“youtuber” in “youtuber diet” (meaning a youtuber’s diet) or any similar phrase. Is that an adjective?
Answer
The part of speech itself is a noun:
(grammar, narrow sense) A word that can be used to refer to a person, animal, place, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality, or idea; one of the basic parts of speech in many languages, including English.
This excerpt is taken from the Wiktionary entry for Noun, which is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Even though it may seem as if it should be an adjective, because Youtuber is being used in a qualifying sense, it is possible because of noun adjuncts:
In grammar, a noun adjunct or attributive noun or noun (pre)modifier is an optional noun that modifies another noun; it is a noun functioning as a pre-modifier in a noun phrase. For example, in the phrase “chicken soup” the noun adjunct “chicken” modifies the noun “soup”. It is irrelevant whether the resulting compound noun is spelled in one or two parts. “Field” is a noun adjunct in both “field player” and “fieldhouse”. — This excerpt is from Wikipedia’s Noun Adjunct entry, and licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 terms.
The manner in which I would like to demonstrate that it is a noun, rather than an adjective, is by means of its derivation. Most importantly, the combination of semantics and morphological restrictions largely demands it.
In order to simplify matters, I would like to defer to Collins English Dictionary—Complete and Unabridged 12th edition, to restrict the parts of speech which Youtube may have.
YouTube (ˈjuːˌtjuːb)
n[oun:]
trademark a website on which subscribers can post video files
v[er]b[:]
(tr) to post (a video file) on the YouTube website.
I have reason to doubt the second definition is ever used legitimately. I would go into greater detail regarding that matter, but it is besides the point, which to show that Youtube in and of itself is never an adjective or adverb, which limits the possible functions of the -er suffix, which prevents the following definition from Webster’s New International Dictionary (1910) from applying:
- A suffix forming the comparative degree of adjectives and adverbs; as, warmer, sooner, swifter, quicker. …
This greatly reduces the number of possible applications. Although this fact does not prevent definition four from applying, I doubt it actually does apply, since a frequentive verb seems to be of a special class denoting an action with an inherently repetitive pattern, whereas posting a Youtube video may only happen once.
Now, having eliminated those two possibilities, all of the other applications of the suffix in Webster’s New International Dictionary either or transform the applicable word classes into nouns, or retain noun status while a semantic distinction. Although at this point, I believe this suffices to answer the question, I would like address the two more likely likely meanings to apply in my opinion are derived from the primary sense as a noun. The first is is a member of the website youtube, and especially one who makes a profession out of it, based upon this definition:
- A suffix forming: a Nouns from other nouns, with the sense of one who has to do with, esp. as a matter of trade, profession, occupation, function etc; as, tinner, one whose occupation is with tin; hatter, philologer. …
In this case, it is only strictly necessary for somebody to have any association with the Youtube Website, but it does not hurt to point out that it is especially applicable somebody who has joined the Youtube partnership program and make their living off of it would be a professional Youtuber. Yes, Youtube can be a legitimate profession, as the Forbes Article The World’s Highest Paid YouTube Stars 2015 shows, with Pewdie Pie being the highest ranked multi-millionaire on the list. Somehow, he earns $12 million a year off of it.
The other definition which I think may apply is this:
c Nouns from nouns or adjectives of place, denoting resident of, one living in; as, Londoner, southerner, villager, foreigner.
This does not make much literal sense, but figuratively speaking, it should be remembered that Youtube is a website, and aside from the construction of the the word website, there are many other factors that indicate websites are often treated as if they are places you can be @, go to and even inhabit as a netizen. In these metaphors, Youtuber would still be considered a noun.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Max , Answer Author : Tonepoet
