Mode d’existence, modalité et modalisation : les apports de la sémiotique

Abstract

First, in order to cross the points of view of semiotics and of linguistics, we reflect on the different statuses of modality, as they are defined in semiotics (presupposed condition to which a process is subjected, modal device and [passionate] disposition). We then call upon some oppositions dear to linguistics (modality vs. modalizer, conceptual intensity vs. enunciative intensification). In order to clarify the notion of disposition, on the one hand, and the notion of “emotion” or “attitude” (Perrin), on the other hand, we try to go back to the very beginnings of the quest for meaning. Thus, we define an attitude (diathetic) towards the primitive world, characterized by proto-modalities, in relation to modulations. In a second part, we re-examine the notion of modality from the “grammar of existence” according to Souriau. We ask ourselves in what way modality and modalization act on the relations that the instance in search of a modal identity has with the world or with objects of meaning to be established. We try to show that modality and modalization provoke alterations, conjunctions and disjunctions. The impulse towards something comes up against conflictualities. Finally, a reflection on the fictive and fictional dimensions, following Souriau and Latour, leads us to place “fictional overmodalization” — constitutive or constituting — at the basis of the modulation of values and, more broadly, of the enunciative construction of “signifying worlds”.

Keywords

• odulation
• modality
• modalization
• experience
• alterity
• fiction