Definition of parenthetical element

Question

**A parenthetical element is a phrase that adds extra information to the sentence but could be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence-**grammarly*.*

1.This strange inertia of the camera, its refusal to get involved in the drama, renders the film superficial and the drama diseffecting.

2.Morning all, up bright and early, ready to start the day.

Is the first examples parenthetical element a phrase? The definition suggests phrases are parenthetical but you could have a sentence with em-dashes...would that not be parenthetical too.

Also, is my other example accurate for an interruption?

Answer 1

1. Yes, parenthetical elements are also called parenthetical phrases. Additionally, in this example, the bolded phrase happens to be a noun phrase, with "refusal" being the noun, "its" being an adjective, "to get involved" being a participle phrase, and "in the drama" being a prepositional phrase.

2. This example is highly colloquial, and would absolutely be understood by native speakers. However, to get to the answer, we have to look at it with all of its implied (but missing) words. The whole segment would be "Morning all. Are you up bright and early, and ready to start the day?" Note that I changed the first comma to a period. These are technically two sentences. In this case, when looking at the full meaning of the colloquial saying, it becomes much clearer that this is not a parenthetical phrase, but rather asking two separate questions related to the greeting and the group's state of being awake and ready early. While removing either part ("up bright and early" or "ready to start the day") would result in a complete sentence (as long as you keep "Morning all" as its own sentence), the meaning changes, thus making it not a parenthetical phrase.