EXPERIMENTAL PHONETIC STUDY OF THE PARENTHETICAL CLAUSES

This project investigates the structural representation of parentheticals in English, constructions which mark the topic of an utterance, and which exhibit some of the properties characteristic of parentheticals. For decades, linguists have deliberated over the structural representation of parenthetical constructions. Parenthetical phrases’ unrestricted distribution and sometimes extreme prosodic and semantic independence have led linguists to propose many novel theories for incorporating parentheticals into a modern grammar. Unfortunately, not only have these explanations often been cursory and vague, but parenthetical topics have not been addressed in previous studies.

In support of the unintegrated hypothesis, a simple way to impose a linear order on phonological material is proposed from those structures which are consistent with parenthetical phrases’ unrestricted distribution. One consequence of this proposal is the prediction that the introduction of focus can improve the acceptability of parentheticals. An online survey on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk was implemented to test this prediction using parenthetical topics speaking of and as for. The results of this study bear on the syntax of parentheticals in general, and it may be possible to apply this analysis to other kinds of parentheticals, including nominal appositives, full clausal parentheticals, reporting verbs like said, among others, which could lead to a more general account of parentheticals in English, or even cross-linguistically.