Apposition is a
grammaticalIn linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,...
construction in which two elements, normally
noun phraseIn grammar, a noun phrase is a phrase whose head is a noun or a pronoun, optionally accompanied by a set of modifiers.Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, but some languages like Tuscarora and Cayuga have been argued to lack this category.- Form :Noun phrases normally consist of a...
s, are placed side by side, with one element serving to define or modify the other. When this device is used, the two elements are said to be
in apposition. For example in the phrase "
my friend Alice" the name "Alice" is in apposition to "my friend".
More traditionally, appositions were called by their Latin name
appositio, although the English form is now more commonly used.
Apposition is a
grammaticalIn linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,...
construction in which two elements, normally
noun phraseIn grammar, a noun phrase is a phrase whose head is a noun or a pronoun, optionally accompanied by a set of modifiers.Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, but some languages like Tuscarora and Cayuga have been argued to lack this category.- Form :Noun phrases normally consist of a...
s, are placed side by side, with one element serving to define or modify the other. When this device is used, the two elements are said to be
in apposition. For example in the phrase "
my friend Alice" the name "Alice" is in apposition to "my friend".
More traditionally, appositions were called by their Latin name
appositio, although the English form is now more commonly used. It is derived from Latin:
ad (“near”) and
positio (“placement”).
Apposition is a figure of speech of the
schemeIn linguistics, scheme is a figure of speech that changes the normal arrangement of words in a sentence's structure. A good example of a playwright who is notorious for his use of schemes and tropes is William Shakespeare .-Structures of Balance:*Parallelism - The use of similar structures in two...
type, and often results when the verbs (particularly verbs of being) in supporting clauses are eliminated to produce shorter descriptive phrases. This makes them often function as
hyperbatonHyperbaton is a figure of speech in which words that naturally belong together are separated from each other for emphasis or effect. This kind of unnatural or rhetorical separation is possible to a much greater degree in highly inflected languages, where sentence meaning does not depend closely on...
s, or figures of disorder, because they can disrupt the flow of a sentence. For example in the phrase: "My wife, a nurse by training,...," it is necessary to pause before the parenthetical modification "a nurse by training."
Restrictive versus non-restrictive
Apposition can either be
restrictive, or
non-restrictive, where the second element parenthetically modifies the first.
In a non-restrictive appositive, the second element parenthetically modifies the first without changing its scope. Non-restrictive appositives are not crucial to the meaning of the sentence. In a restrictive appositive, the second element limits or clarifies the foregoing one in some crucial way. For example in the phrase "my friend Alice", "Alice" specifies to which friend the speaker is referring and is therefore restrictive. On the other hand, in the above example: "my wife, a nurse by training, ..." the parenthetical "a nurse by training" does not narrow down the subject, but rather provides additional information about the first element, namely, "my wife". While a
non-restrictive appositive must be preceded or set off by
commaThe comma is a punctuation mark. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline of the text...
s, a
restrictive appositive is not set off by commas.
Not all restrictive clauses are appositives. For example,
Alice in "Bill's friend Alice ..." is an appositive noun;
Alice in "Bill's friend, whose name is Alice, ..." is not an appositive but, rather, the predicate of a restrictive clause. The main difference between the two is that the second explicitly states what an apposition would omit: that the friend in question is named Alice.
The same words can change from restrictive to non-restrictive (or vice versa) depending on the speaker and context. Consider the phrase "my brother Nathan." If the speaker has more than one brother, the name Nathan is restrictive as it clarifies which brother. However, if the speaker has only one brother, then the brother's name is parenthetical and the correct way to write it is: "my brother, Nathan,...."
Examples
In the following examples, the appositive phrases are offset in italics:
- Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. He was also a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was known as "Mr...
, the junior senator from Arizona, received the Republican nomination in 1964.
- John and Bob, both friends of mine, are starting a band.
- An appositive, a grammatically incomplete noun phrase, is set off by commas, a reader-friendly invention.
- Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
, the Macedonian conqueror of Persia, was one of the most successful military commanders of the ancient world.
- Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor and comedian. He was one of the best known musical artists of the 1950s and 1960s. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "Mambo Italiano", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That A Kick In The...
, a very popular singer, will be performing at the Sands Hotel.
A kind of appositive phrase that has caused controversy is the "
false titleA false, coined, fake, bogus or pseudo-title, also called a Time-style adjective and an anarthrous nominal premodifier, is an appositive phrase that resembles a title but is not one, such as "convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh"...
", as in "United States Deputy Marshal Jim Hall said Tuesday that
fatally wounded Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Matthews told him that
fugitive tax protester Gordon W. Kahl was dead before other law enforcement officials started shooting." Such phrases are usually non-restrictive, as in the above example.
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.
- The ending -'s as in "In Dublin's Fair City". This is uncommon.
- In classical Greek:
- "Genitive of explanation" as in ὑὸς μέγα χρῆμα (hyos mega chrema), "a monster (great affair) of a boar" (Histories (Herodotus)
The Histories of Herodotus is considered one of the seminal works of history in Western literature. Written from the 450s to the 420s BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories serves as a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that...
1.36);
- In Japanese:
- Postpositive no as in: ふじの山 (Fuji no Yama), "the Mountain of Fuji";
- In Biblical Hebrew:
- Construct, "genitive of association" as in: גַּן עֵדֶן (Gan ‘Ēden), "Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is a location described in the Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
".
Apposition resolution in NLP
Appositions present a challenge to
natural language processingNatural language processing is a field of computer science and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages. Natural language generation systems convert information from computer databases into readable human language...
(NLP).
An apposition like
Barack Obama, the president of the US... must be turned into
Barack Obama is the president of the US.
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