‘What can be described can happen too…’: describing text semantics as a model structure of transworld relationships

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…’

Keywords

• text semantics
• semantic coherence
• semantics of possible worlds
• saul krip-ke
• ‘if i were tsar...’ by pushkin