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Old December 01, 2009, 06:23 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pjt33 View Post
There are various ways of forming noun phrases (NPs) in English. There's the simple noun (e.g. bell). There's adjective + NP (e.g. golden bell). There's NP + NP (e.g. sleigh bell).

The only context in which I know the phrase "jingle bell" is the song "Jingle bells", in which "jingle" is a verb used as an imperative. I'm not familiar with "jingle bell" as a noun phrase, and I'm trying to understand the construction. Is it just adopted from the song with a change from verb phrase (verb + subject) to noun phrase, or are you using jingle as an adjective or noun? (If you don't know then I may try asking a linguist).
Ahhh!! Thanks for explaining. It was the "NP" stuff that I didn't follow with. I'm not very good with grammar.

YES, I use "jingle bells" as a noun phrase. I don't know of any commonly used name for that type of bell, and since we usually only see them at Christmas time anyway, it's easy to refer to them as "jingle bells", and everyone knows exactly what I'm referring to.

I would probably guess that the sense is from the song. But I never thought of the word "jingle" as an imperative when it's used in the song. I suppose you may be right. But when I consider the song (and just discussed this with a colleague), the word "jingle" is simply modifying "bells". "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way...." just says to me that I'm hearing the jingling of bells (that specific kind of bell) and that it happens the entire time that the sleigh is moving along.

Not sure if that answer is sufficient........

By the way - you can't even imagine the kind of conversation two MATH teachers could have about a point of English grammar......... LOL!!
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