Modifying noun phrases by placing them next to each other
This article is about the grammatical construction. For other uses, see Apposition (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with dislocations, an apposition-like structure whose elements are not placed side by side.
Not to be confused with adposition.
Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side so one element identifies the other in a different way. The two elements are said to be in apposition, and one of the elements is called the appositive, but its identification requires consideration of how the elements are used in a sentence.
For example, in these sentences, the phrases Alice Smith and my sister are in apposition, with the appositive identified with italics:
My sister, Alice Smith, likes jelly beans.
Alice Smith, my sister, likes jelly beans.
Traditionally, appositions were called by their Latin name appositio, derived from the Latin ad ("near") and positio ("placement"), although the English form is now more commonly used.
Apposition is a figure of speech of the scheme type and often results when the verbs (particularly verbs of being) in supporting clauses are eliminated to produce shorter descriptive phrases. That makes them often function as hyperbatons, or figures of disorder, because they can disrupt the flow of a sentence. For example, in the phrase: "My wife, a surgeon by training,...", it is necessary to pause before the parenthetical modification "a surgeon by training".
Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side so one element identifies the other in a...
than 1°. Also, superposition eyes can achieve greater sensitivity than apposition eyes, so are better suited to dark-dwelling creatures. Eyes also fall...
classified as either apposition eyes, which form multiple inverted images, or superposition eyes, which form a single erect image. Apposition eyes can be divided...
refer to other approximations between the thumb and other fingers as apposition. To anatomists, this makes sense as two intrinsic hand muscles are named...
lion, which is Panthera leo. Grammatically the noun is said to be in apposition to the genus name and the two nouns do not have to agree in gender; in...
A bone fracture (abbreviated FRX or Fx, Fx, or #) is a medical condition in which there is a partial or complete break in the continuity of any bone in...
favour apposition eyes. This is due to the superposition eye's adaptations for low light environments suiting the nocturnal moths, and the apposition eye's...
polarised virus budding towards the site of cell-to-cell contact, close apposition of cells, which minimizes fluid-phase diffusion of virions, and clustering...
apart, while the vocal processes of the arytenoid cartilages remain in apposition. This creates an oval gap between the folds and some air escapes, lowering...
the tip of the thumb to touch the tips of other fingers. The part of apposition that this muscle is responsible for is the flexion of the thumb's metacarpal...
царица , Вѣнець ей свљтимый небосвод") Note: "Southern Palmyra" is an apposition to St. Petersburg nicknamed "Northern Palmyra". "Odesa: Through Cossacks...
of the signal-passing neuron (the presynaptic neuron) comes into close apposition with the membrane of the target (postsynaptic) cell. Both the presynaptic...
women. There are difficulties against taking it as presenting a double apposition, with "his mother" being Mary of Clopas, and "his mother's sister" being...
Wollstonecraft were published that presented her "passionate life in apposition to [her] radical and rationalist agenda". The feminist artwork The Dinner...
Swahili is a Bantu language which is native to or mainly spoken in the East African region. It has a grammatical structure that is typical for Bantu languages...
internal enamel epithelium the concentration of materials During the apposition stage, the enamel, dentin and cementum are secreted in successive layers...
Indo-European family – Proto-Indo-European. Bauer, Brigitte L. M. (2017). Nominal Apposition in Indo-European: Its forms and functions, and its evolution in Latin-romance...
transverse tubules), while the RyRs reside across the SR membrane. The close apposition of a transverse tubule and two SR regions containing RyRs is described...
images of the same nucleus at sites of blebs (b and c) showed a close apposition of the chromatin to the nuclear envelope. In a, b, and c, the nucleus...
§ Conjunctions below for more explanation. Noun phrases can also be placed in apposition (where two consecutive phrases refer to the same thing), as in that president...
Library. p. 11. Retrieved 8 June 2012. Flat scutes, with the edges in apposition, and not overlaid, clothe both surfaces of the tail of the beaver, rats...
environmental. It is unclear if the condition is caused by increased bone apposition (bone formation) or decreased bone resorption, but Garn noted the stenosis...
von Mohl (1853, 1858) advocated the idea that the cell wall grows by apposition. Carl Nägeli (1858, 1862, 1863) believed that the growth of the wall in...
experiment reveal the following in regards to the larynx morphology: a close apposition between the linguolaryngeal cleft's smooth mucosal walls and the laryngeal...
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