Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

This productivity can be substantiated with the well known thoughts of A.M. Peshkovski concerning the contradiction between the material and formal meanings of a verb¹⁹². Consequently one can say of the contradiction between nominative and predicative functions that becomes the propellant force for semantic derivation: in particular each verb already presumes the opportunities for personification¹⁹³. In particular such semantic transitions are provoked due to confrontation of actual syntactic connections designated with predication and paradigmatic relations so that it is predicative structure that initiates the derivative process as a kind of transformative procedure¹⁹⁴.

The priority of verbs in relation to substantives becomes especially obvious in idioms. The verbal side of word stuff contains also the denominative formations together with genuine “names of action”. This phenomenon of conversion promotes the chaining effect of predicates that enables the combination of designations participated in the regarded situation and thus supplying means for partitive denomination. For instance such Ukrainian denominatives as <випростатися> ‘to stand erect, to straighten’ (from <простий> ‘direct’) or <відсторонитися> ‘to keep (oneself) aside’ (from <сторонній> ‘side (ward)’) generate very narrow and specialized meanings apt for the designation of partial details of human conduct. In its turn it is “the original sin” of substantives to be able to become proper names and thus to lose the capacity of translation and generalization as well as to build abstract names from collective designations. Abstract names can be regarded in this respect as the limitative phenomena in comparison to the collective ones thus representing limitability as the general property of lexical units. Proper names as the polar opposites of the abstract ones in particular resemble abbreviations as they behave in the same manner and easily become titles for designation of the sections or chapters of narrative. The leading role of verbs in comparison to substantives in the formation of idioms is also connected with their weight as the mediating links in the folding of a narrative within an aphorism. When a name as a title can only designate a plot referring to the meant experience at hand for the respective community it is another situation with the verbs. The referential net of a verb is free from such preliminary conditions as the experience. Verb itself includes a whole bunch of implied possible plots as possible worlds it participates in. The expansion of a verb with completive circumstances demonstrates just the process of its development to the scope of a narrative enunciating the folded plot. Moreover the very conversion as the formation of denominative verbs attests the necessity of such device of folding contents in a single word. The mission of words is just to create and supply a satisfactory referential net for a fold. In its turn predicates in this fold are to be conceived as expanded and grown up so that predicative relations imply completive elements. Verbs presume their expansion, and it is completion that provides the necessary conditions.

Another step in the development of such approach is connected with the folklore studies, in particular with the methods of the so called “associative rows” suggested and examined by S.G. Lasutin and Ye.B. Artemenko. Such rows are built especially of the verbs that render the sequence of the events presented in a narrative. There were attempts of building a classificatory scheme of such verbs’ tows in lyric songs directed to finding out such typical semantic groups as verba movendi (go, come), causative movements (bear, bring), verba sentiendi (see) etc. [Артеменко, 1988, 28-33]. It is essential that such rows presume distant relations between elements of text that are disjointed with other lexical units. It is the circumstance that suits just the references connecting these verbal elements of a text and allows elucidate the referential net of the text. Verbal “associative row” or “verbal plot” provide the coherence and unity of a text even when it lacks an explicit hypotaxis and subordinate clauses¹⁹⁵. Such implicit hypotaxis’ existence is noticed also by V.M. Istrin who discovered the respective traces in the mediaeval translations from the Greek. One often encounters the spread opinion as to the absolute dominance of paratactic constructions of coordination in comparison to hypotactic constructions of subordination and complex sentences in folklore. Meanwhile V.M. Istrin had already cast doubt on the validity of such viewpoint. The conjecture as to the priority of coordinative paratactic structures according to his researches did not agree with the practice of mediaeval translations¹⁹⁶. It is together with zeugma, comparison, parallel constructions, enumerations and other linear listing structures that the coordinative paratactic constructions play role as the means for self-descriptive procedures whereas the transition from such listing code to text is determined with the syntactic perspective that presumes subordination of nodal structures of hypotaxis. The last reservation is of a special importance because it brings the conclusion that these distant verbal chains are not to be reduced to simple listing structures or enumerations. Such a chain renders ramified and reciprocal interdependences that create the basis of a textual unity with its nets and nods of reciprocal references. A widely used rhetoric figure of zeugma can be said to generalize structures including compound sentences (parataxis) and homogeneous members of a sentence together with gradations and enumerations and, besides, admitting the subordination of the row of clauses to a broader ruling structure. The parallel structures of ramification (such as Gr. anaphora, epiphora and their combination in symploke) comprise it as well as refrain in opposite to chained structures of concatenation.

A very persuasive device of textual integration based on verbal relations demonstrates the so called taxis i.e. the referential chain of predicates mutually interdependent. The generalized notion of taxis as that containing both paratactic and hypotactic constructions has been introduced by R. Jacobson¹⁹⁷. Such a row of predicates connected with distant mutual relations compressed into coherent text betrays the existence of the connections deeper than mere confrontation. They are to be conceived subsequently as the vestiges of latent subordinate interdependences, so that it would become preferable to say of subordinate clauses instead of autonomous propositions or sentences. Meanwhile A.M. Peshkovski has once introduced the notion of “complex entirety” to replace both compound and complex sentences¹⁹⁸. In its turn the subordination having gained priority (due to its irreversibility), it gives impetus to the development of syntactic perspective within such complex entirety. The essence of predication (its being irreducible to the intersection of classes) is field structure imparted to proposition and expanded over the whole taxis. At the same time predicative structures as the background of textual integrity cannot satisfy the demands of purely linguistic approach as the very concept of predicate lies beyond language itself and brings alien logical structures within the verbal realm¹⁹⁹. It has given grounds to L.Tesniere to suggest the idea of verbal node instead of predicative structure to represent the textual organization as integral entirety²⁰⁰. Obviously such nodes consist of completive elements (or actants as L.Tesniere calls them). Accordingly the general schemes of more broadly conceived ruling textual structure instead of predicative relations of logic are introduced to represent textual integration. Thus text becomes conceived as the self-organizing structure.

The concepts of node and taxis in its turn continue the earlier elaborated concept of nexus as the antonym to junction developed by O. Jespersen. The idea of the opposition nexus vs. junction comes from the known fact of the loss of aspectual information ensuing from the substantive transformations as in <the dog barks furiously (in the present moment) → a furiously barking dog (taken in abstraction from the time)>. Therefore junction as attached usually to such substantive metamorphoses in spite of the subordination that is common with predicative relations represents the “expansion” of the initial word with the added attributes and can be replaced with another name (in particular it itself can be regarded as a complex word)²⁰¹. In opposite to junction nexus presupposes the discernibleness and division of the both notions and retain the aspectual parameters of their relation as it can be exemplified with the inequality of the sentences: <The blue dress is the oldest ≠ The oldest dress is blue; A dancing woman charms ≠ A charming woman dances>²⁰². It is of a significance that nexus is possible also without verbs with the substantive style as in the sample of P.B. Shelley: What a beastly and pitiful wretch this Wordsworth!²⁰³. Still more significant is that nexus comprises the completive relations disclosing their inequalities (as in <I found the cage empty ≠ I found the empty cage>) entailing the rise of special deverbative derivations (arrival etc.)²⁰⁴.

Meanwhile this predicative asymmetry can’t restrict textual developmental opportunities. It is to remind here of such fundamental textual property as incompleteness. Each text can be supplemented with further continuation. As far as propositions become textual elements they also acquire this property of incompleteness. Respectively an alternative to the discussed procedure of amplification based on the expansion of initial closed propositional structure can be suggested. It goes about the possibility of the existence of such collocations and colligations that would occupy the intermediary space between lexical unit and sentence. The existence of such intermediary lexical combinations taken for incomplete propositional structures can be proved with the opportunities of pronominal substitution (as in <The present king of England is more popular than the last one> vs. <*The king of England defeated the one of Spain> where only the combination ‘King of England’ can be replaced with pronoun but not a single word)²⁰⁵. Such lexical combinations being conceived as incomplete sentences, lexical units in its turn become members of series admissible with their compatibility as the evolvement of lexical attraction²⁰⁶. The importance of this intermediary level of incomplete sentences or expanded lexical units consists in their capability to serve for such alternative device replacing amplification as periphrastic description or circumlocution (circumscription). Following to Ch. Bally we can trace the initial step for periphrastic transformation in antonymous and synonymous replacements disclosing the chain of partial negations²⁰⁷. Further the supplementing is recommended that differs perfectly from amplification²⁰⁸. These textual transformations with the aid of lexical combinations as unfinished sentences turn out to be resonant with textual incompleteness and adaptable for the representation of the invariant that can’t be manifested otherwise as through its latent possibility.

In its turn the problem arises as to the status and perspective of such unfinished sentences that would equate to expanded lexical units and acquire an outlook of composed words (already noticed previously). This problem has already been touched above. It goes about such attributive clauses as <don’t-touch-me-or-I’ll-kill-you> or <hey-what’s-going-on>. Such phrases are confronted with poetic inventions (known both in ancient Indo-European composed words and in the works of, say, M. Heidegger) and esteemed as a perspective for the development of such language of isolated type as English into incorporative direction²⁰⁹ that entails the question on the universal nature of attributive clauses of the kind. The very fact that such locutions are selected for newspapers’ advertisements and articles’ titles attests their convenience for the tasks of summarizing textual contents. It is of special interest that even usual composed words are often mixed with fixed locutions so that such specimen as <stone wall> in English oscillates between lexical unit and locution as an unfinished sentence²¹⁰.

One can easily recognize here the features of incorporation & isolation revived and involved as actuality within the framework of modern languages. Textual priority provides thus the possibility of reproducing the archaic traces improper for language as a whole so that within textual space the properties are developed otherwise alien to language²¹¹. The problem of composed words involves that of the relationship between word & sentence as necessary & sufficient conditions of textual generation. It is just the absence of this principal confrontation that incorporated lexical-syntactic complexes display²¹². This problem attracts attention to the fact that the very demarcation between the speech - levels of words & sentences is not immovable. Each word easily can become a sentence²¹³. It enables introducing the concept of the so called “downgraded units” derived at a higher level: “A word may be regarded as the minimal sentence whose other parts are of zero” [Solntsev, 1983, 49]. Examples can be taken in indices where each name implies actually existential sentence asserting the presence of the denoted subject²¹⁴. Then composed words have still more grounds to be regarded as those occupying intermediary place. Of a special importance it would be here to remind that composed words-sentences reviving incorporated type of language are to be represented with binary word combinations as V.M. Alpatov has stressed²¹⁵. Then at minimal level textual integration can look like a chain of bifurcations combining lexical units through their reciprocal partial negations. Lexical repulsion instead of attraction can be said to gain primordial role in building up a textual entity.

To sum up the problem of composed words one ought here to bear in mind the mobility of demarcation between the maximal and minimal textual units represented with sentences and words respectively. That is why the mentioned “downgraded units” are to be conceived as unfinished sentences whereas there exists also an alternative approach of conceiving them as the growing words (or word expansions, to use V. V. Vinogradov’s term)²¹⁶. The same approach was suggested still by Ye.V. Krotevych. He had developed it in particular in regard to homogeneous members of sentence still in the 1950s²¹⁷. This statement on lexical priority has been supported in regard to free collocations by V.I. Terkulov²¹⁸. Together with lexical combinations there can be detected a special kind of the so called “consociations” or the joint presence of words within the same text²¹⁹ (without building up any kind of obligatory fixed combinations) that betray the decisive role of textual conditions. The analysis of such phenomena enables disclosing the regularities of the development of such relations between lexical units that become divided into the dominant and the satellite: for instance, the regular presence within text of some German adjectives has been discovered²²⁰. Of a special importance is the very fact of the presence of such lexical couples within text without definite ties between them and only with possible admissible distant references. It means that a special kind of relations appears irreducible to those of proposition or to any kind of collocations & colligations. Thus the intermediary level gets developed between the extremities of the minimal necessary lexical and maximal sufficient propositional ones. It is in this space that the transformational procedures take place.

At last to return again to transformational problems it would be appropriate to remind that it is posing questions to text that would be the simplest of the transformational procedures though it has not been taken into account in generative - transformational approach. The very ambiguity of questions that are unavoidably generated with each statement is by far the best refutation against the attempts of conceiving the deep structure on the way of preexistence. Together with inferential openness and incompleteness it is the property of generating infinitely many questions that determines textual integration. A concatenation of ambiguous bifurcations would then represent textual entirety. To sum up one ought to stress that it is by no means some “kernel” sentence that transformations are subdued to. Deep structure is a problem to be explored and not a ready “mental construction” therefore its invariants are made up and revealed together with textual generation. The property of textual transformability continues homology as the essence of language. It is incomplete similarity instead of precise isomorphism that enables transforming textual data in covariants encircling the deeper problems with their functional invariants. Transformations are by no means identical; they can be taken for equal only in respect to some functions. It is textual productive capacity that is evolved in derivative textual versions obtained as transformative covariants. It is homology and heterogeneity that give rise to transformations and therefore it can’t go about some beforehand known textual “nucleus”. Vice versa the relative equality of transformative covariants is based upon their partial functions. Textual integration is caused with problems to be explored represented through functions, and it is these problems that bring forth diverse textual periphrastic versions.

In its turn the very existence of such connection between the meaning of a locution and its allocation within the textual tissue discloses the interdependence of moment & motivation. Momentous word is at the same time the nod of motivational net that ties contents of textual locutions together. The mentioned phenomena of textual cohesion with its deictic and referential interconnections reveal motivational interrelations of textual segments. It is also to bear in mind that it can lack motivational manifestation and, as the result, the textual array appears to look like spontaneous sequence. Meanwhile in this case one can suspect a latent deixis making up the background for such spontaneity. The presence of such latent deixis can be attested with the cases when the inner interconnection between the fixed place and the meaning of locution comes to the retention of motivational vestiges in this locution being isolated. That it takes place can be demonstrated with the meaning of catchwords that bear such vestiges while used separated from the primary context. The fact of comprehensibility of such expressions is possible only when there is the background experience enabling them to be realized. Therefore the referential net (deixis) is of a much more general nature than that of motivation ans comprises also the cases of spontaneity as the “zero level” of reference.

In particular one can say of marginal (initial or terminal) and medial position (moment) of the utterance as the prerequisite for the motivation of its contents. Thus the i:m:t-formula arises that is well acquainted both to musicologists and to sinologists. Logically interpreted this formula represents the inferential relations that are to be made up between antecedent & consequent together with the medial term when syllogisms are concerned. Then the asymmetry is to be revealed in textual structure though it is not that of a field structure but of anisotropy. The property of anisotropy (asymmetry, irretrievability) is to be taken for the decisive in explaining textual integration while seen as an inner transformation of a code. Respectively together with the mentioned pair of moment & motivation one should say of a much more general pair of reference & position.

Subsequently it gives grounds to come to the conclusion on the priority of hypotactic structure as the representation of such asymmetry instead of field structure of center. These ideas developed by A.M. Peshkovski²²² prove to become productive for the tasks of conceiving textual integration’s differences from those of propositional integration. It is the priority of heterogeneity that enables conceiving textual entirety. In particular enumerations and homogeneous members (together with parataxis) as the linear listing structures of code take the peripheral place in opposite to nodal subordinate structures. Predication then can be generalized as the central position of a text as opposed to marginal positions²²³.

Anisotropy demonstrates the radical difference of text from a set of propositional transformed variants that can be conceived in terms of message where actualities appear irreducible to syntactic properties of a sum of such variants. It is specific textual integration that affords conceiving such syntactic properties as potential in opposite to those arising within a text as actual. The concept of the actual division of sentence (as opposed to potentiality) generalizes the old rhetoric notions of