Identify each of the underlined phrases as restrictive or nonrestrictive. Her porcelain doll, a rare collector's item, was sold at auction. Chris went to Seattle to visit his aunt, a professional chef. The boy with the baseball cap would like to have a turn.

Although there are no underlined phrases, from the definition of a phrase, we are able to know which are the phrases we need to work with.

A phrase is a group of words that stand together as a single unit, that does not contain either a subject or a verb, and therefore, it has to be part of a sentence so that it could make sense. Phrases always provide further information about something whether a noun, an adverb, a verb or an adjective.

A nonrestrictive phrase is a phrase that contains information that is not essential to the sentence, that is to say, without it, the sentence would still make complete sense, and they are usually framed by commas when placed in the middle of a sentence, or followed by an only comma when they are the last part of the sentence.

As a restrictive phrase, on the other hand, is one that is essential to the meaning of the sentence, without it, the sentence would seem incomplete, unspecific, vague. Therefore restrictive phrases can not be taken out of sentence, and it never has commas.

From this explanation, we can easily identify which one is restrictive or nonrestrictive in the following sentences (the phrases are underlined):

Her porcelain doll, a rare collector's item, was sold at auction = a restrictive phrase.

Chris went to Seattle to visit his aunt, a professional chef = a restrictive phrase.

The boy with the baseball cap would like to have a turn = a restrictive phrase (without this phrase we would not be able to know which boy would like to have a turn, therefore the sentence would be missing essential information)

1. Nonrestrictive

2. Nonrestrictive

3. Restrictive