She wanted pure cow milk.
In this sentence, is cow qualifying milk? If so, should there be a comma after pure to write two adjectives one after the other?
Or is cow also a noun here? If so, is this a case of two nouns being used consecutively?
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3In addition to Barrie's answer, I suggest you read about noun adjuncts, since that is what ‘cow’ is here.– Janus Bahs JacquetCommented Sep 14, 2013 at 12:54
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1 Answer
When it describes a bovine quadruped, cow is always a noun, but nouns can be used to modify other nouns, and here the noun cow modifies the noun milk. Cow milk has to be seen as a lexical whole, which in turn is modified by the adjective pure. There is thus no more need for a comma after pure than there would be if cow was absent.
If, however, milk was modified by two adjectives, then they would be separated by a comma, as in pure, creamy milk.
answered Sep 14, 2013 at 9:44
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The phrase you want to look for is "noun compound". These are not "consecutive nouns"; they are unit noun phrases with specific meanings. There are many different kinds, frequently idiomatic, with quite different interpretations, like pony ride and snake bite. Commented Sep 14, 2013 at 15:19