Is this an appositive or adverbial phrase?

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Omnidemon

#473894 Thu, 07 Feb 08 02:28 PM

Nora, of all the candidates who are running, is the best.

Is "of all the candidates who are running" an appositive or some sort of strange relative/adjective clause.

I think that it is not an adjective clause, because a relative pronoun is not found at the beginning of the phrase.

Any help will be appreciated!

Omnidemon

Joined on Fri, Feb 1 2008

United States

New Member (03)

Clauses, Dates, Nouns, Pronouns, Relative pronouns

Avangi

#473910 Thu, 07 Feb 08 03:06 PM

Hi O,

I'd vote for adverbial. For one thing, the phrase does not equal Nora, which condition I believe is necessary for an appositive.

If you rearrange the sentence (if this is allowed) you have, Nora is the best of all the candidates who are running, and (I think) the phrase may be said to modify best, which is a predicate adjective (I guess you call it complement), so it takes an adverb to modify an adjective.

Regards, - A.

Avangi

Joined on Mon, Nov 19 2007

Senior Member (3,289)

". . . le plaisir delicieux et toujours nouveau d'une occupation inutile." - Henri de Regnier

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CalifJim

#474087 Fri, 08 Feb 08 01:36 AM

Is "of all the candidates who are running" an appositive or some sort of strange relative/adjective clause.

Not an appositive. Not a strange clause either! Just an ordinary prepositional phrase.

Avangi has done most of the hard work already, showing that it's a matter of rearranging the sentence thus:

Nora is the best (candidate) of all the candidates who are running.

best is normally an adjective, as in best candidate. But here, best is promoted to noun status by the omission of the understood noun candidate. So the prepositional phrase of all the candidates who are running is an ordinary prepositional phrase acting adjectivally to modify the noun best.

CJ