1. If you say this is an adjective you need to specify:
a. Is it an attribute (a beautiful house)
b. A predicate (the house is beautiful)
Most adjectives can be used attributively and predicatively like the adjective beautiful I used in the examples above. However, there are some adjectives which can’t be used in both ways. The most popular example is: sick and ill you can say:
a. She is sick/ill (OK used predicatively) BE and AmE difference being considered.
b. A sick man (OK used attributively)
c. An ill women (NOT OK cannot be used attributively unless you change the meaning to bad something like: ill-manners
Another adjective is asleep. It cannot be used attributively:
She is asleep but NOT an asleep girl
2. Some verbs take adjectives (predicative) not adverbs. They are called link or copular verbs. Please go to Book Club forum there is a thread about “Link Verbs”.
3. Past and present participles used as adjectives:
Interesting book
Well-dressed
There is a difference between made of/in/from:
A cake is made from milk (you don’t see milk in it)
A table is made of wood (you see wood)
Perhaps Rusty can deal with some of your other points
1. The adjectival order is:
Quality (beautiful) – size/age/shape (long, old) – colour (brown) – origin (French) – made of (metal) – Type/usage (half moon) – noun (car, hair, glasses): beautiful old brown French metal half moon spectacles
2. It is not good or convenient to have a long list of adjectives before a noun
3. Commas are not always necessary: she has long wavy brown hair – He has short spiky hair.: beautiful old brown French metal half moon spectacles
3. Old English silver mirror (age-origin-made of-noun)
4. Swedish wooden salad bowl (origin-made of-noun)
Sometimes people use a noun modifier instead of an adjectival form of the same word. More often than not, there is no difference in meaning between the two but sometimes there is, such as The Education Bureau(which only tells us the Bureau is responsible for education) and an educational material(which otherwise tells us that the material is useful and helpful as far as education is concerned.
How to distinguish?
When a noun modifier is used, it is usually used to avoid the evaluative, descriptive or emotional characterisitcs of the primary functions of an adjective. Therefore, a horror film vs a horrible film, and the construction site vs a constructive idea.
Sometimes this type of distinction between evaluative and non-evaluative can also be made bewteen two similar adjectives like the one you raise:
an economic policy means a policy for managing the economy, whereas an economical housewife means a housewife who is clever at using her money.
