Appositive and Verbals

An appositive 

      it is a noun,pronoun or phrase placed after the another noun or pronoun to identify,rename, or explain the preceding word.it can be a short or long combination of words.

                Example:  Our television,a black-and-white models that was manufactured in 1973 still functions well

A noneessential appositvie is always separated from the rest of the sentence with a comma. It may be place in the beginning,middle, or end of the sentence.

          Example: 

1.  A beautiful girl from mexico,won the miss universe beauty pageant and becaome  a   popular film    actress.

2. Maria, a beautiful girl from mexico,wont the miss universe beauty pagean and became a popular film actress.

3.  Many men are attracted to maria, a beautiful girl from mexico who won the miss universe beauty pageant and became a popular film actress.

 Verbals

 it is a verb form that is used as another part of speech. they are sometimes called unfinished or incomplete verbs. Verbals are frequently accompanied by other related words in what is called a verbal phrase. 

Kinds of verbals

1. A participle is verb form that acts as an adjective. There are two kinds of participles: present participles and past participles.

    Present participles end in -ing and describe a present condition.

      ex. the rising sun is a beautiful backdrop for the painting

  Past participles may end in -ed,-t or -en (or a different spelling in case of irregular verbs)and describe something that has already happened.

                      ex. the frozen meat was soaked in water.

2. A gerund is a verb form that acts as a noun. It ends in -ing. a gerund  may function as subject ,direct object, or object of a preposition.

   ex. Knowing the answer can work to one's advantage.(as subjetct)

                             The boy hates speaking.(as direct object)

              my sons are all afraid of flying.(as object of a preposition)

3. An Infinitive contains the word to and the root word of a verb . It functions as a noun,adjectives, or adverb.

                         ex. To dream is a waste of time act now (as noun)

                                The person to call is the doctor.(as adjectives)

                                Jogging is easy to do(as adverb)

Watch out for split infinitives. An infinitives is "split when a word (often an adverb) or phrase sneaks between the to of the infinitive and the root of the verb 

                      example to boldly go .it is better to say,

         "gabriel expected his mother not to call" that to say                  "gabriel expected his mother to not call." 

Some experts do not see anything wrong with split infinitives. the rules,however, is that, if it sounds awkward, do not use it.