...So, because toy is modifying court doesn't mean, to me, that it is an adjective, but that it is a noun modifying another noun. We have plenty of compounds made up of two or more nouns. Would you say that in the phrase ancient history teacher that ancient history is an adjective? (Leaving aside the old joke of whether it's a history teacher who is ancient or a teacher of ancient history, but not a history teacher of ancient or a teacher who is ancient history.) Calling toy in this case complicates things syntactically because then you have to have two (or more) classes of adjective: some that act like normal adjectives.
Yes.
From the book INVENTING LANGUAGE - Seth Lerer
Chapter One:
Caedmon Learns to Sing the Blues[ Now we should praise heaven-kingdom Guardian,
the Creater's might, and his mind-thought,
the words of the Glory-father: how he, each of his wonders,
the eternal Lord, established at the begining.
He first shaped for earth's Children
heaven as a roof, the holy Creator.
Then a middle-yard, mankind's Guardian,
the eternal Lord, established afterwards,
the earth for the people, the Lord almighty.]
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This poem is the earliest recorded poem in the English Language.
It survives in Old English as a marginal notation in the book HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND PEOPLE written in Latin by an English monk and historian named Bede. The poem predates Bede's book which was written in the first third of the eighth century.
Caedmon's hymn nouned nouns and compounded nouns back then.
It is time for those with simple ears to get used to it.
