Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

Due to the presence of such constructions a poetical thesaurus arises where it becomes possible to reconstruct motives on the foundation of such self-described idioms. Such a thesaurus enables comparisons with the present dictionaries of constant epithets and other poetic images. Meanwhile the very confrontation of them detects essential difference between European and Far Eastern traditions that reveals itself particularly in the treatment of details as a kind of nicknames in Japanese that are to be transformed in the proper names. For instance it lacks a kind of short constant or rare epithets in the Japanese in contrast to Russian [Горбачевич., Хабло, 1979]. Instead, the chained constructions propose a detailed description of an object that bears perfectly different sense. It is due to the narrowing of sense in the chained attributives of the kind of engo that the detail becomes depicted as a unique object endowed with the qualities of a proper name. As a consequence one can observe an exclusive role of proper names in Japanese poetic language incomparable to that of occidental tradition.

In this respect the constant presence of the names of localities in Japanese poetry is to be confronted to the existence of chained attributes. One can regard proper names as the limit of approximation of nicknames chosen for things. Thus the proper names being treated as a kind of such limit of description (and of the engo list respectively) reveal those hidden names of things that are presented as the task for riddles. One can say about eidonimic limits of approximation of chained attributive clauses. Within such list of notions one can discern a scale of approximations to a nickname or a proper name. Such scale determines a gradational shift of meaning that enables and explains the idiomatic contents through its circumscription. One chooses unexpected confrontations of details in the manner of occidental juxtaposition that at the same time does not resemble those of rare tropes. It goes about the ability of observing those peculiarities which are not overtly presented in common sense routine and reveal themselves only with the aid of poetic idiolect. Thus the creation of such an idiolect is the prerequisite of the detection of the described peculiarities of the language as such. Japanese experience helps essentially in the comprehension of the nature of interconnections between metonymic shift of meaning in details and their reflection in the proper names of unique phenomena that become poetical symbols. As to the nature of sign one can see that it is not in all languages that minimal necessary units of speech can be codified to make up a lexicon. Incorporated (polysynthetic) languages deal with words-sentences while isolated languages generate occasional composed words.

The deficiency of the dualistic comprehension of language proclaimed in de Saussure’s school consists in the fact that the integral verbal phenomenon is split into different classes, such as paradigmatics vs. syntagmatics (language vs. speech), contents vs. expression (meaning vs. means) or diachrony vs. synchrony. This phenomenon gets an outlook of “hermaphrodite” torn between such polar forces. Inconsistency and impossibility of a consequent implementation of such a formal dualistic approach may be seen in its avoidance in etymology: be it applied literally, then, for example, the question of the valence and attraction of a word, of its co-occurrence ability were to be excluded on the grounds of it belonging to synchrony, so that the problems of the historical development of meaning would be absurdly expelled.

These deficiencies were clearly delineated still in the years of “Chomskian revolution”, and attempts had been undertaken to overcome them. Yu.S. Stepanov in 2-d edition of his “General linguistics” declared four postulates that had to establish alternative to dualistic approach. First of all it must be underlined that instead of equivalence of paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects (or language and speech respectively) the priority has been given to textual side, the paradigmatic system arising as an extreme or a limitation of the stream of speech⁸⁹. Instead of “speech - language” dichotomy the paradigmatic aspect of language is seen as a bulk of virtual (potential) texts. It is here also to add the above mentioned statement that paradigmatic behaves as the outer factor of number vs. noun so that it represents the latently present numeric aspect of language. Paradigm is present as the possibility of virtual transformation (or distortion) of text within its boundaries in particular as the form of the numeric designation of its segments. Thus paradigmatic aspects of language can be conceived as the obligatory numeric epiphenomena of verbal text that are at the same time present within it as its virtual satellite. Moreover paradigm is to be conceived as the alienated revelation of the reflexive properties of text as self-organizing system or as analytical epiphenomenon of text itself. In broader sense paradigm becomes one of the aspects of taxonomy that these textual properties are permanently bringing forth.

The next dualistic statement to be rejected is the principal thesis of the §2 of the 1-st chapter of de Saussure’s treatise “language sign is arbitrary”⁹⁰. This thesis was declared as a negation of motivational aspects of a sign i.e. of any connection between the signifying (sound form) and signified (contents). Especially it was directed against the poetic language where such motivation is a necessary condition for a text’s integrity⁹¹. Instead of arbitrariness of sign as to the relations between its signifying and signified sides (respective between form and contents) the motivational impact has been acknowledged that is exerted with the integrative system of signs as a whole⁹².

The last statement is of special importance for the study of poetic idiolects where additional motivational force appears from artistic conventions both in formal devices (as rhyme) and in contents (motivation of derivative sense). The weakest point of dualistic approach was the statement about the dominance of disrupted relations in language. It goes about the well known statement from §4 of the 4–th chapter of de Saussure’s treatise “there are nothing but differences in language”⁹³. While arguing against de Saussure one could remind Leibniz’s response to Locke’s statement ‘nihil est in intellectu quod nonprrius fuerit in sensu’ where it was added ‘nisi intellectu ipse’. In similar manner one could add to Saussure’s words “but the links between these differences”. This statement was within de Saussure’s system connected with the previous thesis of arbitrariness⁹⁴. As an alternative one could now suggest that there is nothing in language but the transitions⁹⁵. Meanwhile it would be here useful to remind that the questions of motivation and transition bear a trivial outlook within the realm of etymology. It would be impossible to trace the history of a sign without taking into consideration the causes of the changes of its meaning. It would become also absurd to overlook the obvious importance of slightest changes that provide continuous development.

Such reasoning comes to the statement on asymmetry as the universal property of language. Respectively the bilateral concept of verbal sign consists in the acknowledgement of inequality of the above-mentioned oppositions (paradigmatics vs. syntagmatics etc.). One of the reasons for such an asymmetry is of the field nature of all verbal phenomena that is their stratification that suits the “centre – periphery” opposition. In particular, from such a viewpoint paradigmatic phenomena are present within the syntagmatic ones. The principles of bilateral approach were uttered by V.G. Admoni’s statement of the inner dynamics of paradigm that is actually conceived as the inner transformational possibility of text⁹⁶. The prerequisite for such an approach was the famous V.G. Admoni’s doctrine about the musical score as the real simile for verbal speech (further the author, anyhow, refused to continue this bold invention and preferred to speak about “depth” of speech)⁹⁷. To develop these statements one could say of paradigmatic aspect as of a peculiar textual state disclosed with periphrastic transformations that reach the limits of textual distortion. These periphrastic textual variants obviously need special preparatory procedures of texts’ elaboration.

Of an utmost importance is here the statement about the coexistence of absolute (respective paradigmatic) and relative aspects within a separate text presuming the latent presence of each of the aspects within the other⁹⁸. Such properties can be summed up in the statements on the field structure of language’s space with its division into centre and periphery⁹⁹. It is also to remark that just the bilateral approach to sign has gained even much more widened comprehension within the broader concepts of interrelations between a text and its sense so that one obtained grounds to find here the revelation of general asymmetry in its connection with the homological nature of language¹⁰⁰.

In its turn bilateral model always implies triadic approach. The very confrontation of centre vs. periphery entails the revelation of the third integrative power that removes the opposition of central or marginal meanings. In particular the actual division of sentence can’t be regarded as a relative phenomenon arising from subjective circumstances of speech¹⁰¹, so that the potential structure would be overlaid with actual senses without loosing its absolute destination. Any potential structure has the inherent property of ambiguity as it can be seen in a famous example <казнить нельзя помиловать> ‘to execute impossible to pardon’ where it is actual division that determines the meaning. It is ambiguity that makes the actual division indispensable for comprehensibility. Another H. Paul’s example of “Karl arrives in Berlin tomorrow” can answer to different questions that decide on its actuality. It is here accordingly to discern potentialities and actualities always present in each sentence. Of an importance it would be to stress that they never imply pluralistic and relativistic tolerable indifference. The dimension of actuality vs. potentiality can be introduced here as still additional one together with the dimensions of compression vs. expansion or the abstract vs. the concrete. Obviously this dimension has intersections with the others. Potentiality is usually more abstract; in expanded textual structures one finds more favorable conditions for actuality. Nevertheless the dimension of actuality builds quite autonomous aspect of speech generation and comprehension.

Actuality and potentiality of texts are to be conceived as the state of transition and not as something constant and stable. One state can become more actual or potential with regard to the conditions the text was taken. In the sentence “the train has arrived” with the implication “and not the car” becomes still more actual when it follows about the person that has come with this train. In its turn the degree of potentiality grows when it is indifferent whether it goes about car or ship or train. Thus we deal with the same process of permanent transitions from potentialities to actuality and vice versa as we have seen it with compression and expansion. In difference to the opposition of paradigm vs. syntagm the potentiality vs. actuality presupposes the state of transition within the priority of message not only as the coherent text but also the result of communicative intentions.

Meanwhile here still another power comes into play, that of manifestation and latency. The explicitly manifested potential syntactic structure must still be modified with the implied latent data necessary to guess the actual predicate. It is also to suspect whether the dualistic approach were not the particular consequence of the general attitude consistent for certain types of languages where the divergent development wins the prevalent position (entailing thus the “koine vs. dialect” form of opposition) causes the definitive place of paradigmatics. In contrast to it the convergent type of development presumes also the latent type of paradigmatics. In particular it goes about the so called latent grammar that is the property of Chinese language and generally of the languages of isolated and incorporated types (the latter being represented in Japanese as relics). This opposite direction of development in the convergent types of language can be also brought home with such evidences as the role of de-etymologization and abbreviations in the history of the languages of such types. As a consequence the mutability of such languages and their dialectal plurality must have had perfectly different nature in comparison to those arising in result of divergence. In particular the utmost importance of latent implicit and actually absent textual elements have been discovered in the Chinese where the lack of manifestation entails the necessity of taking into account the absent structure to remove interpretative ambiguity¹⁰². Therefore one always must bear in mind the coexistence of the manifested and the implied sides of sign. The explicitly reproducible sign manifested within a code always refers to implicit and latent “possible worlds” to be displayed in a text. Sign can by no mean s be restricted with the observable manifested data that acquire the dualistic outlook.

The very nature of designation depends upon textual conditions. It becomes quite obvious when such simple devices of separation as the multiplied dots are inserted in a text so that its fragments perfectly change their contents. Such isolation breaks the references that connect the separated segment with all the others in a concrete entire message. At the same time such broken references become virtual and oblique or, to say it another, latent & lateral. A text being restored and reintegrated from these segments, the respective referential net gets actuality and becomes explicit. Semantic transitions are caused with the net of references that each separate segment bears as a kind of “aureole” resulted from its “seclusion”. Such a load of references becomes an inseparable and inalienable property of a lexical unit. The reason lies here in the fact that each code as such (non-verbal ones also included) is always involved in the endless process of reflection that constantly generates a whole referential net so that its contents would be determined with all its referential surroundings that a corpus of texts contains.

Each text is loaded with a thorough net of reciprocal references that can be regarded as distant lexical attraction – the so called deixis¹⁰⁴ due to which connections it becomes inseparable unity (in opposite to a mechanical set of sentences). A pattern for such distant correlation is to be found already in rhyme. It is rhyme that can serve as a prototype for all distant lexical attraction and the formation of respective collocations united as textual referential net or deixis. In particular alliteration or inner rhyme can reveal etymological connections or at least simulate them. At the same time it is not only similarity of rhymes but also difference or contrast that behave here as the referential foundation. Another obvious device off referential ties in poetic text are to be found in refrain and other forms of repetition. Deixis is thus to be regarded as a particular case of lexical attraction (with distant separation). Actually each lexical unit of a text is attracted to each other. Therefore it goes only about marked attractions that play decisive role for referential net. Besides, as far as it goes about a pronominal deictic net, it can always be evolved into a system of repetitions. Respectively the poetical device of refrain would then represent textual coherence. The study of textual unity was initiated just with the disclosure of these repetitions so that rhyme & refrain were the first to visualize textual integrity.

The procedures have been elaborated that allow the reconstruction of a text’s semantic net (or relational structure, to use Ye. A. Referovskaya’s term)¹⁰⁵. In its turn, in such schemes the special aspect of the integration of text - “cohesion” or “the chaining” of its elements is reflected ¹⁰⁶. One can stress the distant cohesion of remote textual segments that gains special importance in poetic text¹⁰⁷. Especially it is to underline the importance of distant references¹⁰⁸. One can show special temporal and spatial words as well as the words designating key details that provide distant references¹⁰⁹. It is important that there is a test for the examination of such distant referential ties: one can just exclude (eliminate, omit) the respective words or locutions to prove the existence of such ties. This method of exclusion deserves special attention as the device for textual representation.

Thus it is already the inherent structure of text that entails the overcoming of dualistic relations between its syntagmatic and paradigmatic aspects, the last growing up just from the inner textual connections generated due to permanently active reflection. In particular this “textual paradigmatics” is reflected in the notion of “recurrent lexis” [Москальская, 1981, 19] that is of returning words (or their synonyms) that generate such nets of reciprocal references. It gives an auxiliary though only very superficial and weak device of detecting the repeated words that would seem to become sometimes key words. The indices of recurrence don’t present the importance of words: in opposite to them it is often the rarities that weigh much more. Of significance is the consequence of paradigmatic aspect that becomes inherent in each text and can become manifested due to the depicted net of inner connections. The general notion of referential net has acquired vivid and practicable forms that are also to be used as the devices of textual self-description and in the obtained paradigm as its product. One can say here of the virtual periphrastic transformations contained as the possibilities within each textual entity.

One has to take into consideration such important quality of propositional structures as their finiteness. It is presumed that each proposition must be finite and that the potentially infinite sentence would become possible only within the special structure of language that’s within the so called amorphous languages. Meanwhile there are no languages that would become fully and consequently amorphous¹¹⁰. Vice versa text in opposite to proposition can be regarded as a potentially infinite entity. An essential difference of text from proposition if what F. Daneš has suggested to call its thematic structure (as the generalization of the notion of theme vs. comment from the doctrine on the actual division of sentence). Instead of common syntactic that turn to be insufficient a text needs what can be designated with the means of emphatic stress as the thematic elements analogous to those of musicology. In particular it is to bear in mind that each proposition as an abstract entity presupposes a set of many possible questions [Daneš, 1974, 28] while in text it is an answer to one of them; such virtual questions enable checking its actual division and real thematic structure of a text.

The principal difference of text from proposition or lexical unit is that it can by no means be reduced to paradigmatic reproducible code. Respectively it can’t be the element of a language’s system being regarded as that of speech. Meanwhile it can’t be reduced to syntagmatic phenomena as well. Text lies beyond the boundaries of paradigm vs. syntagm opposition. In particular one can’t submit text to syntagmatic structures: it is textual independence that reveals itself in actual division of sentence contradicting to formal syntax¹¹¹. This contradiction between text and proposition can be exemplified with the very prompt O. Jespersen simile comparing sentences with steps and, respectively, subject and predicate with the posed and lifted legs¹¹². Meanwhile any step can’t be self-sufficient. It always remains only an element of a passage, of a whole movement. Therefore it becomes in particular necessary to oppose to the potential structure of sentence its actual division arising from its textual functional distribution and replacing the initial subjective and predicative meanings of a sentence’s members.

Therefore the