In the present section, the rules are discussed for determining whether an expression is to be considered a syntactic noun, or adjective. This is important especially in the cases potentially involving ellipsis of the governing noun (see Section 12.1.2, "Ellipsis of the governing noun").

For the relation between syntactic nouns and adjectives and semantic nouns and adjectives (the sempos grammateme), see Section 2, "Semantic parts of speech".