Phrases
APPOSITIVE PHRASES
Phrase
 A phrase is a group of words, without a
subject and verb, that functions in a
sentence as one part of speech.
Appositive Phrase
 An appositive is a noun or pronoun
placed next to another noun or
pronoun to identify, rename, or explain
it.
 Comes from the Latin word appositus,
which means to place near
Appositive Phrase
 I will race with my best stroke, the
butterfly.
 His favorite flowers, snapdragons,
grew everywhere in the garden.
Punctuating Appositives
 If an appositive contains
nonessential material (material that
can be removed from the sentence
without altering its meaning), set the
appositive off from the rest of the
sentence with commas or other
appropriate punctuation.
Appositive Phrase
 I will race with my best stroke, the
butterfly.
 His favorite flowers, snapdragons,
grew everywhere in the garden.
Punctuating Appositives
 If an appositive contains material that
is essential to the meaning of the
sentence, no punctuation is necessary.
 The short story “Fire and Ice” has a sad
ending.
Appositive Phrase
 An appositive phrase is a noun or
pronoun with modifiers, placed next to
a noun or pronoun to add information
or details.
 The modifiers in an appositive phrase
can be adjectives, adjective phrases, or
other words that function as adjectives.
Appositive Phrase
 Appositives or appositive phrases can
add information to almost any noun or
pronoun in a sentence.
Appositive Phrase
 To a subject: Mrs. Ellingson, an expert on career planning,
spoke to the entire assembly.
 To a direct object: I won the door prize, a fifty dollar gift
certificate.
 To an indirect object: I sold Dean, my friend’s older
brother, my old set of golf clubs.
 To an objective complement: We stained the desk walnut –
my favorite wood grain.
Appositive Phrase
 To a predicate nominative: Our automobile is a green
station wagon – a family car.
 To an object of the preposition: The stacks of books – all
mysteries – looked inviting.
Appositive Phrase
 Appositives or appositive phrases can
be compound.
 The dry ingredients – baking soda, salt, and flour
– were mixed first
 Paul, an Eagle Scout and varsity athlete, received
the Outstanding Student award this year.
Improve Your Writing
 Use appositives and appositive phrases to rid your
writing of unnecessary words. Often two sentences can
be combined into one by condensing the information
from one sentence into an appositive.
 The professor is a world-renowned expert on medieval
history. He lectured today on the construction of
castles during this period.
 The professor, a world-renowned expert on medieval
history, lectured today on the construction of castles
during this period.
Improve Your Writing
 Appositives or appositive phrases can
begin with the word not in order to set
up a dramatic contrast.
 I thought you were my friends, not my enemies.
Appositive Phrase
Appositives can occur as:
 Sentence openers
 Subject-verb splits
 Sentence closers
Refer to page 2 in the Killgallon text
Practice 1 - Unscrambling
1.
She struggled as usual to maintain her calm,
composed, friendly bearing, a sort of mask she
wore all over her body.
2. The judge, an old bowlegged fellow in a pale-blue
sweater, had stopped examining the animals and
was reading over some notes he had taken on the
back of a dirty envelope.
Practice 1 - Unscrambling
3. With huge flaring nostrils, the tyrannosaur gave
Baselton a smell, a long snuffling inhalation that
fluttered Baselton’s trouser legs.
4. One of them, a slender young man with white
hands, the son of a jeweler in Winesburg, talked
continually of virginity.
Practice 1 - Unscrambling
5. In the late afternoon Will Henderson, owner and
editor of the Eagle, went over to Tom Willy’s
saloon.
6. The sound of the approaching grain teams was
louder, thud of big hooves on hard ground, drag of
breaks, and the jingle of trace chains.
Practice 1 - Unscrambling
7. Once Enoch Bentley, the older one of the boys,
struck his father, old Tom Bentley, with the butt of
a teamster’s whip, and the old man seemed likely to
die.
8. Mr. Mick Malloy, tall, young secret gambler with
devil-may-care eyes and a long humorous nose,
became Mr. Malloy, tall cashier with a dignified
face, a gentlemanly bank clerk, a nice sort of
fellow.
Practice 2 - Imitating
1.
By the podium scholarly Henrietta stood,
intelligent and composed and smiling, president
and valedictorian of the senior class.
2. Under the canopy they danced, beaming and
affectionate and happy, bride and groom in their
finery.
Share your imitated sentences.
Practice 3 - Combining
1.
Near the statue was an obvious tourist, an oriental
lady with a Kodak Camera.
Share your imitated sentences.
Practice 3 - Combining
2. Gone with the Wind, the movie with the most
reissues, originated as a novel of the old South by
an unglamorous and unknown authoress.
Share your imitated sentences.
Practice 3 - Combining
3. “Missouri” is a special casserole, a blend of
potatoes and stewed tomatoes and hamburger.
Share your imitated sentences.
Practice 3 - Combining
4.
We were far from our destination and were making
good time on the interstate, but no time to squander,
and Dad wouldn’t stop more than twice a day although
we kids were itchy, and Mom, a shrewd, gentle
arbitrator with Solomon’s mind, circumvented some
flare-ups, and those she couldn’t she left to heaven.
Share your imitated sentences.
Practice 4 - Expanding
Share your imitated sentences.