‘What can be described can happen too…’: describing text semantics as a model structure of transworld relationships
- DOI
- 10.5922/2225-5346-2019-4-6
- Pages
- 72-84
Abstract
In this article, I explore the content-related and formal aspects of describing the multidimensional semantic organization of a text, particularly, I focus on the possibility of using the apparatus of modal semantics to identify the relationship between sentential complexes. To those ends, I employ the concepts of model, model structure, and centred world. The latter is a system of functions that correlate language expressions, the language expressions of a text, states of affairs (possible worlds) described by language expressions, and the contexts in which a text occurs. Existence in the worlds of the text correlates with the possibility of description. Presumably, the text is a twofold notion: it refers to a linear sequence of segments and a multidimensional semantic structure. In this work, I demonstrate the possibilities of integrating both approaches. I consider the correlation between the mechanisms of text coherence, on the one hand, and the relationships of transworld accessibility and of the identification of described individuals across possible worlds, on the other. Probably, the variety of cohesion mechanisms does not make it possible to use a single identification mechanism and requires taking into account various competing approaches. I illustrate the above conclusions, using Pushkin’s draft ‘If I were Tsar…’
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