Question

What do we call these things? Use the structure noun + noun:

The carpet in the dining room is the ___________ .

• A. carpet
• B. carpet of dining room
• C. dining room
• D. dining room carpet

Answer 1

Answer: (D)

dining room carpet

Compound nouns are made of two or more nouns that contribute to a single meaning, here "dining room" is a compound noun where 'room' is a noun and it refers to the room where you dine. A noun+noun is a compound noun and may be joined together, hyphenated or kept separate. The sentence here calls for a compound noun to refer to that specific carpet that's in the dining room, hence to identify that particular carpet we join the nouns, by calling it "dining room carpet". Hence option D is correct. Option A is incorrect as it doesn't follow the structure noun+noun, it's only a single noun, which when placed in the sentence does not provide much meaning. Option B is incorrect because "carpet of dining room" is not a compound noun, but a phrase. Option C is a compound noun, but it does not provide any meaning, the carpet in the dining room cannot be the dining room, it doesn't make sense, hence option C is incorrect.