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Breez Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

Modifier Placement and Appositive Placement

The confusion comes when an appositive contains another noun like so:

The guy from the other car, walking slowly down the street, looked at me.


Is it just me, or is "walking slowly down the street" seem to be describing the car?

A man from Mars, an alien, is in my living room. <<Looks like Mars is an alien?

So I have heard mixed responses when I asked these questions before. Some people have told me noun phrases can always be placed in any order next to each other as appositives while others say that there is a specific order for phrases such as the above example.

Also, a modifer, like in the first example, must be placed directly next to the object that it is intended to modify correct?
  

Top answer

Hi, The guy from the other car, walking slowly down the street, looked at me. Is it just me, or is "walking slowly down the street" seem to be describing the car? A man from Mars, an alien, is in my living room.

  • Hi, The guy from the other car, walking slowly down the street, looked at me.
  • Is it just me, or is "walking slowly down the street" seem to be describing the car?
  • A man from Mars, an alien, is in my living room.
  • <<Looks like Mars is an alien?
  • Generally speaking, these kinds of sentences are fine as long as the meaning is clear.
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3 Answers
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Hi,

The guy from the other car, walking slowly down the street, looked at me.

Is it just me, or is "walking slowly down the street" seem to be describing the car?

A man from Mars, an alien, is in my living room. <<Looks like Mars is an alien?


Generally speaking, these kinds of sentences are f
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Those two sentences seem clear to me from context.
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Nah.The phrase"from"acts as a modifier to the subject.In truth,you only have one noun

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