Characteristics of apposition in The Great Gatsby

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the syntactic and semantic characteristics of apposition as exemplified in The Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s, which, due to its narrator's tendency to poeticize reality and to detailed description, provides a good many examples of the use of apposition in all its varieties. In the pages that follow I first establish a set of definite criteria which define apposition and then I go on to illustrate these in the appositions found in the novel mentioned above. Finally I offer a pragmatic and stylistic explanation for the author's frequent use of appositions.