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ESL forum >
Grammar and Linguistics > compound adjective structure
compound adjective structure
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noorhamza
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compound adjective structure
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Good morning What is the compound adjective of the sentence: "a man with a lovely smile"? Is it correct to say: a lovely-smiling man? |
19 Oct 2016
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yanogator
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It really isn �t possible. The closest would be "a lovely-smiled man", but that doesn �t work well at all. Bruce |
19 Oct 2016
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L. habach
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What about: a lovely-smiling man? |
19 Oct 2016
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yanogator
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I think lovely-smiling works grammatically, but no one would ever use it. This really can �t be done. Bruce |
19 Oct 2016
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Jayho
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Agree - grammatically correct, yes, natural usage, no |
19 Oct 2016
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normandey
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On the contrary, I think a lovely smiling man is correct. I have seen this phrase in Longman dictionary; " • a roomful of smiling children " .
I also saw it repeated too many in Google images.
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19 Oct 2016
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dany.Tunisia 123
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the ruleis adjective +noun+ed so the best answer would be a lovely-smiled man whereas there is no need for a compound adjctive here as the structure that is most often used is a man with a lovely smile |
20 Oct 2016
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Matthew@ELSP
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Great question. My colleagues who are Japanese speakers of English often ask questions to which I can only answer as Bruce did. Yes, it is correct, according to the rules, but we would never say it. I ask the same kind of questions about Japanese, so I guess this is not �an English thing �. |
20 Oct 2016
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Apodo
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A lovely smiling man means a lovely man who is smiling. This is different from a man with a lovely smile. So are you describing the man as lovely or the smile? The smile I think. So my preference is for the man with a lovely smile to avoid ambiguity and because it sounds more natural.
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20 Oct 2016
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yanogator
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@dany Yes, the "rule" is adjective+noun+ed, but not every noun can be used in this way. A man with long arms is a long-armed man. A woman with a tall hat is a tall-hatted woman. This is because "armed" can mean "having arms" and "hatted" can be taken to mean "wearing a hat". However, we just don �t see "smiled" as meaning "having a smile". I think it might be because "smile" is as much a verb as a noun, so "smiled" feels like a past participle rather than an adjective formed from the noun. That �s just my impression, not based on anything grammatical. Bruce |
20 Oct 2016
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