Download An appositive is a noun or pronoun

Appositives & Commas
An appositive is a noun or pronoun — often with modifiers — set
beside another noun or pronoun to explain or identify it. Here are
some examples of appositives (the noun or pronoun will be in blue,
the appositive will be in red).
Your friend Bill is in trouble.
My brother's car, a sporty red convertible with
bucket seats, is the envy of my friends.
The chief surgeon, an expert in organtransplant procedures, took her nephew on a
hospital tour.
Helpful Hints
• Sometimes the appositive phrase comes
before the noun or pronoun
• An appositive phrase :
 Renames the noun or pronoun
 Has no subject or verb
 Can be removed from a sentence still leaving it
alone
 Can appear anywhere in a sentence
Another Helpful Hint
• My cousin Betty is a wonderful musician.
There are no commas because Betty is a
one word appositive
Example
• Wrong: Romeo and Juliet a play about
two young lovers was written by William
Shakespeare a talented writer in the
Elizabethan Era.
• Right: Romeo and Juliet, a play about
two young lovers, was written by William
Shakespeare, a talented writer in the
Elizabethan Era.
Click here to download Appositves & Commas: Practice