In the sentence - "Tom could see the anger in Mr. Adams' face."
is "Mr. Adams' face" a compound noun? I know Mr. Adams' is a possessive noun and face is a common noun but I am supposed to list compound nouns.
Same with the sentence "The Team lost their last game of football." I know football is a compound noun, but is "game of football" a compound noun too?
Thank you for reading my question.
Mr. Adams' face = not a compound noun
game of football = not a compound noun
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/compounds.htm
Thank you for answering my question. What made me confused is that in my study guide, "land of liberty" is listed as a compound noun. I am still confused why "land of liberty" is a compound noun but "game of football" is not. Thank you for your help!
I don't think "land of liberty" is a compound noun either. Please point this out to your teacher ... the study guide is incorrect. I can find more websites from universities to prove it if you need the proof!
In the sentence "Tom could see the anger in Mr. Adams' face," "Mr. Adams' face" is not a compound noun. It consists of two separate noun phrases. "Mr. Adams'" is indeed a possessive noun phrase, indicating that the face belongs to Mr. Adams. "Face," on the other hand, is a simple common noun. So, while the overall phrase "Mr. Adams' face" is a noun phrase, it is not a compound noun.
Similarly, in the sentence "The team lost their last game of football," "game of football" is not a compound noun. It is actually a noun phrase consisting of the noun "game" and the prepositional phrase "of football." "Game" is a simple noun, while "football" is a compound noun. So, the phrase "game of football" is a noun phrase, but not a compound noun.
To identify compound nouns, you should look for single nouns made up of two or more words joined together. Compound nouns often have a single meaning that is different from the individual words they are composed of, such as "toothpaste" or "bookshelf." In both of the example sentences you provided, the phrases that you mentioned ("Mr. Adams' face" and "game of football") are not compound nouns according to this definition.
I hope this clarifies your question. If you have any further inquiries, feel free to ask!