Of

Question

Which of the two is correct?1.He opened a bookstore in his hometown, Zabadan, Syria, that sold children's books.2. He opened a bookstore in his hometown of Zabadani, Syria, that sold children's books.

BillJ · Accepted Answer

They are both correct, and just two slightly different ways of saying the same thing. The grammar is also slightly different.

Compare these examples where b. is an entailment of a. in each pair:

[1a] He opened a bookstore in his hometown, Zabadan, Syria, that sold children's books.

[1b] He opened a bookstore in Zabadan, Syria, that sold children's books.

In [1] “Zabadan, Syria” is a specifying NP serving as a supplementary appositive to “his hometown”. It's shown to be an appositive because it can replace the whole supplementation, as shown in [1b]. And we know it's a specifying NP because we can say "His hometown is Zabadan, Syria."

[2a] He opened a bookstore in [his hometown of Zabadani, Syria], that sold children's books.

[2b] He opened a bookstore in Zabadani, Syria, that sold children's books.

In [2] “Zaba, Syria” is not a supplement, but an appositive oblique, one that is related to the head via the preposition “of”, rather than being directly related to it, as it is in [1a]. It can be replaced by 2b, which is the same as 1b.

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