Frame structures in cognitive-semantic organization of narrative

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of participation of frame structures in cognitive-semantic organization of narrative in fiction. The goal of the article is to describe the principles of syntagmatic organization of frames that are actualized in the text of fiction by means of syntactic structures that correspond to them. The authors conducted the research using the methods of cognitive-semantic and structural-syntactic analysis. As a result it was determined that the syntagmatics of plot frames presupposes two main ways of their being composed in the text of fiction: (1) as a composed sequence of terminal subframes of the same level as a part of a superframe (chapter); (2) as a composed sequence of independent frames (without the unifying superframe). The language structures that actualize the plot frames are composed in a non-linear fashion, so alterations and recursive schemes of actualization are possible. During this research stage we did not identify the development of the plot in the form of actualization from the plot frame to its subframe. A plot frame typically has no more than one subordinated subframe or independent frame. In other words, in most cases we deal with the first-order subordination. First terms, core propositions and macropropositions, as well as circonstances of place and time serve as the channels of transition between plot frames. The channels of transition from a plot frame to a subframe are first terms, circonstances of place and time, and the structure of the frame itself in case we deal with a subframe that is the terminal subframe of a plot frame