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According to Longman dictionary, reconnaissance is a noun. However, in the provided examples I feel it has a role for describing another name.

reconnaissance aircraft
a reconnaissance mission

Could someone explain how it is still a noun in such examples?

NVZ
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Stephen
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  • Hello, welcome to ELU. Can you elaborate what you mean when you say: has a role for describing another name. – Gary May 16 '17 at 05:15
  • @Gary, I mean it describes another name. Therefore, it must be an adjective. reconnaissance aircraft to me looks like saying a blue aircraft. – Stephen May 16 '17 at 05:17
  • Ah i see, when a noun modifiers another it doesn't become an adjective. This is a noun adjunct. I have already answered this somewhere. I'll try to find the reference. – Gary May 16 '17 at 05:19
  • As Jim pointed out this is also answered in the question he has linked. If you have any question that isn't answered in there, feel free to edit your question, and reference the question Jim linked.In the meantime this question will likely be closed soon, because there are answers examining this exact category of question in the above link. -- also this link should help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_adjunct – Gary May 16 '17 at 05:22
  • @Gary, Thanks a lot. How to distinguish a noun adjunct from adjective? I mean how I can prove reconnaissance is a noun here? – Stephen May 16 '17 at 05:28
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    @Stephen you're welcome Stephen, please see the first answer to this question: it explains the difference: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/87609/is-this-noun-used-as-an-adjective – Gary May 16 '17 at 05:33
  • @Stephen An adjective cannot be a noun; an attributive noun can. Simple. – Max Jun 15 '17 at 19:14

1 Answers1

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Thanks to the comments.

One big difference between attributive nouns and adjectives is that while an adjective is predicative, i.e., a blue aircraft is blue and is an aircraft, a reconnaissance aircraft is not reconnaissance, but rather it is an aircraft.

Reference

Stephen
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