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Difficulty: MediumNouns and Noun Phrases

In the sentence, "The university senate granted the research team, a group of dedicated conservationists, substantial funding for their ecosystem restoration project," what is the grammatical function of the bolded noun phrase?

  1. Appositive modifying the indirect objectAnswer
  2. B
    Direct object of the verb
  3. C
    Subject complement of the sentence
  4. D
    Complement of a preposition

Answer

The bolded noun phrase functions as an appositive modifying the indirect object.
An appositive is a noun or noun phrase that renames another noun phrase placed beside it. In this sentence, 'a group of dedicated conservationists' directly renames 'the research team'. Because 'the research team' functions as the indirect object of the verb 'granted', the bolded phrase acts as an appositive modifying the indirect object.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the main clause structure of the sentence.
Subject: 'The university senate'; Verb: 'granted'; Indirect Object: 'the research team'; Direct Object: 'substantial funding'.
Identifying the primary clause elements establishes the baseline syntactic slots in a ditransitive structure.
2
Determine the relationship between 'the research team' and 'a group of dedicated conservationists'.
The bolded phrase is placed adjacent to 'the research team' between commas to rename and clarify who the team consists of.
A noun phrase that stands next to another noun phrase to rename or describe it operates as an appositive.
3
Identify the element being renamed.
'The research team' is the indirect object of 'granted', making the modifying phrase an appositive to the indirect object.
Appositives share the grammatical case and functional context of the noun phrases they clarify.

Key Concept

Syntactic Functions of Noun Phrases: Appositives
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Topics

Nouns and Noun Phrases

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