10.

The Apposition
Exercise 2. Point out the appositives in the following sentence and comment on the type of apposition
binding them (full/partial, strict/weak, restrictive/non-restrictive).

Full or partial – in full apposition the second appositive is omissible without the sentence becoming
unintelligible/losing its meaning and it is not so in partial.

Strict/weak - in strict apposition they belong to the same syntactic class, in weak apposition they belong
to different syntactic classes

Restrictive/non-restrictive - In restrictive apposition the second appositive is necessary for the

identification of the first; in non-restrictive apposition the appositives are in separate information units,
providing relatively independent information. The restrictive is never surrounded by commas.

ANSWERS:

1. Maria, the mother, had not taken off her shawl. – full apposition, strict, non-restrictive
2. One of our number, a round-faced, curly-haired, little man of about forty glared at him
aggressively. – full apposition, weak, non-restrictive
3. There are plenty of dogs in the town of Oxford. – genitive appositive, restrictive(genitive
appositives are always restrictive because everything is essential and we can’t omit anything.)
4. You look all right, Uncle Soames. – full, strict, restrictive
5. James, a slow and thorough eater, stopped the process of mastication. – full apposition, strict,
non-restrictive
6. He felt lost, alone there in the room with that pale spirit of a woman. – genitive appositive,
restrictive
7. But the doctor – a family physician well past middle age – was not impressed. – full, strict, non-
restrictive
8. In consequence neither Oscar nor his sister Martha had any too much education or decent social
experience of any kind. – full, strict, restrictive
Martha – full, strict, restrictive(no punctuation here)
His sister Martha -> he has more than one sister, so the name is essential to identify her
His sister, Martha, = he has only one sister and the name is just additional information
9. But now he had seen the world, possible and real, with a flower of a woman – genitive
appositive, restrictive
Possible and real – attribute, post-positive attribute, adjectives
10. On their arrival all they saw was a ruin of a church. – genitive appositive, restrictive
11. The air-plane hasn’t got much of a chance to land safely in this hell of a weather. – genitive
appositive, restrictive
12. This pub is a jem of a place. – genitive appositive, restrictive
13. My friend seems to be a jewel of a fellow. – genitive appositive, restrictive
14. The reason he gave, that he didn’t notice the other car, was unconvincing. – full, weak, non-
restrictive
15. They returned to their birthplace, their place of residence, the country of which they were
residents. – full, strict, non-restrictive
 16. The passenger plane of the 1980s, namely the supersonic jet , transformed relations between the
peoples of the world. – full, strict, non-restrictive
17. The company commander, Captain Madison , assembled his men and announced their mission. –
full, strict, non-restrictive.
18. Your brother, obviously an expert on English grammar , is highly praised in the book. – full
appositive, strict, non-restrictive
19. My friend Peter was here last week. – full, strict, restrictive
20. The question whether to confess or not troubled the girl. – full, weak, restrictive
21. An unusual present was given to him for his birthday, a book on ethics. – full, strict, non-
restrictive
22. His explanation, that he couldn’t see it , is unsatisfactory. – full, weak, non-restrictive
23. The explanation that he couldn’t see it was unsatisfactory. – full, weak, restrictive
24. Next Saturday financial expert Tom Timber will begin writing a weekly column on the national
economy. – full, strict, restrictive
25. They, the professors, were right in their literary judgment. – full apposition, strict, non-restrictive

Exercise 3. Explain the three different syntactic interpretations of the following sentence:

“They called Susan a waitress.”

The interpretations:

1. They named her a waitress – Direct object + Object complement

2. They called a waitress for her – Indirect object + Direct object
3. Susan is a waitress – full, strict, non-restrictive