The label
appositive
refers to a noun phrase which immediately follows another noun phrase
of identical reference. An appositive is usually non-restrictive which
means that it only gives additional information about the first noun
phrase whose reference in quite clear. In writing a non-restrictive
appositive is set off by commas. The phrases set off by commas in the
following sentences are examples of non-restrictive appositives.
- Mexico City, the largest city in the Americas, is
heavily polluted. (Here the noun phrase ‘the largest city in the
Americas’ is used in apposition to the noun phrase ‘Mexico City’.)
- Alice, my neighbour, has seven cats.
- Tagore, the great poet, is the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for literature.
An appositive can be easily removed from a sentence without leaving
behind anything ungrammatical. The sentence ‘Alice has seven cats’, for
example, is both grammatical and sensible. An appositive can also be
restrictive, although it is not very common. A restrictive appositive is
required for the identification of the reference of the first noun
phrase. A restrictive appositive is not set off by commas in writing. An
example is
Tagore in the sentence
‘I am writing a biography of the poet Tagore’. Here removing Tagore will make it impossible to interpret the meaning of the sentence.
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