IMMIGRATION thread

[Montmorency]

Non-detached appositions

§ 92. Non-detached appositions form one sense group with their headword and very often enter into such close relation with it that the two words form one whole. This is especially true in the case of titles, military ranks, professions, kinship terms, geographical denotations, etc., used as apposition.

Sir Peter, Mr Brown, Doctor Watson, Colonel Davidson, Uncle Podger, Mount Everest, the River Thames.

This is what you seem to base your understanding on for the context of the disagreement here, but as it turns out contemporary English-language treatments take apposition rather differently (in terminology and substance) from Soviet general grammar texts.

the gradient between apposition and premodification
is a complex gradient: while the extremes of this gradient are
easy to identify, intermediate cases have "fluid boundaries" (Bell
1988:330). At the modification end of the gradient are "institutionalized"
titles (Quirk et al. 1985:1319), expressions such as President or Professor
which precede a proper noun. Titles are typical premodifiers because they
are structurally dependent on a head: they cannot stand alone (example
136c) or follow the head noun that they modify (example i36d).

(136a) The board of regents of Paris Junior College has named Dr. Clarence Charles Clark of Hays, Kan. as the school's new president. (Brown A02 1530-50)
(136b) ...has named Charles Clark...
(136c) *... has named Dr
(i36d) #...has named Charles Clark, Dr

As the examples in this section illustrate, the main difference between
apposition and premodification is the extent to which the first unit of the
construction is structurally dependent on the second unit. If the units are
in apposition, they will be structurally independent; if one unit modifies the
other, only the head (and not the modifier) can stand alone and reversal of
the units is not possible.

Ambiguities between apposition and coordination result because it is
sometimes difficult to distinguish between apposition and asyndetic
coordination. In examples 126 and 127, the juxtaposed constructions are
syntactically quite similar because each satisfies criteria 1—3:

(126a) But the head of department is a little bit idiosyncratic, an awfully nice chap. (LLC s.1.6 218-21)
(126b) But the head of department is an awfully nice chap.
(126c) But the head of department is a little bit idiosyncratic.
(i26d) But the head of department is an awfully nice chap, a little bit idiosyncratic.

(127a) The address was in the Holborn district; it sounded shabby, dismal. (SEU w.16.1.19-1)
(127b) ...it sounded dismal.
(127c) ...it sounded shabby.
(i27d) ...it sounded dismal, shabby.

Semantically, however, the units are quite different. In example 127, shabby
and dismal are in apposition because they are synonymous, a semantic
relationship existing in other kinds of appositions (3.1.2.1). In example 126,
on the other hand, an awfully nice chap and a little bit idiosyncratic are not
synonymous. Consequently, in this construction, we have asyndetic
coordination rather than apposition.