the adjective element very fine, and the article a. The whole group is placed beside the term it explains, and is separated from it by a comma. Such a group of words is called an appositive, and the base word body is called a noun in apposition.

125. Sometimes we explain who a person is by using his name; as, "I heard your friend, John Richards, say that he was going to write to you."

Sometimes the name of a person or animal or place is used first, and then explained by a group of words; as, "Akela, the great gray Lone Wolf, lay out at full length on his rock."

126. The appositive and the term it explains are in reality two names for the same person or thing. You might think that either one could be called the appositive, but this is not so. It is the explanatory term that is the appositive, and this is the second of the two terms.

127. Sometimes, when there is no danger of any misunderstanding, the appositive comes at a little distance from the word it modifies; as, "Splendid buildings meet our eyes at every turn, churches, private residences, places of business, and public edifices." Can you account for this arrangement?

128. Sometimes an appositive has been used so long with the word it modifies that the two have become united into one name; as, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Great, William the Conqueror. Such an appositive is not set off by a comma.

NOTE. In the term Peter the Great, the adjective great has become a noun, and is modified by the adjective the.

129. When ownership is to be denoted, the sign of possession is added to the appositive instead of to the term that it explains; as, "The poet Milton's daughter," "Mr. Taft, the president's, cow," "My friend Julia's husband."

Summary. An appositive is a word or a group of words

placed after a term to explain it.

When the base word of an appositive is a noun, it is called a noun in apposition.

The case of a noun in apposition is the same as that of the noun it explains.

An appositive is a modifier of a noun or a pronoun.

An appositive is set off from the rest of the sentence by commas unless it makes one term with the word it modifies.

Exercise. Select all the appositives in the following sentences, and tell what they modify. Find the nouns in apposition. Tell the case of each, giving the reason in each instance. Analyze sentences 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16.

1. Alfred the Great loved books and strangers and travelers. 2. In the neatest, sandiest hole of all lived Benjamin's aunt and his cousins, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.

3. The conversation turned to rheumatism, a subject of very remote interest to Polly.

4. My son William became a telegraph operator before he was seventeen.

5. James II, the bigoted successor of Charles I, had annulled the charters of all the colonies.

6. The geography lesson that day was the rivers of Asia, the Obi, Yenisei, Lena, Amoor, Hoang Ho, and Yang-tse-kiang.

7. Some writers tell us that Edward the Confessor had made a will appointing Duke William his successor.

8. Foremost among the envious ones was the Princess Panka, the daughter of a neighboring king.

9. Close to Charing Cross is Trafalgar Square, a fine open space with a fountain, and a column to Lord Nelson.

10. The body of Warwick the kingmaker was exposed for three days on the pavement of St. Paul's, and then deposited among the ashes of his fathers in the abbey of Bilsam.

11. The pass was crowned with dense, dark forest, - deodar, walnut, wild cherry, wild olive, and wild pear.

12. Kaa, the big Rock Python, had changed his skin for perhaps the two hundredth time since his birth.

13. Eric the Red, a wandering Norseman who was dwelling in Iceland, went to sea and discovered Greenland.

а

14. There are so many things to distract a boy's attention, chipmunk in the fence, a bird on a near tree, and a henhawk circling high in the air over the barnyard.

15. Very soundly it slept, that doomed hare crouching under the fir bush!

16. They had never been accounted for, Rebecca's eyes.

XXXIII. APPOSITIVE ADJECTIVES

130. Adjectives are not always placed before the noun they modify. When they are used as subjective complements, they follow the verb, although they modify the subject; as, "Life is real," The air seems moist." We also find many sentences like the following, "The camel, restless and weary, groans and occasionally shows his teeth."

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Here it is evident that the adjectives restless and weary are in the sentence to describe the camel; hence they modify the noun camel, but instead of preceding this noun, they follow it. Because of their position such adjectives are called appositive adjectives.

or commas.

131. An appositive adjective is usually set off by a comma It is frequently modified by a phrase, as in the expressions," restless under his heavy load," " the long journey."

Summary.

weary with

An adjective with or without modifiers may be used as an appositive.

An appositive adjective is usually set off from the rest of the sentence by a comma.

Exercise. Select all the appositive adjectives in these sentences, and tell what they modify. Give the modifiers of each adjective. Account for the punctuation. Analyze sentences 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12.

1. His tunic, scarlet in color, is of the softest woolen fabric. 2. The skirt drops to the knee in folds heavy with embroidery. 3. Grandfather Nutter was a hale, cheery old gentleman, as straight and as bald as an arrow.

4. The pink rose, dear for its old associations, was transplanted to a sunny place close by the south door.

5. Presently the Colonel came in, bluff, warm, and hearty.

6. From the other window one saw the distant forest, so deep, black, and mysterious.

7. The April night, softly chill and full of the sense of thaw, was closing down over the wide salt marshes!

8. Presently, from far along the dark heights of the sky, came voices, hollow, musical, confused.

9. Here is a foot passenger, dusty and tired, who comes with lagging steps.

10. There is no nation known to history in which all citizens, male and female, old and young, native and foreign born, have had the suffrage.

11. Ginger hurried off into the darkness, wild with excitement. 12. The chief engineer entered the smoking room for a moment, red, smiling, and wet.

XXXIV. INDIRECT

INDIRECT OBJECT

132. We have seen that the direct object names the receiver of the action asserted by the verb. In the sentence, "Kotuko made his dog a tiny harness," the direct object of the verb made is a tiny harness, for this group of words tells what received the making, and answers the question made what?

If we go further and ask the question, made a harness for what? the answer is, his dog. This group of words is called the indirect object. It names the receiver of the direct object; that is, the dog received the harness.

133. An indirect object is always in the objective case, but it is not a complement of the verb, because it is not a necessary element of a sentence. We call it a modifier of the verb. The sentence, "In the morning the old wife gave the princess three nuts," would be complete if we left out the indirect

object the princess, and merely told what the old wife gave, namely, three nuts.

Notice that the indirect object comes between the verb and the direct object. If we place it after the direct object, we must supply the preposition to or for, and then instead of an indirect object we shall have a prepositional phrase.

Summary. An indirect object is a word or a group of words that tells to whom or for whom, to what or for what, something is done.

An indirect object names the receiver of the direct object. An indirect object precedes the direct object.

An indirect object is a modifier of a verb.

An indirect object is in the objective case.

Only a few transitive verbs take both direct and indirect objects. Some of them are bring, buy, do, get, give, lend, make, pass, pay, promise, sell, send, show, take, tell, write.

Exercise 1. Write sentences containing both direct and indirect objects, using verbs in the list above.

Exercise 2. Select both the direct and the indirect objects in the following sentences, giving reasons:

1. Carry your grandmamma a custard and a little pot of butter. 2. Aladdin made his mother very little reply.

3. I showed my comrades a large heap of stones.

4. Mrs. Howe had promised the children presents, so she bought George a gun, Mollie two gold rings, and Paul a checkerboard.

5. I wish the Lord would give horses voices for just one week. 6. Bring my mother six women slaves to attend her.

7. If you offer Dash a bit of sheep's wool now, he tucks his tail between his legs, and runs for home.

8. I never told my schoolmates that I was a Yankee.

9. I paid Gypsy a visit every half hour during the first day of my arrival.

10. Then the magician gave Aladdin a handful of small money. 11. Father Andrew also taught Tom a little Latin.

12. The sultan granted Aladdin his request and again embraced him.