A Two-Step Representation of Text Sentences in a Semiotic-Textological Framework

Abstract

In the dissertation an attempt is made to outline a method whose application makes it possible to create an explicit description of text sentences which may also be used for text analysis. Consequently, my purpose is to introduce a representational model with a theoretical framework and an apparatus of description on which a complex analysis of texts could be based. A theoretical background for the analysis of text sentences has been set up with regard to the theories, methods, results and deficiencies of different schools of descriptive grammar. To make up the series of hierarchic steps that represent text sentences, specific text sentences have been analysed. The model is designed to ensure that any reasonable interpretation could be explicitly represented.

In my view the explicit l i n g u i s t i c description of a text should be concerned with l a n g u a g e - o r i e n t e d factors that texts are given coherence by, namely: 1) co-referentiality, 2) the linear order of constituents forming text sentences and the order of sentences in the text, 3) how each sentence of the text satisfies the conditions determining its structure in the given locus and/or situation of communication. (This latter factor implies the analysis and description of text grammar phenomena such as agreement, ellipsis, pronominalisation, order of constituents.)

Explicit linguistic description does not mean that the disclosure of factors to be described can be carried out with purely linguistic means. What is also needed is a broader theoretical framework which stipulates knowledge of textology beyond the limits of linguistic analysis and a general knowledge of the external world.

The aspects of text analysis listed above show that a linguistically based description of texts aiming at maximum explicitness should necessarily rely on the explicit representation of the immediate constituents of the text: text sentences. The explicit description of individual text sentences, however, appears to be impossible without the consideration of the text-level (linguistic and non-linguistic) phenomena creating their co-/context and thereby determining their actual formation and logical (linguistic)-semantic and prosodic structure. It follows from this that a potentially explicit description of text sentences requires a knowledge of both text linguistics and system linguistics, as text sentences can be best characterized if related to the corresponding system sentences. The correspondences and differences in the patterning of text and system sentences can be explained with reference to the given co- and/or context.

Chapter Four contains the representational model created for the description of text sentences. Chapter One is a general survey of the antecedents and sources of textlinguistics. Chapter Two is concerned with the relation between text and sentence. In Chapter Three grammars applicable to the description of text sentences are treated with regard to their contribution to the explicitness of sentence analysis. The description of the model is followed by an overview of questions emerging in connection with the representation of text sentences and tasks to be solved.