Appositives

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

If you said she was the silliest girl I know, then you are correct!

The phrase the silliest girl I know describes the noun Cindy. You call that phrase an appositive.

An appositive is a noun, noun phrase, or noun clause next to another noun. Its purpose is to either rename that other noun or describe it further.

The silliest girl I know describes Cindy in further detail.

Look at the phrase in the original sentence again.

Cindy, the silliest girl I know, made me laugh until milk shot out of my nose!

• What punctuation surrounds the phrase in the original sentence?

Yes, commas! A comma offsets the phrase.

Appositives can be at a sentence's beginning, middle, or end.

An appositive can be a single word or a whole phrase.

• The plant, a tomato, grew in our garden.
• The plant, a tomato the size of a pumpkin, grew in our garden.

Check out the following video to learn more about appositives.

Give it a try!

Look at each set of sentences below and decide which one has an appositive.

Great work!

• Which sentences did you like more: with or without the appositives?
• Which told you more information?

Keep going in the Got It? section.