THE BACKGROUND AND CURRENT STATE OF LINGUISTIC STUDIES OF APPOSITIONS

Abstract

The article presents the analysis of the background and the current state of linguistic studies of appositions. In
Ukrainian linguistics I. Vahylevych presents the fi rst terms for description components of the sentence (main and secondary
members of the sentence) in his work «Grammatika języka maloruskiego w Galicii» (Lviv, 1845). I. Vahylevych
as M. Hrech and Polish grammarians, separately distinguishes the attribute that is expressed by noun in the nominative
case, – przydatnie (prylozheniie).
Since then, the Ukrainian grammar fi x such terms to its denotation: prylozhenie (appositio) (Osadtsia, M. (1864).
Hramatyka ruskoho yazyka. Lviv), prylozhenie (apposition) (Diachan, P. (1865). Metodychna hramatyka yazyka maloruskoho.
Lviv), prybavka (Shashkevych, M. (1865). Mala hrammatyka yazyka ruskoho. Viden), prylozhenia (Partytskyi,
O. (1871). Hramatyka ruskoho yazyka. Lviv), prykladka (Smal-Stotskyi, S. (1913). Ruska hramatyka. Viden).
The traditional view on apposition as agreement attribute expressed by substantive starts from M. Hrech, O. Vostokov
and F. Buslaiev. Scholars thought that apposition is not a separate member of the sentence. But it is a special kind
of the attribute wich can be expressed by noun. O. Potebnia, D. Ovsianyko-Kulykovskyi noted that apposition can be
expressed not only by noun, but by adjective and even a verb.
I. Voskresenskyi opposed the traditional defi nition of apposition as the attribute. Scholar argued that the apposition
can be not only a noun with a noun, but a verb with the verb, adjective with adjective, adverb with adverb. In other words
apposition can be expressed in any of full meaning part of the language and settle near various members of the sentence.
This paper also focuses on different views on correctly interpretation of the category of apposition in modern
linguistic schools. Linguists consider apposition as agreement (O. Shakhmatov, O. Gvozdiev, O. Rudniev, N. Valhina,
D. Rozental), as secondary nomination of the denotation (P. Lekant, L. Kasatkin), as phenomenon of nominative andsyntactic semiozys (I. Velychko). Nowadays understanding the apposition as a semipredicative member of the sentence
has become usual. It combines the grammar of attributive and predicative relations with the preference of the fi rst.
Modern Ukrainian linguists defi ne apposition as a kind of attribute that can be expressed by noun or other substantival
part of the language. In their view, apposition usually agrees with the signifi ed vocable in the case, and sometimes
it unites only by intonation. In other words, they combine with such syntactic relations as correlation, seldomer –
parataxis.