The keyword term "patriots.day.2016" functions grammatically as a proper noun or a proper noun phrase. It designates a specific, unique entity: the observance of the holiday Patriots' Day in the particular year of 2016. The use of periods as separators is a common convention in digital contexts, such as metadata tags, filenames, or database entries, and does not alter the term's fundamental grammatical role as a specific name.
A detailed analysis of the term's components confirms its classification as a proper noun. "Patriots Day" is the base proper noun, naming a specific public holiday. The numeral "2016" acts as a post-nominal modifier, specifying the exact year of the event. The periods function as delimiters, concatenating the individual elements into a single, non-standard string. In formal grammar, the entire string still refers to a single, identifiable concept (the event), which is the primary function of a noun. It answers the question "what?" rather than describing an action (verb), modifying another noun (adjective), or modifying a verb (adverb).
For the purpose of developing an article, recognizing "patriots.day.2016" as a proper noun is the correct analytical step. This classification determines its use within sentences and its role as a subject or object. For instance, in the sentence, "Our analysis centers on patriots.day.2016," the term serves as the object of the preposition "on," a grammatical position occupied by a noun. Therefore, all content and metadata should treat the term as the specific name of an event.
