Safire on participles and gerunds

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Dec 24, 2007, at 8:43 AM, Joel Berson wrote:

> Thanks, Arnold.  I am fortunately constrained in submitting to the
> OED to decide only between verb, adjective, and noun.
>
> I do have one quibble, though.  What about the adjectival use, in
> "The stuffing ingredients are bread crumbs [etc.]"?  Or should I wait
> 'til next November to raise this issue?

no need to wait.  "stuffing ingredients" is a noun-noun compound (like
"pie ingredients").  its first element is of the category N, with the
function Adjectival.  (noun-noun compounds are one case among many in
which it's important to distinguish category and function.)

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org