Natalie,
It's very useful to think in terms of form and function. A noun phrase is a form; appositive is one of its many functions.
If you're using the -al labels in your class, your students should recognize that subjects, various complements, the object of prepositions, as well as appositives, are all nominal functions. All those functions can be carried out by a variety of forms: noun phrases (the most common), verb phrases, and clauses.
Your example is complicated by the fact that the appositive noun phrase has a relative clause as a postheadword modifier. But a relative clause (and other pre- and postnoun modifiers) can be part of any noun phrase, no matter what its function in the sentence. I spend a lot of time on the description of noun phrases, given their potential for adding information--and their systematic way of doing so. And of course there are many forms that function as adjectivals--including adjectives, nouns, prepositional phrases, verb phrases, and clauses.
It might be useful for your class to use that appositive noun phrase with its postnoun modifier in some of the other noun phrase slots in the sentence in order to reinforce the idea that it's a common NP structure--although perhaps somewhat uncommon (given its relative clause) when it's functioning as an appositive.
Martha
Dear all,
May I ask for your help parsing the relative clause in the following example?
James Bunley, a Washington attorney who served as the last Transportation secretary in the Reagan administration in 1987089, says the complexity of Next-Gen is one of the reasons the new system hasn't gained funding.
I analyze this example as a restrictive relative clause specifying which Washington attorney; i.e., a restrictive relative clause modifying an appositive, which itself is a nonrestrictive element modifying the proper noun James Bunley. Is this correct?
Thanks very much,
Natalie
____________________
Natalie Gerber, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of English
SUNY Fredonia
ph. (716) 673-3855
fax (716) 673-4661
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