Structural and Semantic Features of Parenthetical Constructions: Evidence from Modern English Literature

Abstract

The present article studies structural models and semantic content of parenthetical insertions in modern English fiction. The relevance of the research is determined by its focus on the study of the corpus of parenthesis in the modern English language within the framework of the general science issue ‘man and the language’. The study is novel in that it is carried out using evidence from modern English literature (texts written by S. King, J. Barnes, I. McEwan, D. Mitchell, J. Coe). The new language material and the use of methods of component, distributive, transformational and contextual analysis as well as the method of quantitative calculations allowed us to deepen the existing understanding of the structure and semantics of parenthetical constructions in the English language. This article will be of interest to researchers dealing with problems of parenthesis in modern English and to specialists in semantic syntax.