Ambiguous meaning - two nouns in a row

Question

I'm often confused by the meaning of two nouns in a row.

Specifically, I came across this word in a TV show:

Demon Hunter

Without looking at the context of the show, I feel like this word can mean either "A hunter who hunts demon" OR "A demon who is also a hunter". Which one is the right one?

Similarly, words like:

Child abuser

Most people would understand it as "a person who abuses a child", but why can't it mean "an abuser who happens to be just a child"?

I agree that when I read 'demon hunter' it could mean a hunter of demons or a demon who's a hunter. But I'd stress those two meaning differently when speaking: DEmon hunter = hunter of demons, DEmon HUNTer = a hunter who's a demon. — David Garner, Apr 12 '16 at 17:24
@DavidGarner: and they say English isn't a tonal language. :) — Andy, Apr 12 '16 at 19:51
@Andy, I was thinking the same thing as I stood in my greenhouse looking at the green house over the wall! — David Garner, Apr 12 '16 at 21:30
@Andy Because it isn't. That's a difference in stress, not tone. There are many minimal pairs in English distinguished only by stress, such as insight and incite. — Peter Olson, Apr 13 '16 at 02:34
It's not just nouns. "Don't. Stop!" and "Don't stop!" mean two completely opposite things. — Steven Alexis Gregory, Apr 13 '16 at 05:48
@PeterOlson, you're right, but insight / incite [and greenhouse / green house ] have different tone-patterns as well as different stress. — David Garner, Apr 13 '16 at 06:44

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 12 '16 at 15:31

11

The short answer is that there's no reason they can't mean "a demon who hunts" or "a child who abuses".

The long answer is that we won't instinctively parse them that way: in general English usage a construct like this is understood to be [attributive noun] [noun] where the attributive is modifying the one that follows.

In the case of your first example, we know we have a hunter. What kind of hunter? Demon. A hunter who hunts demons. In the second, we know we have an abuser. What kind of abuser? Child. An abuser who abuses children.

answered Apr 12 '16 at 15:31

John Clifford

6,801

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So you are saying on the top of all of the grammatical rules, you need some common sense too? – Liam Grelon Apr 12 '16 at 15:34
Pretty much, yeah. Very few people would think you meant "a demon who hunts" when you said "Demon Hunter" because usually when we use attributive nouns they come before the noun they modify. By the same token, a "fire fighter" isn't often meant as a scrap-happy inferno, and a "cat burglar" isn't a kleptomaniac feline. :) – John Clifford Apr 12 '16 at 15:36
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A "cat burglar" doesn't steal cats, either. – Peter Shor Apr 12 '16 at 15:47
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@PeterShor Attributive nouns don't always have to be literal. :) but who are you to tell a cat burglar what he can and can't steal? – John Clifford Apr 12 '16 at 15:48
I don't think there are any reliable rules about this, it just requires knowledge of the language and/or context. – Max Williams Apr 12 '16 at 16:01
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"Demon Hunter" = "someone who hunts demons". "Female Hunter" = "A female who hunts". No rules. – Max Williams Apr 12 '16 at 16:02
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@MaxWilliams Or someone who hunts females. :) – John Clifford Apr 12 '16 at 16:05
Nice points here, I'll point out that English does have a recognized idiom for "a who abuses": "abusive x". So "Abusive child". – pydsigner Apr 12 '16 at 17:01
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@MaxWilliams "female" in "female hunter" is an adjective rather than a noun. I'd posit that the use of a word as an adjective is preferred to the attributive noun use. Since "child" and "demon" are nouns only, the use is clearly attributive as John states. – pydsigner Apr 12 '16 at 17:05
Hence the reason for hyphens which clarify matters, even if it's unpopular in the confused minds of demi-literate "educationalists" who have the ear of government. "demon-hunter", "child-abuser" ,"fire-fighter", "cat-burglar" and that all-time favourite "female-hunter" all have obvious meanings. Omitting the hyphen as dictated by those masters of language, the journalists, introduces much-needed ambiguity which keeps the ambiguity-exploiters known as lawyers in a job. – Magoo Apr 12 '16 at 19:44
@Magoo, yes! Attributive nouns should always be hyphenated. I'll never forget the guy who first explained that to me—a quiet gentleman in Bermuda-shorts and wingtip-shoes, nursing a grape-soda in a hotel-bar just across the Sarasota county-line. He was an advertising-executive by day, down in the Sunshine-State for a weekend-charity-ball. A brake-fluid-leak had put his car in the shop, and he wouldn't get it back until Monday-morning. I hope he made it home okay. – Vectornaut Apr 13 '16 at 04:20
“Car transportation” can mean people (and animals) using cars for travel, or it can mean loading cars onto larger vehicles (e.g., trucks, trains, planes, and ships) in order to move the cars from Point A to Point B. This is strikingly parallel to “expect installation”, which can mean using the expect program to install other software, or it can mean tools/techniques for installing expect. “Chicken food” is grains and seeds; “chicken dinner” is white meat and dark meat. … See also Robot Repair. – Scott - Слава Україні Apr 14 '16 at 04:43

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 12 '16 at 16:20

It can mean both and there's nothing stopping you, but some nuance is involved. John Clifford already posted a great answer, but I thought I'd provide some additional points.

Demon hunter has context and history behind it. English speakers have a sort of contextual understanding from literature and history that helps to convey the meaning, "A hunter who hunts demons." You would reach similar results with terms like witch hunter.

The reason female hunter doesn't have the same result is because we don't have roots in literature and history where "a hunter who hunts females" has any sort of strong presence.

Usually when an English speaker is trying to describe something (the hunter) but that description happens to clash with a well established context, then to convey that to the reader in a better way, they might rewrite the sentence as something like

"The hunter of females"

Sometimes it can be a little awkward like "The hunter who was female" but how it's conveyed in the best way is entirely up to the speaker/writer. It depends on the situation and context.

With demon hunter, you could say "The demonic hunter." This also works with cat burglar. To me, if you wanted to describe a burglar who was actually a cat, you could say, "The feline burglar."

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 12 '16 at 17:03

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I read "Demon Hunter" as meaning an "excellent / very good" hunter, with "Demon being used in a slang sense.

But ... a quick web search shows that "Demon Hunter is an American Christian metal band from Seattle, Washington, started in 2000"1). I note that the questioner capitalises both words and refers to a TV show, so I assume that the term is actually referring to that band.

answered Apr 12 '16 at 17:03

TrevorD

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"Demon Hunter is an American Christian metal band[...]" because of course it is. – User1000547 Apr 12 '16 at 17:49
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FWIW, I'm British and have never heard "demon" used as slang to mean "good", nor would I understand it in this way if I heard the phrase "demon hunter". But of course it might be different elsewhere. – GMA Apr 13 '16 at 00:46
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@GeorgeMillo I'm British too and i've heard it used in the phrase "demon bowler" (referring to Cricket), "demon" meaning "fearsome" or "formidable", which sort of equates to "good" in that context, ie they are fearsome to opponents because they're so good. It looks like the phrase originated with an Australian cricketer called Fred Spofforth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Spofforth – Max Williams Apr 13 '16 at 07:41

Ambiguous meaning - two nouns in a row

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