Semiotics and Language, An Analytical Dictionary by A.J. Greimas and J. Courtés, translated by Larry Crist and Daniel Patte, and others (review)

Book Reviews253 focuses on the non-cognate verbal roots for reasons of semantic load. The explanations are satisfyingly complete, even to the linguistically oriented instructor. The balance of synchronic and diachronic aspects in these explanations is very interesting, as, for example, when a third-person-plural desinence -nt in the generative derivation of the Russian verb is related to other modern European reflexes of the original Indo-European desinence. This sort of exemplification by relation to more familiar circumstance is laudably common in this book. The student is well considered. One problem not easily dealt with in the presentation of how roots combine with prefixes and suffixes is the identification of these elements of combination themselves. That is, when the second or third-year student first apprehends the verb otravit', he may conclude that the word is semantically based upon the root trav- (grass), expanded by the prefix o-, connoting some kind ofglobality. The conclusion, that otravit'means to overgrow withgrassor some such, is wrong but perhaps not improperly reasoned. Only the greater context could induce the student to try again, to see the ot-rav- connection to the meaning to poison off. Gibson stresses the importance of context both in her preface and in her "Instructions to the Student," but still this problem is bound to occur, especially when the phonaesthemically related urn- (mind) and dum- (think) are given in the same list and del- is homonymously treated as do, make or divide (ostensibly the gloss for a form ending with a palatal -I). But this is reallyjust a quibble on explanatory adequacy, a problem Gibson is well aware of in this treatment. One might also quibble about the efficacy of intermingling the obscure (e.g., bryzg- meaning bespatter) with the common and the necessary (e.g., ved- meaning to lead). Would not a progression from the latter to the former be preferable? Perhaps textual considerations militate against too rigid an ordering of the roots based on frequency of need. The textual material, eleven short stories by Chekhov, is ideal to the purpose here. The stories are essentially unaltered and include even some abbreviated archaisms (e.g., milostisdar' meaning kind master, lord as a form of address in the first story) which might remain arcane to the unaided student. But, of course, this work is well designed to include the role ofthe instructor. Stress is marked, and the Cyrillic alphabet is used interlinearly in the explanations. Indeed if one wants to combine the teaching of reading skills and vocabulary building with the teaching ofthe linguistics of word formation, this book may be the best presently available. Students and instructors both will find it a rewarding aid. LEE B. CROFT Arizona State University A.J. GREIMAS andJ. COURTES. Semioticsand Language, An Analytical Dictionary, translated by Larry Crist and Daniel Patte, and others. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Advances in Semiotics, General Editor, Thomas A. Sebeok. 409 p. During the last decade, such works as Robert Scholes's Structuralism in Literature (1974), Jonathan Culler's Structuralist Poetics (1975) and The Pursuit of Signs (1981), Michael Riffaterre's Semiotics of Poetry (1978), and Terence Hawkes's Structuralism and Semiotics (1977) have become widely known among American literary critics. This translation of the 1979 254Rocky Mountain Review Dictionaire raisonné allows the reader to pursue semiotic theory via a paradigmatic rather than a syntagmatic approach, beginning, according to his or her own preference, with any of several key headings: semiotics, structure, syntax, semantics (fundamental, narrative, or discoursive), narrative schema, narrative trajectory, narrativity, generative trajectory, enunciation, etc. The dictionary format not only sets side by side, in the authors' words, "metalinguistic segments which have quite unequal degrees of elaboration and formulation" (xii). but also allows the reader to seek answers to questions however they arise and thus to establish whatever format she or he finds most satisfactory at any given time of use. In their justification ofthe dictionary arrangement, the authors clearly state their aim to demonstrate semiotics as a coherent theory through seeking to define and discuss its own specialized lexicon, rather than claiming eclecticism or "neutrality" in the choice of entries. They thus attempt to show the place of each concept within its...