The definition: An appositive is a modifier; it is placed next to some other word or phrase, and it is a synonym of or possible replacement for that other word or phrase.
Most of the time, appositives are used as noun modifiers and contain nouns themselves, but they can also be adverbial modifiers.
Non-essential appositives must be set off from the core of the sentence by punctuation marks; essential appositives are not set off from the rest of the sentence by punctuation marks.
Appositives can be placed before or after the word or phrase they modify, and they can modify an entire phrase rather than just a single word.
If the appositive is CONCRETE, it MUST modify preceding noun.
example : I went to bar with Mr. Smith, a consultant from Fresno.
If the appositive is ABSTRACT, it CAN whole idea of the modify preceding clause. BUT if the preceding noun is also abstraction then these can also modify the preceding noun.
Example: I went to bar with Mr. Smith, an outing that was far more fun than staying at work.
Example: On Sunday our company will hold it annual field day, an outing at which employees drink beer, softball, and relax.
Concrete : is a description use to describe items/people/things that you can actually detect with your sences. Example : things you can touch, hear, hold on you hand, feel it , smell it etc.
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Appositive Vs. Absolute phrase
Appositives rename noun phrases and are usually placed beside what they rename .
The following example shows a noun phrase in apposition to another:
The lady, our president, spoke out against racism.
"Our president" renames the subject "the lady" and so is
in apposition to it.
Absolute phrases are made of nouns or pronouns followed by a participle and any modifiers of the noun or pronoun. Absolute phrases contain a subject (unlike participial phrases), and no predicate. They serve to modify an entire sentence : A group of words that modifies an independent clause as a whole.
Joan looked nervous, her fears creeping up on her.
noun/subject: her fears
participle: creeping
modifier: up on her
absolute phrase: her fears creeping up on her
Tom paled when he came home, his mother standing in the
doorway.
noun/subject: his mother
participle: standing
modifier: in the doorway
absolute phrase: his mother standing in the doorway
=== Experts =========================
You need to use meaning to distinguish between appositives and absolute phrases. Since absolute phrases are modifiers, they will usually contain a different kind of information than an appositive. In sentence 1, "his arm in pain" modifies Guillermo. It wouldn't make sense to say that Guillermo and "his arm in pain" are the same thing. (Note also that the sentence begins with "His arm." It would not be correct to place the name Guillermo both before and after the phrase.)
In the appositive example, the coach is also an old classmate. Since it makes sense for a coach to be the same as an old classmate, we can see that this is an appositive.
The second example of an absolute phrase ("The car fell into the lake, the cold water filling the compartment.") is a bit more tricky. It is possible for "the lake" and "the cold water filling the compartment" to be the same thing, so we could interpret this as an appositive. However, since a lake is something everyone should be familiar with, it makes more sense to read this as an absolute phrase. The second portion of the sentence does not modify the word "lake," but rather describes the result of the event mentioned in the first half of the sentence.
To sum up, you know you are dealing with an appositive when it seems logical to think of the two adjacent nouns as identical. If the noun in the modifying phrase is *doing* something ("He stepped out of the car, his leg bleeding badly."), you are probably dealing with an absolute phrase.
1. Howard is building an addition onto his house. He was the winner of the church raffle.
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