Introduction

AbstractThis chapter lays out the empirical and theoretical basis for the rest of the book. It gives a first taste of parenthetical meaning by emphasizing the commonalities and differences across a wide range of constructions that form the empirical core of the discussion to come. It situates parentheticality among the familiar layers of meaning, arguing that parenthetical content shares properties with entailment and presupposition but also differs from these in its ability to impact the interpretation of the root sentence. It is proposed that what all parentheticals have in common is their illocutionary independence, or the fact that they carry their own force operators and thus constitute independent speech acts. It establishes two major levels of parenthetical independence (pure and impure) and identifies six semantic puzzles about parentheticals that the rest of the book strives to solve. It also sketches a basic semantic formalism that underlies the theoretical claims.