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ShaNap Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

Syntax

In the sentence:
We all took bathing suits to the beach.

What is the part of speech of all? And bathing?
Can I treat bathing as an Adj. (describing the suits)?

And same Q here:
The bus driver was sick.

Should I treat bus driver as a compound and therefore bus driver would be one word (Noun?)?

Thanks
  

Top answer

com/definition/english/all , "all" is a pronoun in such cases (the analogous example sentence there is "we all have different needs"). In "bathing suits", "bathing" is an attributive noun (suits used for the activity of bathing). "bus driver" is a compound noun, consisting of noun + noun.

— GPY

  • com/definition/english/all , "all" is a pronoun in such cases (the analogous example sentence there is "we all have different needs").
  • In "bathing suits", "bathing" is an attributive noun (suits used for the activity of bathing).
  • "bus driver" is a compound noun, consisting of noun + noun.
  • It is not correct to say that it is "one word".
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10 Answers
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According to http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/all , "all" is a pronoun in such cases (the analogous example sentence there is "we all have different needs").

In "bathing suits", "bathing" is an attributive noun (suits used for the activity of bathing).

"bus driver" is
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Thanks for the reply.

If I build a syntactic tree, should I treat these two (bus+driver and bathing+suits) as one noun (each pair as one part of speech - noun)?

And we all (we+all) should be one branch of a tree (pronoun) or perhaps two (pronoun+pronoun)
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None of this is defined anywhere. You should ask your teacher what he wants in this regard. I think of "bathing suit" and "bus driver" as two-word nouns, but there are many ways of looking at it.
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ShaNapIn the sentence:We all took bathing suits to the beach.What is the part of speech of all?
The Shorter Oxford calls that an adjective. Talk about experts disagreeing. I pity English grammarians.
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enoonThe Shorter Oxford call that an adjective.
Do they give an example sentence?
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I have a feeling I'll end up with more questions after this session.
Good for me. Not for my coming exam... ( ;
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GPY enoonThe Shorter Oxford call that an adjective.Do they give an example sentence?
Not one exactly on point, but from Keats, "They are all here tonight."
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_adjunct

The function of the noun "bus" in "bus driver" has many appellations. See the Wiki article (link above).
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Thank you again. Very precise.
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