Apposition

This article is about the grammatical construction. For

other uses, see Apposition (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with dislocations, an apposition-like
structure whose elements are not placed side by side.

many friends, but I am restricting my statement to the one

named Alice Smith.

He likes the television showP The SimpsonsA. - There

are many television shows, and he likes that particular one.

Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two

elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side,
with one element serving to identify the other in a dierent way. The two elements are said to be in apposition.
One of the elements is called the appositive, although its
identication requires consideration of how the elements
are used in a sentence.

A non-restrictive appositive provides information not

critical to identifying the phrase in apposition. It provides non-essential information, and the essential meaning of the sentence would not change if the appositive
were removed. In English, non-restrictive appositives are
typically set o by commas.[1] The sentences below use
non-restrictive appositives.

For example, in the two sentences below, the phrases Alice Smith and my sister are in apposition, with the appositive identied with italics:

Alice SmithP, my friendA, likes jelly beans. - The

fact that Alice is my friend was not necessary to identify
her.

My sister, Alice Smith, likes jelly beans.

I visited CanadaP, a beautiful countryA. - The ap-

Alice Smith, my sister, likes jelly beans.

positive is not needed to identify Canada.

The rst to arrive at the houseA, sheP unlocked the

Traditionally, appositions were called by their Latin name
front door.
appositio, although the English form is now more commonly used. It is derived from Latin: ad (near) and
positio (placement).
The same phrase can be a restrictive appositive in one
Apposition is a gure of speech of the scheme type, and context and a non-restrictive appositive in another:
often results when the verbs (particularly verbs of being)
in supporting clauses are eliminated to produce shorter
My brotherP NathanA is here. - Restrictive: I have
descriptive phrases. This makes them often function as
many brothers, and the one named Nathan is here.
hyperbatons, or gures of disorder, because they can disrupt the ow of a sentence. For example, in the phrase:
My brotherP, NathanA, is here. - Non-restrictive: I
My wife, a nurse by training, ..., it is necessary to pause
have only one brother and, as an aside, his name is Nathan.
before the parenthetical modication a nurse by training.
If there is any doubt that the appositive is non-restrictive,
it is safer to use the restrictive form. In the example
above, the restrictive rst sentence is still correct even if
1 Restrictive versus non-restrictive there is only one brother.
A relative clause is not always an appositive.

A restrictive appositive provides information essential

to identifying the phrase in apposition. It limits or claries that phrase in some crucial way, and the meaning
of the sentence would change if the appositive were removed. In English, restrictive appositives are not set
o by commas. The sentences below use restrictive appositives. Here and elsewhere in this section, the relevant phrases are marked as the appositive phraseA or the
phrase in appositionP.

My sisterP, Alice SmithA, likes jelly beans. - The appositive is the noun phrase Alice Smith.

My sisterP, a doctor whose name is Alice SmithA,

likes jelly beans. - The appositive is the clause a doctor
whose name is Alice Smith.

My sister, whose name is Alice Smith, likes jelly

beans. - There is no appositive. There is a relative clause:

My friendP Alice SmithA likes jelly beans. - I have

whose name is Alice Smith.

Examples

In the following examples, the appositive phrases are

shown in italics:
I was born in Finland, the land of a thousand lakes.
- Appositives are not limited to describing people.

Barry Goldwater, the junior senator from Arizona,

received the Republican nomination in 1964.
John and Bob, both friends of mine, are starting a
band.
Alexander the Great, the Macedonian conqueror of
Persia, was one of the most successful military commanders of the ancient world.
Dean Martin, a very popular singer, will be performing at the Sands Hotel.
You are better than anyone, anyone I've ever met.
A kind of appositive phrase is the false title, as in "Noted
biologist Jane Smith has arrived., where the phrase Noted
biologist is used as an informal title. The use of false titles
is controversial.
Appositive phrases can also serve as denitions:
No one not a single person should ever suer that
way.
You are simply the best, better than all the rest.

Appositive genitive

In several languages, the same syntax which is used to

express such relations as possession can also be used appositively. Examples include:
In English:
Appositive oblique, a prepositional phrase
with of as in: the month of December, the sin
of pride, or the city of New York. This has also
been invoked as an explanation for the double
genitive: a friend of mine.[2]
The ending -'s as in "In Dublins Fair City".
This is uncommon.
In classical Greek:
Genitive of explanation as in
(hys mga chrma), a monster (great
aair) of a boar (Histories of Herodotus,
1.36);[3]
In Japanese:

Postpositive no as in:
"the Mountain of Fuji";

REFERENCES
(Fuji no Yama),

In Biblical Hebrew:
Construct, genitive of association as in:
( Gan 'den), "Garden of Eden".[4]

4 See also
Figure of speech
Hyperbaton
Literary device

5 Notes
[1] Commas: Some Common Problems, Princeton Writing Program, Princeton University, 1999, princeton.edu/
writing/center/resources/.
[2] Chapter 5, 14.3 (pages 447448), Rodney Huddleston,
Georey K. Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002. ISBN 0-521-43146-8
[3] 1322 (pages 317318), Herbert Weir Smyth, revised by
Gordon M. Messing, Greek Grammar, Cambridge, Mass.
: Harvard University Press, 1956 Perseus Digital Library
[4] 9.5.3h (p. 153), Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor,
An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Winona Lake,
Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990. ISBN 0-931464-31-5

6 References
A comprehensive treatment of apposition in English
is given in 17.6593 (pages 13001320) and elsewhere in: Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Georey Leech, Jan Svartvik (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London and
New York: Longman. ISBN 0-582-51734-6.
On the apposition vs. double subject issue in
Romanian, see: Appositions Versus Double Subject Sentences What Information the Speech
Analysis Brings to a Grammar Debate, by HoriaNicolai Teodorescu and Diana Trandab. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Berlin,
Heidelberg, ISSN 0302-9743, Volume 4629/2007,
Text, Speech and Dialogue, pp. 286293.

External links
Allen and Greenoughs New Latin Grammar, section 282
Audio illustrations
Appositives at chompchomp.com
Apposition and double subject in Romanian a controversial issue in * Sounds of the Romanian Language
Graphical examples
Appositions Versus Double Subject Sentences
What Information the Speech Analysis Brings to a
Grammar Debate

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Apposition Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apposition?oldid=672853314 Contributors: Michael Hardy, Julesd, Andres, Boson,

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8.2

Images

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based on original logo tossed together by Brion Vibber

8.3

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