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[Nick Sabalausky]

"John Reimer" <terminal.node at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:28b70f8c119bd8cb4246de86cc80 at news.digitalmars.com...
> Hello Nick,
>
>> "John Reimer" <terminal.node at gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:28b70f8c119528cb42154f5d14e0 at news.digitalmars.com...
>>
>>> Hello Nick,
>>>
>>>> But, of course, adjectives (just like "direct/indirect objects") are
>>>> themselves nouns.
>>>>
>>> Umm... May I make a little correction here?
>>> Adjectives are not nouns.  They are used to /describe/ nouns.
>>> -JJR
>>>
>> Maybe there's examples I'm not thinking of, and I'm certainly no
>> natural language expert, but consider these:
>>
>> "red"
>> "ball"
>> "red ball"
>> By themselves, "red" and "ball" are both nouns. Stick the noun "red"
>> in front of ball and "red" becomes an adjectve. (FWIW,
>> "dictionary.reference.com" lists "red" as both a noun and an
>> adjective). The only adjectives I can think of at the moment (in my
>> admittedly quite tired state) are words that are ordinarly nouns on
>> their own.  I would think that the distinguishing charactaristic of an
>> adjective vs noun would be the context in which it's used.
>>
>> Maybe I am mixed up though, it's not really an area of expertise for
>> me.
>>
>
>
> No problem.  I am not saying a word can't be /used/ as an adjective and 
> noun in different contexts.  I'm just saying that they can't be an 
> adjective and noun at the same time as your first post suggested.
>
> Grammatically, adjectives are not nouns (ever), even if the words 
> themselves can be used as either in independent contexts; they just modify 
> nouns.  Like Jarett mentions, the fact that words that are adjectives in 
> one context can shapeshift to another part of speech (the noun) in 
> another, is immaterial to the definition: you just have to recognize when 
> it happens and realize the change that has occurred in the part of speech.
>

I guess that's a difference between natural languages and oop-languages 
then. A member variable of an object typically /describes an attribute/ of 
the object, and thus makes it comparable to the notion of "adjective", but 
in an oop-language (and apperently unlike a natural language) that member 
object is itself either another object or a primitive.

> It something like how D uses the "!" prefix to instantiate a template and 
> in another context uses it as a logical NOT.  They can't mean both at the 
> same time.  They mean something different depending on where they are 
> used.
>

Ok, I see what you're saying.