Parenthetical verbs as a challenge for discourse units

Our paper deals with some French parentheticals verbs called incise de discours rapporté (IDR). Our purpose is to show how two models of discourse structure, one representing discourse units in a praxeological framework involving syntax and prosody (the macro-syntactic approach of the Groupe de Fribourg 2012), the other in an modular framework which give primacy to hierarchical organization (the modular approach of Roulet & al. 2001), can shed light on these tricking constructions because of their seemingly ambivalence between syntax and discourse. Both models highlight that the dependency the IDR maintains with the reported clause is of discursive nature, while showing different properties of these constructions: their praxeological functioning on the one hand, and their dialogical organization at the hierarchical level on the other.