Lesson 4: Non-Verbal Modifiers
Apposition
ap·po·si·tion two nouns (or noun phrases) referring to the same person or thing, placed side by side
ap·po·si·tive the noun that renames another, within an apposition
After prepositions and genitives, we come to something much more simple. Apposition is a side-by-side, or close by, renaming of a noun.
Paul, my friend, went to the coffee shop.
In the above sentence, “Paul” is the subject noun, “went” is an intransitive verb, and it is followed by a prepositional phrase “to the coffee shop.”
However between “Paul” and “went” we have something inserted: the short phrase, “my friend.” This phrase renames Paul in a similar way that an object complement or a predicate noun might rename the direct object or subject. The difference is that there is no verb involved with an appositive, and the appositive does not affect the essential meaning of a sentence. Appositives are like a pause in the flow of the sentence to clarify or explain something. (Note that “my” in the phrase is a genitive and “friend” is the actual appositive.)
Carl, the cat, woke up early.
This is the example of apposition from our super sentence. “The cat” renames “Carl,” clarifying who we are talking about before the sentence continues. Notice you can take the appositive “the cat” out of the sentence and the essential meaning of the sentence does not change. We parse the appositive with App.
Now take a look at John 11:1 and try to pick out its three occurrences of apposition.
“Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.”
The first apposition is “man” and “Lazarus of Bethany.” This is a good example to point out that apposition does not always have to be directly side by side. Here the appositive of the subject noun “man” comes after the verb and predicate adjective, yet it clearly renames and clarifies who the “man” is.
The second instance of apposition in the sentence is “Bethany” and “the village…” And the third instance in this sentence is “sister” and “Martha.” Here, we see an appositive without a comma. Often in English, appositives will be divided by a comma, but they do not have to be! In this case we have two nouns side by side which name and rename the same person—no comma required.
It is also worth noting the use of the genitive in this verse. “Of Bethany” is fairly straight forward, as is “her.” But the second instance could be confusing since it is split into two: “of Mary and…sister.” Both “Mary” and “sister” are part of the genitive, and so you see the sudden appearance of the green Cc label. This stands for coordinate conjunction, a topic we have not covered yet. For now, just know that conjunctions connect things.
As we stated before, the appositive is not essential to the meaning of the sentence. Even in this verse, where over half of the sentence is taken up by appositives—and they add quite a bit of information!—you can still take them out and the meaning of the sentence is unchanged.
Diagramming Apposition
This is the floating shelf. The floating shelf is used for various grammatical pieces that do not directly connect to the meaning and structure of a sentence, like the appositive. The floating shelf “floats” somewhere near the sentence, but does not connect to it as all of the other shelves do. In the case of the appositive, the floating shelf is joined by the equal sign, to show that the information on the floating shelf is being equated with (is renaming) the indicated noun. Apposition is the only instance in which you will use the equal sign while diagramming.
The appositive “friend” sits on the floating shelf with the equal sign showing that it is renaming “Paul.” The genitive “my” sits on the non-verbal shelf under “friend.” Note the prepositional phrase “to the coffee shop.” “To” is the preposition, “the” is the article and “coffee shop” is a compound noun making up the OP.
Before diagramming John 11:1, we need to introduce another shelf (actually a group of shelves) that we will call the split shelves.
Split shelves are not specific to a particular type of grammatical term or part of speech, but instead allow us to diagram multiple pieces on the same level. In our super sentence you will see a double sided split shelf showing that there are two subjects (“the dog” and “the rabbit”) both doing the same action. What if there are more than two pieces that need to be on the same level?
You can add shelves to the split shelves by clicking on the plus sign (+) when the split shelf is selected.
Now we can diagram John 11:1.
First let’s look at the appositives. The appositive “Lazarus” is set on a floating shelf next to “a man,” with which it is in apposition. The second appositive “the village” is set next to “Bethany,” which is on a non-verbal shelf (as part of a genitive). The third appositive is set next to “sister,” which is on a split shelf paralleling “Mary,” since both are genitives working off the word “of.”
Note that when you have a split shelf, there will be a conjunction present in the sentence (“Mary and her sister Martha”). As mentioned above, conjunctions are words that connect phrases or clauses. We will cover conjunctions in detail in lesson six. For now, in use with the split shelf, know that the conjunction is placed on the grey line between the options.
Diagramming Vocatives
We have discussed the vocative already, but we have not learned how to diagram it. Now that we have introduced the floating shelf, it’s time to use it to diagram the vocative! Let’s use one of our example sentences from lesson one.
Carl, it snowed!
Vocatives are diagrammed on the floating shelf with a broken line connecting it to the shelf of the subject (not to the subject word itself).
