Objects & Modifiers

Possessives & Appositives

Two ways to add information to a noun without a preposition or a clause. A possessive says who owns it (Omar’s bicycle); an appositive gives it a second name (my neighbour Rosa).

What you’ll learn

Diagram a possessive on a slant under the noun it modifies, with its 's attached
Diagram a chain of possessives, such as Nina's brother's dog
Tell an appositive from a noun that only describes the next noun
Write an appositive in parentheses after the noun it renames
Read poss, case and appos in a dependency tree, and explain why Omar's is two tokens

Possessives

A possessive tells you who or what something belongs to: Omar’s bicycle, her coat. It does the same job as an adjective: it makes the noun more specific. Which bicycle? Omar’s. So Reed-Kellogg draws it the way it draws an adjective.

The parser sees it differently. It splits Omar’s into two tokens, Omar and ’s, because the two halves do different jobs. Omar names the owner. The ’s is the ending that makes the word possessive.

“Omar’s bicycle vanished.”

Reed-Kellogg — one slant, apostrophe-s attached

poss Possession modifier
case Case marking
nsubj Nominal subject
ROOT Root of the sentence

Dependency — poss and case, two separate nodes

Comparing the two views

Reed-Kellogg writes Omar’s as one word on one slant, because the whole word is one modifier. The dependency tree gives it two nodes: Omar attaches to bicycle as poss, and ’s attaches to Omar as case. That is why the POS and Tags exercises ask for four labels in this three-word sentence.

Possessives that chain

A possessive noun can have a possessive of its own. In Nina’s brother’s dog, the dog belongs to the brother, and the brother is Nina’s. To diagram a chain, ask one question at a time.

Start from the noun at the end of the chain
Here that is dog. It is the subject, so it goes on the base line.
Ask whose
Whose dog? The brother’s. So brother’s hangs on a slant under dog.
Ask again about the answer
Whose brother? Nina’s. So Nina’s hangs from the slant of brother’s, not from dog. Draw its slant on the left of the slant for brother’s, parallel to it, with a short line joining the two at the top. This is the same slant off a slant that you saw for an adverb that modifies an adverb.

“Nina’s brother’s dog barks.”

Reed-Kellogg — a possessive hanging off another possessive

poss Possession modifier
case Case marking
nsubj Nominal subject
ROOT Root of the sentence

Dependency — poss on poss, and a case arc for each 's

Comparing the two views

Both views show the same chain. Reed-Kellogg hangs Nina’s from the slant of brother’s, not from dog. The tree makes Nina the poss of brother, and brother the poss of dog. Only the tree gives each ’s its own node, so the four words become six tokens.

Appositives

An appositive is a second name for the noun next to it. In My neighbour Rosa grows chillies, Rosa and my neighbour are the same person, named twice.

An appositive does not describe its noun the way a modifier does. It is not an argument either: it is not a subject or an object of its own. So Reed-Kellogg gives it its own notation: parentheses right after the noun it renames, on the same line.

Look for two nouns side by side with no conjunction
my neighbour Rosa, my brother Diego. A comma may separate them, as in the capital, Lima: it is still an appositive.
Check that they name the same person or thing
Delete either one. If the sentence still talks about the same person or thing, they are in apposition: My neighbour grows chillies, Rosa grows chillies. The test fails for a kitchen table: a kitchen is not a table. In that phrase, kitchen only describes table, so it hangs on a slant like an adjective.
Write the appositive in parentheses after the first noun
The first noun keeps its own slot. In the figure below, that is the subject slot. The appositive gets no slot of its own: it goes in parentheses right after that noun, on the same line.

“My neighbour Rosa grows chillies.”

Reed-Kellogg — the appositive shares the noun's slot

poss Possession modifier
nsubj Nominal subject
appos Appositional modifier
ROOT Root of the sentence
dobj Direct object

Dependency — appos makes Rosa depend on neighbour

Comparing the two views

Reed-Kellogg puts the appositive inside the subject slot, in parentheses, so the picture says “one person, named twice”. A tree has no shared slots, so it must make one noun depend on the other: Rosa hangs from neighbour as appos. The legend calls this an appositional modifier, but the two nouns are really equals: each one names the same person. In the Roles exercise, Rosa gets its own Appositive box inside the Subject.

Quick check

Diego’s laptop crashed. Which word goes in the subject slot of the Reed-Kellogg diagram, and where does Diego’s go?
Answer
Laptop goes in the subject slot: it is the laptop that crashed. Diego’s only says whose laptop it is, so it hangs on a slant under laptop, written as one word with its ’s. In the tree, laptop is the nsubj, Diego is its poss, and ’s hangs from Diego as case.
Priya’s uncle’s farm grows coffee. Which word does Priya’s hang from in the Reed-Kellogg diagram?
Answer
From uncle’s, not from farm. Whose farm? The uncle’s. Whose uncle? Priya’s. So uncle’s hangs on a slant under farm, and Priya’s hangs from the slant of uncle’s. The tree shows the same chain: Priya is the poss of uncle, and uncle is the poss of farm.
Which of these sentences has an appositive, and how do you know? The city bus stopped. My cousin Camila smiled.
Answer
Only the second. My cousin and Camila are the same person: delete either one and the sentence still talks about her (My cousin smiled, Camila smiled). Reed-Kellogg writes (Camila) right after cousin on the subject line, and the tree labels Camila appos. In the city bus, a city is not a bus: city only describes bus, so it hangs on a slant under it. The tree calls it compound.
The sentence Marta’s sister can’t drive has four words, but the Tags exercise asks you for six tags. Which words does the parser split, and what does each half do?
Answer
Two words are split. Marta’s becomes Marta, the owner (the poss of sister), and ’s, the possessive ending (tag POS, relation case). Can’t becomes ca, the modal can (tag MD), and n’t, the negation (tag RB, relation neg). The Reed-Kellogg diagram joins each pair again: Marta’s on a slant under sister, and can’t drive in the verb slot.

Key terms

Possessive: A noun or pronoun that says who something belongs to. A time word can be possessive too, and then it says when. In the tree its relation is poss, and the ’s is a separate token with the relation case. Omar’s coat is here. Today’s class starts late.
Possessive pronoun: my, your, his, her, its, our, their, used before a noun. Many textbooks call them possessive adjectives (adjetivos posesivos) or possessive determiners. They are tagged PRP$ and drawn on a slant like any other possessive. The forms that stand alone, such as mine and hers, replace a whole noun phrase, so they take a slot of their own instead of a slant. Her coat is here. They lost their map.
See: Nouns & Pronouns
Appositive: A second name for the noun next to it: a noun, or a whole phrase or clause. Reed-Kellogg writes it in parentheses after that noun; a phrase or clause stands on a pedestal inside them. In the tree, a noun appositive has the relation appos. My friend Jacob called. The capital, Lima, is on the coast.
See: Nominal Dependents
Token split: The parser splits Omar’s and can’t into two tokens each, because their halves do different jobs. A Reed-Kellogg diagram writes each of them as one word, but in the POS, Tags and Dependencies exercises you label each half. Santiago’s cat won’t eat. — six tokens (wo + n’t for won’t). It’s Rosa’s turn. — five tokens, and the two ’s are different words: is, then the possessive ending.
See: Grammar Basics

Practice on a real sentence

This sentence has one possessive, and it is a possessive pronoun, so there is no ’s and no case arc. Find it before you start. In the Dependencies exercise, give it the poss relation: which noun does it attach to? (The sentence has no appositive.)

Loading the practice sentence…