Stnadard 1.2 Combine short related sentences with appositives, participial phrases, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases

Learning Objective: I will combine short related sentences with appositives.

noun A person, place, or thing.

verb An action word.

adjective A describing word.

adverb A word that describe a verb.

Phrases A phrase is a group of words that are not a sentence. A phrase DOES NOT have a subject and a verb

Phrases These are the two categories of phrases that we have studied: Prepositional phrases – Appositive phrases

Phrases We have already looked at prepositional phrases. Now we are going to look at the second type of phrases - appositives

Appositive Phrases An appositive phrase is a group of words that does NOT have a subject and verb. It consists of a noun (and all of its modifiers) that renames or provides additional information about another noun in the sentence.

Appositive Phrases An appositive normally sits next to the noun it renames; in other words, it is “positioned next to” that noun, which is why it is said to be “in apposition”.

Appositive Phrases Can you identify the appositive phrase in this sentence? One Fish,Two Fish, my favorite book by Dr. Seuss, is the the only book I have read completely on my own.

Appositive Phrases One Fish,Two Fish, my favorite book by Dr. Seuss, is the the only book I have read completely on my own. “my favorite book by Dr. Seuss” renames One Fish,Two Fish

Appositive Phrases My favorite president Harry Truman led the American people through the end of World War II. Harry Truman is the appositive. If I do not include his name, you will not have enough information to understand my meaning completely.

Appositive Phrases My favorite president Harry Truman led the American people through the end of World War II. One check is to eliminate the appositive, and see what happens. Here, you have a complete sentence, but you really don’t know to whom I am referring. The information is incomplete. I need to supply his name.

Appositive Phrases My favorite president Harry Truman led the American people through the end of World War II. The second check is to see if I can change the appositive and keep the meaning of the sentence. If I do change this appositive and put in another name, I have changed the meaning of the sentence entirely.

Appositive Phrases My favorite president Bill Clinton led the American people through the end of World War II. As you can see, this changes the basic meaning of the sentence, making it historically incorrect.

Appositive Phrases A nonessential appositive provides information that in itself may be important, but is really only additional information and is not necessary to the core meaning of the sentence. Commas are used to separate it from the rest of the sentence.

Appositive Phrases My favorite president Harry Truman led the American people through the end of World War II. If you need the phrase, you DON’T need the commas.

Appositive Phrase Harry Truman, my favorite president, led the American people through the end of World War II. If you don’t need the phrase, you DO need the commas.

Steps Step 1: read the text carefully Step 2: identify the appositive Step 3: underline the appositive phrase

Why is this important? Because using appositives will improve the basic sentence structure in your writing.

Appositive Phrases We will be working in class on ways to combine short, choppy, little sentences into more sophisticated ones.