The Semiotics of Smoothness

Abstract

This study presented here is, in the first place, an application and an attempt to verify the hypothesis of tensive schematism. This hypothesis rests on the idea that it is possible to be aware of meaning, in this case lexical, in terms of a formula almost in the chemical sense of the word; that associates magnitudes (here called “valence”) of intensity in some cases and extensity in others. These magnitudes are able to be analyzed in terms of tempo and tonicity for intensity and temporality and spatiality for extensity. Due to the predominance of intensity, or rather, affect, the nucleus of a meaning shows itself as being (in comparison with the analysis of anger carried out by Greimas) more prosodic than narrative. In these conditions one of the tasks of semiotics consists of having narrative grammar, considered the definitive achievement (Hjelmslev), “coexist” with a prosodic grammar in the process of constitution.