An appositive’s job is to add clarifying or describing
information to a noun or pronoun. An appositive itself is a noun or pronoun,
usually with words and phrases to modify it. An appositive’s function is
similar to that of an adjective because it describes a noun or pronoun.
Consider the following sentence:
His house, a spacious
Mediterranean house with two balconies overlooking the ocean, was the
coolest house I have ever seen.
In the above sentence, the underlined phrase is an
appositive, and it adds descriptive information to the noun “house.”
Appositives can come before or after the noun or pronoun
that they add information to:
A sleek, luxurious airplane with
multiple built in phones, Jerry’s jet is his favorite way to get around the
world.
In this sentence, the appositive comes before the noun and
adds information to the noun “jet”.
In the above examples, the appositives have had many
modifiers added on to them. However, appositives don’t necessarily have to
contain modifiers. Consider the following example:
My crocodile Chomp loves to
eat bacon.
In the above example, “Chomp” is the appositive; it is a
noun that describes another noun: “crocodile”.