The Appositive

An appositive is a noun or noun phrase that tells you something

about a nearby noun or pronoun

• Ex. My friend Ethan works at a bookstore after school. (The appositive Ethan identifies the noun friend.)

Appositive phrase

• is made up of the appositive plus any words that modify the appositive.

• Ex. He is saving money to travel to Bogota, the capital of Colombia.

• The appositive phrase the capital of Columbia identifies Bogota.

My sister Jodi works at the hospital.

• The appositive Jodi identifies the noun sister.

She works with Dr. Martin, an award-winning pediatrician.

• The appositive phrase an award-winning pediatrician identifies Dr. Martin.

Use commas to set off any appositive or appositive phrase

that is not essential to the meaning of the sentence

• EX. Jodi’s coworker Emma has five children.• The appositive Emma is essential because Jodi

has more than one coworker.

Emma’s husband, Phil, is a carpenter.

• The appositive Phil is not essential because Emma has only one husband!

Punctuation of appositives

• 1. Use one or two commas.• Ex. The principal of Sarasota High School in

1997 was Daniel Kennedy, a wiry fifty-nine-year-old who has a stern buzz cut.

• Ex. Kennedy, a wiry fifty-nine-year-old who has a stern buzz cut, was in 1997 the principal of Sarasota High School.

Punctuation

• 2. Use one or two dashes.• EX. In 1981, two professors began following

the lives of eighty-one high-school valedictorians—forty-six women and thirty-five men from Illinois.

• EX. Japanese people have to make many of the big decisions of their lives—whom to marry, what company to join—without detailed information.

Punctuation

• 3. You can use a colon.• EX. We were given plenty of instruction about

the specifics of writing: word choice, description, style.

Punctuation tips

• Dashes emphasize the appositive more than commas do.

• If the appositive contains its own internal commas, then using the dash or the colon can make it easier to read the complete sentence.

An appositive can clarify a term

by providing a proper noun or a synonym for the term EX. Its hero is Scout’s father, the saintly Atticus Finch.EX. . . .an automaton, a machine, can be made to keep a school so.

by defining or explaining the term,

.• . . .what we have since learned to recognize as a “survivor” memoir – a first-person narrative of victimization and recovery.

• . . .teenagers might enjoy the transformative science-fiction aspects of The Metamorphosis, a story about a young man so alienated from his “dysfunctional” family that he turns. . .into a giant beetle.

An appositive can smooth choppy writing.

• BEFORE--Its hero is Scout’s father. His name is Atticus Finch. He is saintly.

• AFTER--Its hero is Scout’s father, the saintly Atticus Finch.

So, what should YOU do?

• Use appositives!