名词作前置定语的用法日益普遍,在新闻报导和科技英语中尤为常见。有人认为,这是当代英语特征之一,它可以表示多方面的意义和语法功能,如表示用途(ironing board 烫衣板);类别(night-school夜校);性质(brick wall砖墙)等。修饰语与被修饰语间有主谓关系(earthquake地震),也有动宾关系(shoemaker 鞋匠)。可用一个名词修饰一个名词,也可用名词词组修饰一个名词。 The use of nouns as preconditioners is becoming more and more common, and is particularly common in news reporting and scientific English. Some people think that this is one of the features of contemporary English. It can express many aspects of meaning and grammatical functions, such as the use of ironing board (ironing board), category (night-school), nature (brick wall) and so on. There is a subjective relationship (earthquake earthquake) between the modifier and the modified language, and there is also a quasi-verbal relationship (hoemaker shoemaker). A noun can be modified with a noun, or a noun can be modified with a noun phrase.