Appositives

An appositive is a word or group of words that renames the noun or pronoun that comes before it.

My pet, a magical unicorn, is trained to do tricks.

appositive

Appositives come AFTER the noun or pronoun they modify.

Mrs. Smith, my homeroom teacher, is an alien.

Sit down and be quiet, or I’ll rip off your space helmet!

An appositive always includes a

noun.

Although commas are used to set off most appositives, if the appositive is necessary to identify the word, you do not need commas.

My friend Donna has issues.

Think of the commas that set off an appositive as handles. You can

grab the appositive by the “handles” and yank it out. The

appositive is extra; it is not necessary!

My brother, a Superhero, doesn’t really exist.

Unlike a predicate nominative, an

appositive can occur anywhere in a

sentence: at the beginning, in the

middle, or at the end.

“Ring Around the Rosy,” a popular nursery rhyme, is a poem about the Great Plague.

The Great Plague, an epidemic that killed more than 70,000 people in London, ravaged Great Britain between 1664 and

1665.

The “ring around the rosy” describes the first symptom of the disease, a rosy rash that broke

out on the victim’s body.

A “pocket full of posies” refers to the herbs or flowers people carried in their pockets to ward

off disease-carrying demons.

Appositive LV predicate nominativeThe third line, “Ashes, ashes!”, was originally “A-tishoo! A-tishoo!” and referred to the victim’s violent sneezing.

“We all fall down,” the last line of the poem,” tells of the infected person’s collapse and impending death from thedisease.

Taken from: Accidents May Happen by Charlotte Foltz Jones Delacorte Press, 1998.

Number your paper from 1 – 10. Identify the appositive in each sentence.

• 1. Ted, meet Mr. Stern, a fine gardener.

• 2. We were admiring your garden, a splendid array of colors.

• 3. This iris, the state flower of Tennessee, is my favorite.

• 4. Irises are perennials, plants that bloom every year.

• 5. Annuals, plants that live only one year, require more work.

• 6. Mr. Stern, my friend Kitty would love to see your roses.

• 7. We are studying Japan, a group of islands in the Pacific.

• 8. Mr. Isao Shirai, our guest speaker, addressed the group.

• 9. He comes from Honshu, the largest island.

• 10. We learned about bonsai, the Japanese art of growing dwarf trees.