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The present paper aims to evaluate the adequacy of two types of analysis of appositive constructions: the symmetric and asymmetric analysis. Grounded in contemporary generative grammar, it is shown that the symmetric analysis requires taking several assumptions about the nature of syntax. Thus, an asymmetric analysis is presented based on an underlying symmetric relation between both parts of the apposition. This proposal neutralizes the conceptual problems of a symmetric approach and, at the same time, permits to explain (i) the predicative nature of explicative appositions, (ii) its speaker-oriented character, (iii) the adjacency condition between both parts of appositive constructions, (iv) the presence of adverbs between both parts of the apposition, and (v) the difference on scope relations between quantifiers on both parts of the apposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]