Very commonly, adjectival modifiers are converted to nouns by truncation, with the Adj in an Adj + N phrase treated, at least historically, as a noun with (roughly) the meaning of the whole phrase. Monday’s NYT (January 4) had a related shift in the meaning of a N — with the first N in a N + N compound noun treated as having the meaning of the whole compound. From the editorial “Where the Action Is on Climate”:
California’s goal of cutting greenhouse by one-quarter by 2020 is plausible partly because the state has been so successful in improving the efficiency of its power plants and buildings, promoting renewable energy and insisting on fuel-efficient vehicles.
It’s clear from the context that greenhouse here is to be understood as ‘greenhouse gases’. Without the context, it would be hard to interpret at all.
(Greenhouse gases itself is interpreted via a chain of reasoning that depends on context and an appreciation of the metaphor it embodies. But then, as the Language Loggers point out every so often, N + N compounds very often can’t be interpreted without considerable background knowledge.)
As for nouning of adjectives by truncation, there are innumerable examples. Psychology students might tell you that they are specializing in experimental, social, or clinical, for instance.
I have a file of assorted examples, collected from a variety of sources (mostly ADS-L postings). These are just examples that caught my eye; I’m not setting myself up as a curator of nouning by tuncation. A sampling (most of them count nouns, but there are some mass nouns in there as well):
fatal ‘fatal accident, (driving) fatality’
creative, in several senses, including ‘creative person’
social ‘Social Security number’
social ‘social networking’
indian ‘Indian restaurant’
viral ‘viral video’
physical/mental ‘physical/mental work’
attending ‘attending physician’ [in the OED as of June 2009]
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