ARTICLE

A or The refers to leader. Veteran is an adjective here.

Articles (determiners) cannot refer. They are not referring expressions. veteran is a noun as in 'a veteran of World War II'. It modifies the head noun leader. The whole noun phrase is a veteran leader (or the veteran leader). There are no adjectives here.

There is a second interpretation in which veteran is an adjective meaning 'very experienced'.

Hi,

Neither of them refers to the words you mentioned.

Let's take a look at this example:

The veteran leader made an important decision: he withdrew from public life.

The word "he" obviously refers to the veteran leader we're talking about.

However, if you replaced "he" with either "a" or "the", you'd get an ungrammatical sentence with

no refer

CalifJimArticles (determiners) cannot refer. They are not referring expressions. veteran is a noun as in 'a veteran of World War II'. It modifies the head noun leader. The whole noun phrase is a veteran leader (or the veteran leader). There are no adjectives here.

There is a second interpretation in which veteran is an adjective meaning 'very experienced'.

Hi,

Yes, "the veteran leader" is a noun phrase. He's probably a very experienced person (or soldier).

Regards

RegardsHi,
Yes, "the veteran leader" is a noun phrase. He's probably a very experienced person (or soldier).

Regards

SO in some sentences like above (A or The veteran leader)how we can recognize veteran is an adj or a noun???

because veteran seem to be an adj here??

bmojtabaThanks for your reply, you mean that veteran is a noun here??and it means a very experienced person or soldier?

I'm saying that veteran may be a noun or an adjective.

veteran, noun = soldier; veteran, adjective = very experienced. Therefore,

veteran leader = leader who is a veteran (soldier)

or

veteran leader = lead

veteran leader = leader who is a veteran (soldier) [I thought an experienced soldier is called a "seasoned veteran" or something like that and a soldier/police/fireman/or anyone who has been in some kind of service(including mundane office work) is just called "a veteran".]

or

veteran leader = leader of veterans (soldiers) [In the military, rank is

holydukeThats why I was certain that veteran is an adj in this case
...

veteran leader = very experienced leader [this was the only interpretation I had]In that case, I believe you were correct to call veteran an adjective.

(As for my characterizations of veteran, the noun, simply as 'soldier', that was just an abbreviated designator to emphas

Thanks for the explaination

And sorry for the incorrect explaination earlier, bmojtaba.

My careless reply about a