by commas, as in "She had long, pretty hair." But I don't perceive "new," "liberal cabal," and "attack" as all being adjectives modifying robot, though I can see how one might argue that on the surface they are.

Working from the inside out, in the phrase "attack robot," it seems to me that while "attack" functions an adjective, the phrase "attack robot" acts as a compound noun, and so "blue attack robot" would not need a comma between "blue" and "attack." That seems straightforward enough to me. Now, "liberal" does not modify "robot," it modifies the noun "cabal." So I perceive the phrase "liberal cabal" as a noun that acts as an adjective, much as "attack" is a noun acting as an adjective. And therefore, again, I perceive the entire phrase "liberal cabal attack robot" as a giant compound noun, and not as a series of adjectives, and so I perceive "new" as the single adjective modifying "liberal cabal attack robot," and not an adjective in series, and so I don't think it needs an adjective.

The thing is, I don't know if I articulated that well at all, or if it sounds stupid. What is the term for a noun that acts as an adjective, as in "student government"? Also, can compound nouns just be made up on the fly, or do they have to be "recognized" by virtue of their commonness? In other words, could an English teacher mark off for failing to put commas all over "new, liberal cabal, attack robot" and actually be right? (That looks heinous to me.)

How can I better articulate my thoughts on this, or am I just completely off base here?

[Jonathon]

No, you're totally on base. You should separate adjectives with a comma when they're coordinate. An easy way to test for this is to rearrange the order of the adjectives or to put an "and" between them.

So, for example, let's move the word "new."

*liberal cabal new attack robot
*liberal cabal attack new robot

If you put it anywhere else, it becomes ungrammatical. Thus, it must not be a coordinate adjective. Same thing when you put an "and" in there.

*new and liberal cabal attack robot

I think it also helps to put nested parentheses around the noun and adjectives to see what modifies what. You should get something like this:

new ((liberal cabal) (attack [robot]))

"Robot" is the head noun, but it forms a compound with "attack." "Liberal cabal" is another compound, and it modifies "attack robot." "New" modifies the whole phrase. But with a phrase like "long, pretty hair," you'll get something like this:

(long)(pretty)[hair]

Each adjective is modifying the noun independently.

And now that I've basically repeated everything that you said, I realized that I haven't answered your question as to the technical terminology. The answer: I'm not sure, and on top of that it varies from one grammar book to another. A noun acting as a modifier might be called simply an adjective, or maybe an attributive noun, or maybe something else entirely.

Compounds can definitely be made up on the fly. There are obviously many compounds that are permanent and that are recognizable as such, but English allows for all kinds of temporary compounds.

Sadly, an English teacher could probably mark someone off for not putting commas all over that phrase and feel absolutely justified about it, but they wouldn't be. A lot of rules have been so oversimplified (like "separate adjectives with commas") that many English teachers have only learned the oversimplified rules and then inflict them without mercy upon their students.

[pooka]

Perhaps you should ask:

I found this in an old box along with the man's letters to his first fiancee.
The specimen it gives for co-ordinate adjective is "Helen Keller speaks of the sweet, gracious discourse of book-friends."

Maybe there's a difference in a compound that describes function  as opposed to one that describes posession.

[Jonathon]

That's awesome. I wish I could read it.

[Icarus]

http://comppile.tamucc.edu/comppanel_34.htm

*want*

[rivka]

My mom has a bunch of old volvelles (not that I ever knew before they were called that), but none are grammar-related. That's pretty cool.

[Icarus]

We've got the dies (?) to make them, but nobody ever uses them, that I can tell.

[Tante Shvester]

dies (?) to make them

Administers CPR (?)

[pooka]

My sister was reading a cracker box that advertized "entertaining, delicious" recipes.  She kept reading the recipe in hopes that it would be entertaining, but eventually came to believe they were referring to the type of entertaining where people come over to your house, and not the "ha ha" kind.