The keyword term "sep 11 attack year" functions as a noun phrase. The main point, or the head of the phrase, is the noun "year". The preceding words serve as modifiers that specify which year is being discussed.
In this grammatical construction, "attack" is a noun acting as an attributive noun (or noun adjunct), which means it functions like an adjective to modify "year". It answers the question, "What kind of year?" The answer is an "attack year". The term "sep 11", a proper noun representing a date, further modifies "attack" to specify the particular event. This chain of modification creates a highly specific compound noun that refers to a single, distinct concept: the year in which the September 11 attacks took place.
For the purpose of an article, identifying "year" as the primary noun is critical. It establishes that the article's subject is the year itself, viewed through the defining lens of the attacks. This grammatical understanding ensures the focus remains on the events, consequences, and characteristics of that specific period, rather than solely on the attacks. The entire phrase would act as a subject or object in a sentence, for example: "The sep 11 attack year transformed international relations."
