Remembering definitions.

Abstract

Dictionaries, just as any other discourse, are susceptible to a semiotic analysis. In this article, we analyze the entries memoria, recordar, acordarse, olvidar and olvido in María Moliner's Diccionario de uso del español in order to examine their coherence and identify some of the characteristic semantic traits. This description permits us to layout the existence of an underlying narrative structure that articulates memorization, memory and forgetting. The abovementioned structure is then analyzed as an aspectual linking of types of events that emphasize the system of expectations that underlie memory, the tensions that lead as much to memory as forgetting.