the very pattern of the late Victorian clergyman

Hi, Raymondaliasapollyon. "the very pattern of the late Victorian clergyman" is in apposition to "a luxuriant frame of hair and sidewhiskers and beard." It is an appositive. Simply put, it is another way of saying the same thing again.

Thank you, f6pafd.

Could "the very pattern of the late Victorian clergyman" be the postponed appositive of "Musgrave"?

No, I don't think so.  According to the rule of proximity, it should be in apposition to what is closest to it.   It is "a luxuriant frame of hair and sidewhiskers and beard" that is "the very pattern of the late Victorian clergyman," not Musgrave himself.  

A webpage from Towson University mentions "delayed appositive" and the following example:

The commander stood his ground, a heoric figure.

https://webapps.towson.edu/ows/nouns.htm

I think the rule of proximity is good advice for writers who want to write clearly, but is often flouted in literature.

I agree there is an exception to every rule, but rules are still helpful in practice, although It is not unusual there may occur some delayed appositives, however, semantics more often than not plays an important role in determining whether any linguistic phenomenon is correct or not.  Just like the sentence "The commander stood his ground, a heroic figure,"  it is very obvious that "a heroic figure" cannot but be in apposition to "the commander." because it is semantically wrong to say "a heroic figure" is in apposition to "his ground.

Hi, Raymond,

I agree with f6pafd. In the second sentence you mentioned:

@raymondaliasapollyon posted:

The commander stood his ground, a heoric figure.

the delayed appositive occurs after a verb phrase, so it needs to refer to the subject.

In your original sentence:

@raymondaliasapollyon posted:

Musgrave himself frowned up at him out of a luxuriant frame of hair and sidewhiskers and beard, the very pattern of the late Victorian clergyman.

"the very pattern of the late Vitorian clergyman" is syntactically in apposition to the noun phrase that precedes it. However, since "Musgrave" is identified with the features appearing in the predicate, from a semantic viewpoint we could say that, by transitive property, if Musgrave was characterized by a luxuriant frame of hair, sidewhiskers and beard, and this was the typical pattern of the late Victorian clergyman, then Musgrave followed that pattern.

@raymondaliasapollyon posted:

Musgrave himself frowned up at him out of a luxuriant frame of hair and sidewhiskers and beard, the very pattern of the late Victorian clergyman.

Hi, everybody—I wish I could find the passage online. Since I can't see the surrounding text, I will simply say that I think it is possible for "the very pattern of the late Victorian clergyman" to be connected to "Musgrave" syntactically.

A different type of apposition from normal NP-to-NP apposition may be in play here. We could be looking at a "predicate appositive" (a term I take from George Curme's grammar).

Alternatively, or equivalently, we could be looking at a quasi-copulative construction, such as that found in "He was brought up a Lutheran, but died a Baptist."

The predicate appositive, or delayed quasi-copulative sentence-ending predicational whatchamacallit, reminds me phrases like "the spitting image of his father," which could easily appear in that position after an intransitive VP:

• He looked up at me with his big blue eyes, brown hair, and inquisitive gaze, the spitting image of his father.

@David, Moderator posted:

Hi, everybody—I wish I could find the passage online. Since I can't see the surrounding text, I will simply say that I think it is possible for "the very pattern of the late Victorian clergyman" to be connected to "Musgrave" syntactically.

Thank you, David. Here is the passage in question: