Modifiers and Parentheticals
Introduced| English | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Modifiers/ˈmɒdɪfaɪəz/ | Words or phrases that limit or describe another word. |
| Parenthetical elements/pərənˈθetɪkl ˈelɪmənts/ | Extra information set off inside a sentence, often by commas or dashes. |
Judgement hides in the adjective
- The long-delayed report has evaluated the report while appearing only to identify it.
- The word long-delayed was not required to point at anything.
- A modifier is where a writer's judgement enters a sentence without announcing itself.
An adjective can deliver a verdict while pretending it only came to label the folder.
What a modifier does
- Modifiers 修饰成分 — words, phrases or clauses — qualify, clarify or specify information about the thing they modify.
- Those are three different jobs: narrowing, making precise, and picking out.
- Ask which job a modifier is doing, and whether it also smuggled in a judgement.
Modifier or parenthetical, and what does it do?
Sort each element by the job it performs.
Select all the jobs the CED says a modifier does.
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Concluding is not a modifier's job.
Parenthetical elements
- Parenthetical elements 插入成分 — though not essential to understanding what they describe — interrupt a sentence.
- They add information, comment or emphasis.
- The CED's phrase not essential is the key: a parenthetical is material the writer chose to include anyway.
A parenthetical element is essential to understanding what it describes.
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The CED says it is not essential — which is why including one is a choice.
A parenthetical is not essential, by the CED's own definition — which is exactly why including one is a choice worth analysing. Treating it as filler misses that the writer stopped the sentence on purpose, and chose where to stop it.
A parenthetical creates emphasis because...
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The reader is stopped, and what stops them is thereby marked.
The interruption is the point
- Because a parenthetical is inessential, including it is a decision.
- The interruption itself creates emphasis — the reader is stopped, and what stops them is marked.
- Placement matters too: a parenthetical before a key word makes the reader wait for it.
To analyse a modifier, ask what the sentence would say ____ it.
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The difference between the two versions is the judgement the writer added.
Match each question to what it uncovers.
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Each question turns a grammatical feature into a rhetorical choice.
Analysing both
- For a modifier: what would the sentence say without it? The difference is the judgement.
- For a parenthetical: why was inessential material included, and why here?
- Both questions turn a grammatical feature into a rhetorical choice.
"The results, such as they were, arrived on schedule." The parenthetical dismisses the results in four words without arguing against them, and placing it before the praise means the compliment lands on something the reader has already been told to discount.
Modifiers qualify, clarify or specify — and are where judgement enters a sentence unannounced. Parenthetical elements are not essential yet interrupt to add information, comment or emphasis. Analyse both by asking what the sentence would say without them, and why they sit here.
Write from the words so-called
- The phrase is 'the so-called plan'. The writer says the sentence states no judgement.
- Say where the judgement is.
A sentence refers to 'the so-called plan' and the writer insists no judgement was stated. Where is the judgement, and what rule keeps a modifier from changing the wrong word?
The adjective did the arguing.
Where is the judgement in 'the so-called plan'?
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So-called withholds the name it appears to give. Other options — Nowhere (because the sentence has no 'I think'); In the word plan (which is always negative).