Syntactic function nadN
denominal adjective: noun preceding and modifying a nominal expression
The distinction between vadN and nadN is often unclear. But note that 聖 as nadN means "characteristic of or belonging to a sage" whereas as vadN 聖 is more properly simply glossed as "sagely, wise". The distinction is fairly clear. The category nadN tries to register the cases where the adnominal use of a noun seems lexicalised and pregnant, as in the case of jia3 che1 甲車 "armoured vehicle" (which cannot be expanded to 甲之車 , and it tries to disregard the subtly but deeply indifferent unlexicalised cases of modification by a noun as in 王後 "behind the king", which is short for 王之後 and which is not the same as a royal (nadN) backside would be. 王冠 would then be ambiguous between one reading like 王之冠 "His Majesty's hat; the King's hat" on the one hand, in which the relationship between a certain king and a hat is one of yo3u 有 "ownership" grammaticalised as zhi1 之 , and "royal hat, royal heddress", where the relationship is not the extrinsic one of ownership but concerns the very nature of the hat concerned, and not just a lexically purely contingent matter of a X happening to belong to Y. This category clearly presents many serious open problems. Does it make sense, in classical Chinese to ask whether wa2ng da4o 王道 is "the royal Way", or is it "the Way of the Kings"? A referential noun modifying another noun would seem to qualify as a real nadN: 故臣罪莫重於弒君 "Therefore there is no greater crime for a minister than to assassinate his ruler" does not involve any notion of a "ministerial crime", and che2n 臣 does not characterise the zui4 罪 . Consequently, such a usage would not qualify for the introduction of a LEXICAL ENTRY for 臣 as an nadN. None the less, it remains striking that while guo2 國 "state" forms such current compounds as guo2 ju1n 國君 "ruler over a state", the NP guo2 jia1 國家 does not seem to form such compounds, and *** 國家君主 "??ruler of a nation??"***, though semantically seemingly impeccable is not current classical Chinese. Thus it is important to know which nouns can serve as modifiers and which cannot, just as it is important to record which can be modified and which cannot.
Usage
- Lexical entries:
- Found 1059 attributions