Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

Within the approach of the model Sense – Text one would identify sense with something constant and in particular independent from translations that can be represented in any language. Subsequently one must admit the conjecture on the preexistence of sense in regard to language’s means³¹². Meanwhile such conjecture would demand still stronger hypothesis on the identity of such sense with that which is available within that or this language that would presuppose that the respective information is reproducible and known. It would contradict the initial conjecture of the textual nature of sense and its irreducibility to code. Besides, there are still evidences that sense as such displays its inseparability from interpretative means (and therefore from the set of meanings) as it is attested with the verbs³¹³. Therefore it is to stress the reciprocity of sense and meaning³¹⁴. This reciprocity continues the fundamental antinomy of language as far as meanings are regarded as the reproducible elements of code in opposite to sense associated with textual entirety. It gives grounds to describe sense also as intertextual invariant³¹⁵. Meanwhile being irreducible to the reproducible code’s elements sense can be reproduced as a problem and not as the cognitive result, as a task, and not as the solution! Such problem referring to the unexplored object can be described with attributive elements without designating objects. Sense is not only invariant (of translations or synonymous substitutions); it is problem to be explored and described with the elements of attributive space.

Moreover the conjecture on the invariant that would be the foundation of sense can be refuted with the possible variability of representations of the same semantic invariant taken for sense’s source³¹⁶. As to the interpretability of translations, one can say not of an invariant’s identity but only of the degree of intertextual equivalence³¹⁷. Still more it is to be seen in synonyms that aren’t identical though display equivalence in some relations³¹⁸. Therefore it is the attributive features’ space and not the sense as such that determines the contents. Instead of invariant one should say of the problem representing the area of ambiguity to be explored but not still known. And in its turn this problem involves attributive approach necessary for its exploration. Of importance is that attributive approach enables conceiving the meanings (as opposed to senses) within the broader functional conception so that they become a particular case of functional destinations³¹⁹. Moreover it is functional destination that removes the dualistic split of sense and meaning because it mediates their relations³²⁰. Obviously functional approach gives reasons for confronting sense and meaning with the inner and outer forms. It is the concept of connotation that meets the demands of functional attributive approach in particular due to its attachment to poetic idiolect³²¹. It is connotations that display the derivational potential of meanings and thus refute the conjecture on the occasional nature of sense ensuing from the textual priority.

It would be also appropriately to mention that sense (signification) correlates with text in opposite to meaning (as the property of an extract separated from a text and its textual references). It is here to stress that the textual priority determines the sense as opposed to meaning extracted and abstracted from textual conditions. This priority aids in solving the contradiction between the known system of meanings and the previously unknown contents of message³²². Then it is only message where static abstractions of meanings generate deeper sense as the derivative semantic load of textual entity disclosed due to interpretative efforts generating this load³²³. It is to be stressed additionally that such efforts are already given in a text as its inherent latent possibilities revealed through subjectively represented intentions.

Then the object is to be looked for and probably found through the partitive description that gives hints to implicit contents. There appear numerous connotative layers of contents that give aid in efforts to reconstruct the object. It is the question of these connotations generated with the denotations’ implications that arise from the attributes referred to this object. For instance <the stormy sea> is by no means an attribute of weather while it implies numerous connotations. The signification contains here an entire image that is still to be referred to an object, be it weather or mental situation. Another example of terminological nature can be cited from the discussion of psychologists where the locution <«мысленная возня» ‘mental fuss’> (Павловские клинические среды, 05.12.1934) had been used: it is obvious that it goes here about a certain mental disorder and at the same time the contents of this locution can’t be reduced to terminological description. In particular it contains an allusion referring to a famous expression <«растекаться мыслью по древу» (to pour oneself around tree with a thought)> (from “The Song of the Igor’s Campaign”) the more that here the paronymic substitution took place (so that the usual locution «мышиная возня» is here referred to). And at last one can cite such a passage from fine literature where it is absolutely impossible to understand something without references to the latent and implied contents: <«А вот беда, как ни каторги, ни припеваючи, - ничего в волнах не видно» ‘And it is misfortune when one sees neither penal drudgery nor prosperity – there is nothing to observe among the waves’> (Салтыков-Щедрин, За рубежом, 4). To return to the image of “stormy sea” one can add here that the sense of the quotation remains absolutely beyond the comprehensibility without references to the connotations.

The problematic and communicative core of sense entails also its limitability as its immanent property³²⁴. Sense is conceived as something transcendental³²⁵ in opposite to ordinary meaning that doesn’t need such passage towards the brim of comprehensibility. Therefore it manifests the transition from nothing to something that takes place in the act of communion and has the necessary consequence of ubiquitous equivocal (Boetius’ term), ambiguous contents³²⁶. The contents are much richer than the mentioned attributes: this richness is caused not with the diversity of relative subjective viewpoints but with the constant presence of unknown, of something enigmatic, of questions and problems. For instance the contents of the word do not refer to the known quality of a or only, it implies also something unknown, quality together with a or as antonyms. It is already the existence of something contradictory, of such alternative names (of antonyms) that makes each implied attribute incomplete and makes an interpreter of a textual locution to look for further attributive components and to circumscribe the problematic core of the locution more precisely. When attributes remain abstract it is the object that contains questions and puzzles. With this regard it is here to remark that a widely accepted identification of deeper sense with something conceptualized contradicts to the presence of the unknown in the contents because notions and concepts represent already the achieved results of explorative efforts and preclude therefore those enigmatic elements³²⁷. Thus one has to identify sense as the transcendental core of contents with problems to be explored and not with the intermediary achievements of the potentially infinite process of exploration. To sum up one may say that problems belong to the contents of an object together with its attributes.

It is here to observe that the opposition of denotation vs. signification reproduces the statements known from logic. Here the thing vs. property’s (or the object vs. attribute’s) relationship plays the decisive role. One discerns accordingly in the contents of a notion its volume (extension) and intentional centre or core of attributes³²⁸. Of importance is here to stress that notion designates and represents attributes of an object and never object itself. Respectively such general intentional attributes remain always abstract in opposite to concrete contents of an object with its manifold details so that it goes here about the isolating abstraction and not about the generalizing one³²⁹ (as the nominalists once happened to insist upon). While remaining within the scope of the explicitly mentioned attributes one enriches them with the latent attributes that are implied with the notion’s contents and don’t represent themselves explicitly³³⁰. The existence of such latent and implicit attributes can easily be seen in semantic contradictions inherent for some tropes of paradoxical and/or absurd kind (irony, oxymoron or catachresis)³³¹. Meanwhile together with the latency of implicit contents there must be taken in consideration the presence of problematic contents that designates the unknown or the ignored. In this respect notions can be represented only as the limitation’s layer of images that always contain problems, as the surface of images’ depth. The last circumstance enables also the inverse approach towards denotation vs. signification’s problem: the transition from denotation towards signification seems to be provided with deepening their division in the exploration of the details. It is here to discern such approach from the known devices of amplification that’s of the transition from general to more special meanings as the way of textual generation. Respectively it won’t go here about the generalities vs. particulars opposition. It is the integrity of the whole and not the abstract generalizations that are meant here. Instead of the transition from generalities to particulars in the manner of exemplifying amplification one would rather suggest the devices of periphrastic description of a problem.

Generally the relationship integrity vs. particularity looks out as a more fundamental one than that of thing (object) vs. property (attribute) because property is always particular in relation to object as a whole. It introduces into play together with object vs. attribute also the entirety vs. partiality opposition. The partiality widens the scope of latent implicit contents’ components so that the problematic items would be included. It is the details that substantiate the idea of cryptotype suggested by B. Wharf as the generalization of inner form³³². In its turn it is the inner form that enables the unification of sense (signification) vs. meaning (denotation) opposition so that the meaning becomes its terminal and minimal component³³³. Thus partitive and detailed designation refer to “latent contents” (and “latent intention” accordingly) inherent to inner form. The inner form as the representation of problematic and enigmatic load of a word and of a text has become that point where etymology and poetics meet and converge. Then instead of dualistic denotation vs. signification couple another model comes where the meaning or denotation represents only the upper layer, the surface that conceals numerous deeper layers of contents. There reveals itself behind the denotative surface the whole net of interlaced semantic connections showing the unexplored problems that the details refer to. We have already seen that here the connotation vs. denotation enables the exploration of these deep contents. While referring to particulars the connotations play the role of semantic increments. Due to their accumulation the image arises that stands under the denotation’s surface. In this respect it is worth recalling A.A. Potebnya’s concept of “the increments of the meaning” retained and accumulated in the inner form. A word being assimilated from a colloquial language to a poetical idiolect the question arises as to its “faculty” to memorize the results of semantic derivative processes it had been submitted to.

One can consider such transition between the stratified layers of contents as that from inner to outer form. Direct meanings would then build up the surface encircling the cryptotype of derivative potential. Apparently the signifiers would be taken as the continuation of outer form’s development where the direct meanings as the vehicles for derivation in its turn would give rise to their vehicles of signifiers. Besides, the outer form being a reproducible substance, it appertains to the paradigmatic aspect of language. Outer form (in opposite to the inner one) represents reducible residuum that can be repeated & reproduced and therefore becomes an intertextual mediating medium. In particular etymons being reproducible reconstructed forms can be regarded as the ultimate limit of the developmental transition from inner to outer form involving the means of signifiers. The reducible residuum is an indispensable element of any phenomenological reduction as the vehicle of interpretative identification. Then codification can be said to arise from the necessity of identification as based upon the demands of reproducibility. Thus the inner form is to be seen as the derivative potential included in a word’s contents and, consequently, as the foundation for cryptotype (signification and sense as opposed to meaning) revealing with the transition to outer form. Thus one deals not with the dualistic opposition of sense vs. meaning (signification vs. denotation) but with the stratification of different layers of contents over the problematic core of a message. It is the thorough stratificational approach that enables to unite both connotations of contents and actualities of textual tectonics.

This approach would be convenient to the above delineated viewpoint on the relationship between inner and outer form. Then sense and meaning are to be conceived as only a pair of multiple layers that constitute verbal contents. Especially visible examples are here to found in allegories. Meanwhile there are quite habitual phrases where one can detect the layers otherwise proper for premeditated allegories. As an example one can take H. James’ “The Golden Bowl” where chapter 10 begins with the statement: “To talk of it thus appeared at last a positive relief to him”. Let alone the references to the preceding events that complicate contents the sentence is built as an allusion to the Latin proverb “dixi et animam levavi” (I’ve said and relieved my soul). This image in its turn is of Bible origin (Jezek., 33.9). Therefore there are much more layers in the contents that those fit to be reduced to a simple sense vs. meaning opposition.

Such approach seems to be persuasive while one encounters the broad experience of the formation of the dictionary based upon the partitive designation and connotations. It goes about the Chinese characters where the determinants (the so called keys) show the participation of a sign in the designated semantic field. The system of determinants that designate the particular details presents the development of signification in the way of combinatorial scheme of the penetration in the deeper layers of contents. The last example allows us come to conclusion on the importance of combinatorial properties of lexical units for the determination of connotative contents. In particular it goes about mutual compatibility of lexical units that has had already to be seen as the decisive argument against the opposition of free and fixed collocations. It was the textual priority that determines the compatibility of words that is not their constant property. This gives decisive argument against atomic approach to semantics. It is due to the dependence of compatibility (and subsequently of connotations) upon textual conditions that “in different conditions the same word combination may either have shared semantic components or to be devoid of them” [Solntsev, 232].

As the consequence the attempts of component analysis of semantics turn out to become fruitless: “It is impossible to analyze meanings into objectively existing constituents” [Solntsev, 289, note 94] the contents being textually conditioned, one would add here. Accordingly it is due to the unknown and indefinite places, the ignota that stand as a task for future cognition and can’t be described in the actual moment of the history of language each attempt to reduce the contents to a sum of elementary components must be rejected as unrealizable. There always can appear the unknown rest, the “residuum ignotum” of contents that would refute all the constructions of the component analysis. This constant presence of irreducible and inexhaustible rest can be best demonstrated in the history of etymons that represent the signification that seemed primarily to be a simple name. Each etymon generates such derivative meanings that couldn’t be suspected to belong to its primary contents. Thus, for instance, wrist and war come back to the same etymon with the root *uer that designates “rotation, rotational movement, to rotate”; another sample of the kind may be attested with yeast and gear, garb that also presuppose the common root *ies “to boil, to seethe”; both meat and mate come back to *ma:d “to be wet”. All such concepts designated with these roots contain the unexplored parts that have been discovered in their etymological development and have generated the amazing and surprising derivative meanings. These meanings are already present in a root as a plant is present in its grain. That is why the conjecture of H.-G. Greimas as to the existence of semantic “atoms” (the so called sems or “differential elements” of semantics [Греймас, 2004, 31]) that would cover contents seems to be originated just from the ignorance of such unexplored possibilities³³⁴. Moreover, as the author overtly confesses, it is a usual definition that meets the demands of such description of a word’s contents so that as a pattern here serves “definition of a word in a crossword” (underlined by I. Y.-R.) [Греймас, 2004, 106]. Then only a rhetorical question remains: what all poetical efforts, explorations and discoveries of a word are devoted to? Moreover, such approach is absolutely unfit for etymological researches where separate components can’t satisfactorily represent the development of a word’s contents³³⁵.

The incoherence of “atomic” approach towards language signification can be demonstrated also with the fact that elementary qualities would be inapplicable for the semantics of narratives. One can’t attribute such qualities to lexical units, and quite similar it can be said concerning that of the motifs of a tale, a novel or a drama where any idiom can be developed and unfolded to the scopes of a monumental work, thus becoming the designation of a plot (already in its title). The very designation of a way or a road can become a germ of an itinerary as a narrative genre. At the same time the same idiom’s designation can even not be mentioned within the context and reduced to mere hints of oblique circumstances indicating to it (for example, the carriage being mentioned instead of a highway as a partitive designation concerning the way).

At last the partitive designation as the means of connotative increments of contents are to be correlated with the fundamental sources of verbal activity as such. It is due to partitive designation that circumlocutions can be said to be rooted in such a fundamental principle of verbal signs as that of interdiction and negation (in particular connected with the above discussed cases of taboo or veto). Here participation as the principle of primitive mode of action is to be mentioned. While combining various lexical units to designate various details of an implied object the periphrastic description refers to something unknown and mysterious. In other words such circumscriptions represent riddles and puzzles, problems to be solved and not the ready information. As a result the process of interpretation is here being initiated as well as the process of derivation and generation of new senses. For instance perhaps as a general or partial negation of abstract notions with antonyms the idea of death may be conceived that is designated as the derivative from the act of grinding and milling as Lat. morior = Ukr. вмирати from mordere “to bite, to tear, to rend”.

The connotations as semantic increments of meaning creating the essence of sense as opposed to meaning, it gives grounds to compare it to the relationship of semantic contents as such towards syntactic categories. This relationship is usually supposed to be based upon the chain of restrictions that these categories acquire. Meanwhile it is to notice here that it does by no means go about the passage from generalities to special and particular meanings. There exist well known arguments demonstrating the seemingly independent state of syntax in regard to semantics. One can remind such samples as L. Carrol’s verse “ ‘T was brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; …” [Carroll, 2006. 187] or that of L. V. Shcherba (Глокая куздра штеко бодлануло бокра и кудрячит бокренка): semantic motivation pretends here to be lost whereas the syntactic correctness is regarded as retained. Meanwhile such conclusion seems to be too precocious: it would suffice Humpty Dumpty’s explanations: “Brillig means four o’clock in the afternoon – the time when you begin broiling things for dinner … slithy means lithe and slimy. Lithe is the same as active. You see it as a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed onto one word …”. One could add still one of the newest examples of such verbal portmanteau that is to be found in glamour built of glance and amour. Otherwise one would deal with a kind of futurists’ novelties or with glossolalia. Moreover one could remind onomatopoetic words in Japanese used to build enigmatic locutions with indefinite meaning. Here the general regularity is to be seen that collocation can’t exist without any definite colligation. One can admit the variability of syntactic representations of semantic contents (say, идти - хождение) but the appearance of “pure” semantics without syntactic shape would be out of question.

The cited arguments would also become inapplicable towards the situation in Chinese or Japanese. The general reason ensues from the mentioned effect of the application of consequent negations towards the contents designated with categories. To contrive a noun for the newly discovered thing, to designate the results of exploration one must always use the existent previous experience and the present general ideas and abstractions without necessarily passing from them to something concrete and special. One signifies the newly explored objects with applying general names and preexistent abstractions to them. Such interpolation of the experience over the space of particulars becomes evident in the fact that such designation must belong to the already existent syntactic grammatical categories and be included in the respective class. Therefore in diachronic perspective the process of