Simple grammar question?

Question

Picture says it all:

http://img79.imageshack.us/my.php?image=questioneh4.jpg

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

No, it's not an appositive. It's a participial phrase, modifying JCVD. What you have analyzed is correct. The last piece is a little tricky - in it, 'as' is used as a preposition. As a preposition, as means 'in the role, function, or staus of', so the last part is a prepositional phrase with 'hero' as the object.

The reason it's not an appositive is there is no noun to be in apposition. The only nouns are 'movies' and 'hero', and those two are objects of prepositions within the phrase.

"Starring' is the key word - that's a participle modifying JCVD, and all the rest builds on that.

To be an appositive, it would be: '...usually a star in hit movies as the hero...' With this construction, 'star' is a noun, and that would be in apposition to JCVD - but 'a star' was not one of your choices.

Answer 2

Nope

Answer 3

a) stars

Answer 4

A. Stars

Answer 5

The answer is C: starring.

It is not "stars".  For it to be "stars", there would have to be a "who" in it, like this:

"Jean-Claude Van Damme, who usually stars in hit movies as the hero, surprisingly is the villain... "

But since the word "who" is not in the original sentence, the only grammatically correct phrasing among the four choices is:

"Jean-Claude Van Damme, usually starring in hit movies as the hero, surprisingly is the villain... "

Answer 6

a) stars. That was actually quite hard to understand.