[German version]

The common technical term since Graeco-Roman times (Greek: παρένθεσις/parénthesis, παρέμπτωσις/parémptosis; Latin: interpositio, interclusio, 'insertion'; cf. Quint. Inst. 9,3,23) for a unit inserted into a sentence that remains structurally independent of the entire syntactic surroundings.  The parenthesis can consist of a single word, a group of words, an entire sentence, or compound sentence.  In modern usage, in contrast to ancient texts, the parenthesis is identified by punctuation marks…