Close apposition in English academic writing

In this paper we investigate structural and syntactic peculiarities of the particular type of nominal apposition, that of close appositive, in academic writing. Close appositives are analyzed in terms of their morpho-syntactic, functional and pragmatic features. A list of key parameters including the number of components, their lexico-grammatical properties, the use of determiners and modifiers, ways of syntactic distribution, the syntactic function performed and the place in the utterance (juxtaposition vs distancing) has been worked out. Several structural syntactic patterns of close apposition typical for academic writing have been built. Quantitative analysis provides evidence for the existence of one dominant invariant pattern as well as its variants.