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An appositive is a noun that renames the noun next to it in order to clarify or classify the sentence. Appositives are used to add detail, reduce wordiness, and make a sentence easier to understand. It’s almost like Putting icing on a cake, you need icing to make a cake look and taste better. Without the icing a cake is just a loaf that’s plain and doesn’t taste good, and the same goes for a sentence that needs an appositive that doesn’t have one. An example of an appositive is: “my best friend, Josh, got a new car.” You can also think of appositives as adding two simple sentences to create a sentence with an appositive in it. “My friend went to the store” and “Mike went to the store” can be combined to create one sentence with an appositive; “My friend, Mike, Went to the store”. If an appositive is needed to understand what the identity of the noun or noun phrase is that is being modified, the appositive is restrictive, and if it is not required to understand the noun or noun phrase identity but it is still added that is called a non-restrictive appositive. For example, “Jim, my dog, will chew your shoes if you leave them there” is a restrictive appositive because you need to know that Jim is a dog. An example for a non-restrictive appositive is “my dog, Jim, will chew your shoes if you leave them there” because we don’t need to know the dog’s name to know the context.
Test questions:
- An appositive is a noun or noun phrase that identifies or renames a noun that precedes it. True or false?
- Identify the appositive.”Jazzy, my cute little cat, cuddled up in the blankets with me.”
a) jazzy b) my cute little cat c) Cuddled up in the blankets with me
- My friend, Sam, loves video games.
Is that a restrictive or non-restrictive appositive?
Answers:
- True
- b) My cute little cat
- restrictive