GdTZ WIENOLD

ON DERIVING MODELS OF NARRATIVE

ANALYSIS FROM MODELS OF DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS

1. STATEMENT OF INTENT

In analysing specific kinds of texts - political speeches, advertisements,

narratives - two routes of procedure can be observed. The analyst
may set out to construct a special model for the kind of text chosen
and characterize the properties of the set of text; he, then, will base
the assumptions presupposed by his model of analysis on pretheoretical
notions more or less current among producers and recipients. Or he may
attempt to develop a model of a particular kind of text by specifying
features of a general model of discourse analysis in such a way that the
properties of the set of texts chosen will be characterized by constraints
placed on features of the general model. He, then, will exploit the linguistic
assumptions contained in discourse analysis. The first route of procedure
will allow for tackling problems of characteristic detail and immediate
interest at the outset. This advantage, however, is highly paid for. One
cannot make sure that results reached and properties of models developed
by such a procedure will be transferable to analyses of other kinds of
texts. The second route, obviously, may provide for sufficient generality,
but the models available might not warrant the specificity sought after
so that interesting results will not be obtained.
The foregoing classification of research activities is a statement of
principle and, being a statement of principle, it is somewhat crude when
confronted with the many-faceted approaches in the field of narrative
analysis. Neither have models of narrative reached a satisfactory degree
of completion, nor and even less so have models of discourse analysis,
particularly when viewed from the angle of specification of kinds of texts.
Noticeably biassed towards the second alternative, the classit%ation
contains also a statement of intent. We want to be able, eventually, to
construe a formal mechanism of deriving models of specific kinds of
discourse from a model of discourse analysis. Thus, we want to be able
16 G6TZ WIENOLD

to explain, systematically, the specific conditions of producing and

receiving a particular kind of text on the basis of such a formal mecha-
nism. The expression KINDOF TEXT and similar expressions will be used
here to refer to a subclass of texts determined by special constraints
placed on the class of texts defined by the general model. There is a
different notion of KIND OF TEXT determined by relating texts to social
or cultural contexts.1 We are not able to comment on how these different
classifications should be viewed with regard to each other, but it should
be pointed out that, in labeling a class of texts ‘narratives’, one identifies
a class of formally described texts by reference to some broad cultural
context.
In dealing with narrative texts, we propose to talk about units of
narration and levels of narrative analysis in the sense that such entities
of description will be motivated and specified on the basis of a general
model of discourse and types of discourse. Units of narration and levels
of analysis of narratives posited in the work of the Paris School of
Skmiologie and their precursors do not conform to this principle of
analysis.
Roland Barthes, for instance, integrating work done by Propp,
Bremond, Greimas and Todorov, assumed three levels of describing
narrative texts: fonctions, actions, narration.2 These levels and the units
of narration posited on each of the levels are defined with regard only
to the class of texts subsumed by the label “r&t”. Similarly in principle,
though somewhat differently in method of analysis, Tzvetan Todorov,
distinguishing between histoire (the concatenation of events and circum-
stances related by a narrative text) and discours (the concatenation of
sentences relating the concatenation of events and circumstances),
discusses two levels of histoire: logique des actions and les personnages
et leurs rapports and three procedures of telling an histoire in a discours:
presentation of time, aspects and modes of narration.3 The two levels
of histoire correspond to Barthes’ fonctions and actions, the three pro-
cedures of discours correspond to Barthes’ third level of narration.
Todorov, though, clarifies the point that the analysis of the functions of
narrative texts cannot be performed on the sequences of sentences of
a given text but only on the story abstracted from the sequence of
1 Vgl. J. Dubois, “Lexicologie et analyse d’&onc&‘, Cahiers de lexicologie XV
(1969), 119f.
s Roland Barthes, “Introduction k l’analyse structurale des r&As”, Communications
8 (1966), l-27.
s Tzvetan Todorov, “Les cat&o&s du r&it litt&aire-“, Communications 8 (1966),
125-151.
 ON DERIVING MODELS 17

sentences. There is no way indicated how the implements of this analysis

will relate to texts not classifiable “recit”, although one will have to admit
that items of the class of narrative texts and items of the class of non-
narrative texts may contain identical sentences. An informant presented
with sentences like The fog is rising, The children played in the garden,
Pity sometimes takes possession of a man’s heart, Everybody loves
somebody will not be able to decide on the basis of such sentences
whether the texts they are taken from belong to the class of narrative
texts or to some class of non-narrative texts. Moreover, in spite of rules
governing possible sequences of sentences in texts of various types, the
semiological analysis will have to devise different procedures and
different levels of analysis for different classes of texts. This solution is
most uneconomical and should be pursued only after other proposals
have failed or can be shown to be inadequate in principle.
Two concessions to this criticism of &miologie have to be made. The
fist one is, that semiologists have been aware of relations between
classes of texts, even classes of linguistic and non-linguistic texts, that the
analysis of narrative texts should be prepared to take account of. Claude
Bremond, for one, repeatedly stressed the merits of functional analysis
of narration in contributing to the study of relationships between
narratives and movies or dramatic plays.4 and between narratives and
myths, games, and some kinds of dances.5 To our knowledge, semiolo-
gists, however, have failed so far to present or suggest an analytical
procedure for the transposition of the story of a narrative text into a
motion picture or a theatrical play. Nevertheless one does have to record
a way of analysis of transpositions of texts between genres and media
that is opened up by s&niologie in recognizing these relationships.
A more elementary and more fundamental insight into relationships
between classes of texts, narrative and non-narrative, is the recognition
of non-narrative elements in narrative texts. Gerard Genette, in distin-
guishing between narration and description, points out that there may be
“descriptive” texts without any narration whatsoever.6 But he is mainly
interested in the way narrative and descriptive elements, corresponding
to Barthes’fonctions and indices,? are conjoined in a narrative text.
The second concession is that semiologists successfully have provided

4 Claude Brkmond, “Le message narratif”, Communications 4 (1964). 31f.

5 Claude Brdmond. “Postbritk amkicaine de Propp”, Communications 11 (1968),
163f.
g Gerard Genette, “Frontikres du r&At”, Communications 8 (1966), 156ff.
7 Barthes, Communications 8 (1966), 8ff.
18 GGTZ WIENOLD

methods of specifying the properties of particular texts from models of

classes of texts. This is a more modest task than the one submitted for
discussion in this paper, but one that highly stimulates work of construing
individual texts on conditions prevailing over a vast range of texts.
Claude Bremond’s functional analysis of narrative texts is a case in
point and so is A.J. Greimas’ semantic analysis of myths which posits
structural schemes of mythology and sememic correspondence classes
that govern the implementation of a particular mythological text.8
Inspired partly by this type of semiological analysis, this paper presents
the following thesis: There is no need of assuming levels of analysis
specific to narrative texts or other classes of texts. Narrative texts, like
other kinds of texts, are to be derived from primitives being available to
all kinds of texts and from formulation rules operating on primitives.
Units of narration as well as properties of narrative texts allegedly
pertaining to various levels will be said to be the result of applying
formulation rules to primitives.O

2. PRIMITIVES AND FORMULATION RULES

Primitives are formed by conjoining elements of two sets {X, Y, 2 . ..}

and {a, b, c, . ..} into sequences of the form: Xu, Yc, . . X, Y, 2 . . . stand
for abstract representations of segments of the surface structure of texts
qualifying as Nominal Phrases (NP). a, b, c... stand for abstract repre-
sentations of segments of the surface structure of texts qualifying as
Verbal Phrases (VP). Elements of both sets may have more than one
surface implementation. Primitives may be combined by embedding:
Xa(Yb), X(Xa)b . . . . and by conjunction, conjunctions being selected
from a set {Cl, C2, Cs . ..}. XaClXb, XuC2Yc, . . .
This exposition as well as the treatment to follow clearly cannot be
meant to represent a formalization. They will serve as a preliminary
notation that, eventually, may enter into a truly formal theory of the
formulation of discourse in natural languages. (With regard to current
discussions in semantic theory, a formal treatment probably would

* A.J. Greimas, “Elbments pour une thkorie de I’interprbtation du r&it mythique”,

Communications 8 (1966), 28-59.
0 Earlier and more rudimentary presentations of this view can be found in G&z
Wienold, Formulierungstheorie - Poetik - Strukturelle Literaturgescldchte : Am
Beispiel der altenglischen Dichtung (Frankfurt a.M., 1971), $6 33f., 41; id., “Probleme
der linguistischen Analyse des Romans: Zugleich eine Studie zu Kriinalromanen
Patricia Highsmiths”, Jahrbuch f6r Internationale Germanistik I (1969), 113 ff.
 ON DERIVING MODELS 19

prefer a representation by predicates and arguments and syntactic and

interpretation rules.)
We are interested, here, not so much in a formal theory of discourse
as in providing an explication of the idea of devising a general theory
of texts in a given language or in human language, generally, in such a
way that specific kinds of texts are generated from this general theory by
two kinds of specifications. There will be constraints placed on the
interpretation of the variables of (X, Y, 2 . . . } and {a, b, c . . . } and on
the formulation rules combining primitives into strings, particularly on
higher order combinations. Formulation rules and combinations of them
specified by constraints will be called operations of formulation (= OF).
In explicating this idea, we develop a kind of heuristics for narrative
analysis. At this point we can envisage a heuristics only, as it is not the
case that there are models of discourse analysis so that models of analysis
of kinds of texts could be derived from them. Rather our discussion of
problems in deriving models of analysis of kinds of texts may be viewed
as an exercise in developing a model of discourse analysis. The analysis
of texts, in this view, requires only one level above the level of rules
specifying the constraints on sentences of a given language. This level is
the level of OF. Rinds of texts, then, should be definable by specifications
of the interpretation of variables and by specifications of OFs. A given
text will be analysable into primitives of specific interpretation and
combinations of OFs, OFs being reducible to sequences of primitives
formed by the formulation rules only.rs
We shall state some general conditions of the specifications of primitives
and some interesting properties of OFs that hold for narrative texts.
Then, we shall try to illustrate our thesis and sketch analyses of specific
properties of narrative texts or subtypes of narrative texts.
One advantage of the analytic procedure proposed here is that specifica-
tion can be graded to suit various interests. The process of specification
can be suspended with when a definition of narrative texts or some
other kind of texts is arrived at. It can be continued as to allow definition
of subtypes of narrative texts, e.g. detective novels, science fiction etc., or
subtypes of subtypes, e.g. analytic detective novels, horror science fiction
etc. Not only can the analysis be used to attempt formal definitions of
accepted genres and subgenres but also to tackle the problem of classifica-
tion of texts in a way different from traditional categories of genre, since
various combinations of properties specified by the analytical apparatus
10 The notion of reduction of a text is owed to Zellig S. Harris, Discourse Analysis
Reprints (The Hague, 1963). Cf. Wienold, Formulierungstheorie, $8 28ff.
20 GijTZ WIENOLD

can be inspected. Properties common to (kinds of) texts of, traditionally,

different genre, may be discovered.

3. SPECIFICATION OF PRIMITIVES AND OPERATIONS

OF FORMULATION

What is communicated to a reader of a narrative text is an ordering of

events and circumstances of more or less specific characterization. An
analysis of narrative texts has to account for the fact that such texts,
typically, do not relate events and circumstances in the order that
readers arrive at by the process of reading. The analysis, therefore, will
have to present a rearranged text - the sequential text rearranged as to
the order related by it - and the procedures of arrangement by which
an “underlying” text, obtained analytically by rearranging it, is formulated
into the occurent text-sequence experienced by readers.11 Primitives and
formulation rules, then, refer to the underlying order, operations of
formulation to the procedures of arrangement.
The underlying order of a narrative text will contain primitives with
Xs or Ys specified as to referring to persons - or in some particular
genres entities behaving quite in the manner of persons - and as or bs
referring to events and circumstances, actions performed by or circum-
stances pertaining to Xs and Ys and so on. Xs and Ys, so specified, are
required for a narration to be performed. There will be Xs and Ys of
different specification that characterize events and circumstances, and,
similarly, different as or bs.
An X referring to a person (or a group of persons) or a personlike
behaving entity will be called P-specified. The order of primitives con-
taining a non-P-specified X can be stated in relation to primitives with
P-specified Xs only. There have to be at least two different P-specified
Xs in the underlying order of a narrative text. Most times, there are more
than just two. This fact has some interesting consequences for rearrange-
ment procedures. When ordering the P-specified primitives of a narrative
text according to their specific Ps, one will obtain various chains of
P-primitives with the same P that will intersect at some point or other.
In order to relate the sequence of events of different P-chains in a
continuous text, a narrative text has to provide motivations for the inter-
sections of P-chains. Thus it will have to quit following the temporal
11 This procedure of rearrangement has been elaborated on in Wienold, “Probleme
der linguist&hen Analyse des Romans”.
 ON DERIVING MODELS 21

order in relating events ever so often. Only a text with just one P-specified
chain of primitives or a text with some n P-specified chains of primitives
where all primitives of all of the n P-specified chains intersect could
possibly present the underlying order without any rearrangement
whatsoever. Thus, quite apart from other functions of rearrangement -
like warranting for suspense, surprise and so on -, there is this funda-
mental condition for the arrangement of P-chains of primitives. This
statement may be called trite, but it accounts for phenomena otherwise
not accounted for. W.-D. Stempel, in his analysis of Die drei Raben,
observed some sentences or parts of sentences at the beginning of para-
graphs that did not fit into the partition of sequences.12 Such sentences
state conditions for possible intersections of different P-chains. If a
paragraph refers to an intersection of chains of PI- and Ps-primitives
and the next paragraph switches to an intersection of one of the chains
with a chain of primitives of some Pa, then, typically, such a reference
to a condition of intersection, motivated in some earlier event, will be
given.
Intersections of P-chains form one type of combining primitives.
A sequence Xa(Yb) may have the specification Pia, (Pjbn), meaning the
relation of a state or an event am participating in which Pi encounters
a state or an event b, in which Pi is involved. The second type of com-
bining primitives, the conjunction, is more fundamental still. We stipulate
that it is the use of specific conjunctions that formulates primitives into
sequences of the underlying order of a narrative. Piam is not a ‘narrative
sentence’ or the like by definition. Only by being conjoined to some
other adequately specified primitives by specific elements from {Cl, C’s,
Cs . . . } does Pia, enter into a narrative sequence. We will make use of
not more than two conjunctions here: C+ and C,, C+ referring to an
uninterrupted sequence, C, referring to a special nexus of two primitives,
like Yb being the result or consequence of Xa. It is interesting to notice
that W.-D. Stempel in the article mentioned before realizes a need for
distinguishing between various kinds of and: The sentences John was
reading and smoking, or John read and felt asleep contain kinds of and
that, in our analysis, represent the conjunctions of primitives into
possible sequences of narratives, whereas the kind of and in John slept
and slept does not.ls Bremond’s functions are not primitives but result

I2 Wolf-Dieter Stempel, “Miiglichkeiten einer Darstellung der Diacbronie in

aarrativen Texten”, in: id. (Ed.), Beitr&e zur Textlinguistik (Miinchen, 1971), 66, 68.
ls W.-D. Stempel, I.c., 59f.
22 G&Z WIENOLD

from the conjunction of primitives, Bremond’s triads of functions are

sequences of conjoined primitives of a special type.
Evidently, we will be able then, to separate narrative from non-
narrative portions of narrative texts. We obtain, by this, a scale that will
indicate the degree of ‘narrativeness’ of a narrative text. We cannot
follow up this matter as we are not going to discuss the operations
performed on non-P-specified primitives. The underlying order of a
narrative consists of chains of several P-specified chains, a chain being
defined by containing primitives with identical P-specification. Non-P-
specified primitives, roughly, can be thought of as entering into P-specified
primitives in an adverbial manner. (A scenery is being described in a
narrative with reference to some Pia,.)
As the underlying order is not presented in a narrative text in that
order, the relationship obtaining in the underlying order will have to be
expressed in narrative texts in many cases. PiarC+Pium may be represented
as Before Pia,, Pial. Of greater importance are statements often occuring
in narrative texts like Piam. At the same time (Two hours later, . ..) Pjbn.
Thus, there will have to be assumed for the underlying order of narratives
an indication how a P-specified primitive of a P-chain is to be related to
a P-specified primitive of a different P-chain with reference to time.
It will be sufficient for the underlying order to present the temporal
references in relation to the sequences of the type Piam (Pjbn) so that
any Piam, Pjbn of the underlying order can be placed into temporal
relations to intersections of P-chains. Indications of time in narrative
texts often take a form not referring to the internal temporal order,
like on August 12,1796. The degree of specification of temporal reference
above the internal temporal order is open to the choice of the narrator.
Statements of a narrative containing phrases like at the same time, two
hours later, thereby relating two P-specified primitives as to their place
in the relative temporal order, are not to be thought of as representing
sequences of the type Pia&lPjb, or Pia,CxPian. Such phrases rather
express the relation of P-specified primitives not combined, neither by
embedding nor by conjunction, in the underlying order. One of the
elementary functions of operations that formulate a specified underlying
order of a narrative text into a given narrative text is to organize the
representation of that temporal order into the manifest text of a narrative.
As was indicated, this representation necessarily deviates from the
underlying order. A typical way of ordering P-specified sequences of
various P-chains is by relating uninterrupted sequences of Pi- and
Pj-specified primitives ending in an intersection of the Pi- and PI-chain.
 ON DERIVING MODELS 23

(The intersection itself may consist of a sequence, of course.) Other

portions of the P-chains, not conjoined uninterruptedly, will be related
with inverted order. A chapter of a spy novel begins:

I got off the train at Quimper at half past ten the next night. By then I was
wearing a light-weight grey-blue rain-coat over a new brown sports-coat
with brass buttons . . ..l4

Other OFs will relate the P-chains of the underlying order as to the
direction of intersection, as some Piam, Pjb, allow for Pia, (Pjbn) as
well as for Pjb, (Piam). A narrative with a P-chain having its P represent-
ed by I, typically, will embed P-primitives of other P-chains into P-primi-
tives having the P-representation I.

4. ILLUSTRATION OF ANALYTIC PROCEDURES

So far, rather trivial features of narratives have been commented on.

We now want to show some more interesting vistas open to this type
of analysing narrative texts in deriving them by specification from more
abstract descriptions of texts. In an earlier presentation suspense was
discussed as resulting from OFs of arranging the underlying order of a
narrative into the given sequence of sentences of a narrative.15 Here we
want to sketch an analysis of horror as created in Science Fiction.
By analysis of horror is not meant an analysis of states of mind or
emotion experienced by readers. We refer to a manifest arrangement of
an underlying order that contains references to horror and the like.
We do think, however, of such arrangements as prerequisites for states
of mind or emotions experienced by readers and verbally described by
use of horror and similar expressions. Such representation of horror in a
narrative requires occurrences of Xa(Yb) with P-specified Xa nd a
specified as being selected from a class of expressions relating to experien-
ces of Ps. Y may be P-specified but does not have to be, b may not be
selected from the same class as a. (Science Fiction, often, will have
representation of Y-specifications, the P-status of which is unclear, e.g.
representations refering to Martians.) Horror, then, is introduced into
a narrative by specific implementations of Pa, statements of comment
on some yb that indicate fear or horror. We will indicate generally such

14 Gavin Lyall, Midnight Plus One (1965), quoted by the Pan Books edition
(London, 1966),15.
1s “Probleme der linguistischen An&se des Remans”, 12lff.
24 GijTZ WIENOLD

statements of comment by ac and call such statements comment state-

ments or c-statements.
In a typical science fiction story or novel with horror, c-statements are
distributed over the entire text and a gradual increase in horror is to be
noted. Interestingly, the increase in horror is not so much expressed in
the Yb-part of a c-statement but in the &-part. We will briefly follow
up with an example, The Fly by George Langelaan.16 The story begins
with sentences like the following (p. 2):
(a) “Telephones and telephone bells have always made me ,emy.” (b) “At
the office, the sudden ringing of the telephone annoys me.” (c) “At home, the
feeling is still more disagreeable, (d) but the worst is when the telephone rings
in the dead of night.” (e) “The truth in such a case, however, is that I am
struggling against panic.”
The sequence (a) through (e) can be represented as a sequence of c-state-
ments I uc (A telephone rings), the horror raised by the Yb-part gradually
increasing in the implementations of aC from uneasy to struggling against
panic. This sequence is noteworthy for making clear that the horror
(feeling of horror) to be communicated to a reader often cannot be
communicated by just presenting the yb, as one might tend to think.
It is also a first instance of showing that differences in the yb (The ringing
of telephones in general; “At the office, the sudden ringing”; “when the
telephone rings in the dead of night”) may not in themselves be noticeable
as differences making for stronger arousals of emotions. Gradation again
is marked in the ac.
This gradation in aC, again, is to be noted in the report of what perhaps
is the first real instance of horror in the tale. FranGois, who is telling the
story, is phoned at night by his sister-in-law who informs him that she has
just killed her husband Andre, who is FranGois’ brother, by a steam-
hammer. The Yb (Helen has killed her brother by a steam-hammer) is
placed into a sequence of gradated PaCs. The first one of these is much
less emotional then the last of the sequence with Yb = A teZephone rings:
(f) The effort at dominating a purely animal reaction and fear had become so
effective that when my sister-in-law called me at two in the morning, asking
me to come over, but first to warn the police that she just killed my brother,
I quietly asked her how and why she had killed Andre (p.2).
I quietly asked only implicitly contains a rather weak ac. Similar in its
sophistication of playing down the level of ac is the next instance, when
Franqois, accompanying the police, looks at the scene (p. 4):
l6 Quoted from the reprint in The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy
(Chicago, Ill., 1966), 2-39.
 ON DERIVING MODELS 25

(g) Shaking like a leaf, I scrambled out after the Commissaire. . . . I made an
effort to look. It was far less horrid than Z had expected.
This understating note is repeated, when the commissaire talks to
Francois before the steam-hammer is raised to give a more thorough
view of Andre’s dead body (p. 5).
(h) “Will you show me what to do? It won’t be very nice to watch, you know.”
- “No, no, Monsieur le Commissaire. 1’11be all right.”
It is only at the end of the sequence that horror, again, rises in the a,
to a high level (p. 5 f.):
(i) I . . . thought Z was going to panic when I saw Andre’s body heave forward as
a sickly gush of blood poured all over the ghastly mess bared by the hammer. . . .
I was violently sick in front of a young green-facedpoliceman.
Interestingly enough the ‘superlative’ of gradations (a) - (e) and (f) -
(i) is identical: panic. But (a) - (e) and (f) - (i) present various ways of
arranging a gradation in Pac. As Yb of (f) - (i), probably, to a more
common opinion presents a case of horror than Yb of (a) - (e) does,
one might look for a gradation in Yb itself and may find it in the differing
degree of detail of the descriptions of the slain body. But the presentation
of horror is not relegated to such descriptions, one of them itself contain-
ing an ac-expression: ghastly. Rather, we find a second way of grading
the c-statement, a gradation of P. One of the policemen, mentioned in
the part not quoted, is placed into the last Pat-formula.
The method of the c-statements may be clear by now so that we do
not have to discuss the entire story in such detail. Looking through its
pages, the reader will find again and again expressions like frightened,
strange, horrid, terribie and so on. But now the gradation is stretched
over a longer passage, until Helen, whose story had not seemed entirely
reliable, reveals to her brother that she had killed Andre on his request.
Andre, a physicist, had performed various experiments of transmitting
matter through space by disintegration and reintegration and, finally,
had chosen himself for a subject. He fails and is being reintegrated into a
monster-like mixture of man and animal without hope for repair. We
quote the entire passage of Helen’s report at this point (p. 34 f.):
The horror was too much for me, too unexpected. As a matter of fact, I am
sure that, even had I known, the horror impact could hardly have been less
powerful. Trying to push both hands into my mouth to stifle my screams and
although my fingers were bleeding, I screamed again and again. I could not
take my eyes off him, I could not even close them, and yet I knew that if I
looked at the horror much longer, I would go on screaming for the rest of my
life.
26 GdTZ WIENOLD

Slowly, the monster, the thing that had been my husband, covered its head,
got up and groped its way to the door and passed it. Though still screaming,
I was able to close my eyes.
I who had ever been a true Catholic, who believed in God and another, better
life hereafter, have today but one hope: that when I die, I really die, and that
there may be no afterlife of any sort because, if there is, then I shall never
forget! Day and night, awake or asleep, I see it, and I know that I am condemned
to see it forever, even perhaps into oblivion!
Until I am totally extinct, nothing can, nothing will ever make me forget
that dreadful white hairy head with its low flat skull and its two pointed ears.
Pink and moist, the nose was also that of a cat, a huge cat. But the eyes! Or
rather, where the eyes should have been were two brown bumps the size of
saucers. Instead of a mouth, animal or human, was a long hairy vertical slit
from which hung a black quivering trunk that widened at the end, trumpet-
like, and from which saliva kept dripping.

There is an extensive and enlarged description of yb here, but, again,

it is placed into an even more enlarged and gradated Pue that continues
after the passage quoted : “I must have fainted . . . Numb, numb and empty,
I must have looked as people do immediately after a terrible accident . . .
My throat was aching terribly . . . - Shivering with fear and disgust . . .”
(p. 35). Thus we find a third type of gradation of the c-statement, consist-
ing in multiplying applications of Put to one yb. The iterated implementa-
tion of Pat by expressions of horror, of course, incorporates the first
type of gradation, the internal gradation of an ae in a sequence, and may,
naturally, incorporate the second type, the gradation of P, in other
instances.
Two things may be learnt from our example. Firstly, a primitive
specified as to be used for a specific kind of text needs for its actual
implementation particular operations (OFs) that determine its ordering
and implication. An Xa(Yb) specified into Pac(Yb) may be looked
upon as a scheme generating many different c-statements, in this special
case statements of horror. We observed operations of gradation of
several types applying to its different implementations over a text.
The multifarious application of gradation is based upon a process of
repetition. We might look at a horror story as a sequence of sentences
like the following (1) SShSSS~SSSS&S (2) S&SSSSS& (3) S&S!&
SSr&Sr&SS, with Sh being an instance of Pac( Yb). This sequence
internally is structured by particular specification rules that grade their
implementations over a stretch of Ss and Shs, in our example (l), (2)
and (3) and grade implementations over the entire text from (1) through
(3).
Secondly, the implementation of a specified primitive like Pe(Yb)
 ON DERIVING MODELS 27

in a sequence of applications over a text has to be located in some

other operation of formulation that arranges the underlying order of a
narrative into the manifest text. In the case of The Fly, which is quite
typical in this respect as well, the sequential application of gradation to
the c-statement primitive is built into the arrangement of the underlying
order into a structure of suspense, that we only touched upon.

5. FURTHER SUGGESTIONS

We hope to have given some support to the claim that there is a way of
deriving a model of narrative analysis from a more general model of
discourse analysis that does not require setting up special levels for
narrative texts. We are able to describe structural features of narrative
texts like suspense and structural features of subtypes of narrative texts
like horror. Both analyses are derived from a more abstract structure
and bound to the fundamental operations assumed for formulating
primitives into texts of various kinds. A presentation of horror is derived
from the primitive Puc( Yb) at some point of a text by a single implemen-
tation of each of its elements (Telephones make me uneasy) or by
iterated implementation as in the lengthy passage quoted from The Fly.
And a presentation of horror is derived by placing various P&Yb) into
a series of c- and non-c-statements (&s and Ss). Horror applies to
something less than a ‘function’ and to a sequence comprising a large
number of ‘functions’. We would like to suggest, then, that kinds of
texts like narratives should be described by constraints placed on specifi-
cations of primitives and combinations of primitives and on the selections
of OFs operating on them, one additional advantage being that specifica-
tion of detail can be adjusted to the interest of the investigator without
loosing generality of procedure. Of course, we have been able only to
hint at such an analysis by sketching some traits in some detail.
At this point, we want to add just two more remarks. The first refers
to a requirement of this kind of analysis, also noticed by semiological
work, particularly by A.J. Greimas, the requirement of a semantic
classification of the implementations of primitives. When we referred
to sequences like (a) - (e) or (f) - (i) as being gradated as to some
element of its fundamental scheme Pu,JYb), we assumed that such
gradation was evident and could be agreed upon. If we want to describe
the communication of horror by the application of such schemes we will
have to give a formal analysis of the elements participating in a gradated
sequence of c-statements.
28 GijTZ WIENOLD

The second remark briefly reviews the possibility, mentioned earlier,

to state the analysis of texts in such a way that it will allow for the
analysis of transpositions of texts into texts, particularly of different
media. When one considers motion pictures derived from science fiction
one will notice that they make use of a scheme of the sort Pac(Yb) in a
special way. Pat in movies, typically, is presented by showing the reactions
of people to some event, an Yb, on their faces. In the film version of
D.F. Jones’ CO~OSSUS,~~ when the giant computer begins to go mad -
an Yb hardly presentable by visualisable aspects of the computer -, the
camera would move from face to face of a large crowd of people observing
the action. In the movie The Fly done after George Langelaan’s story,
Helen’s terror when seeing her deformed husband is shown by a multi-
plication of her face and terrified eyes all over the screen.18 Thus one
may observe similar presentations of horror and similar uses of gradation
in movies, which may give some sense to looking at our primitives and
rules as being abstract enough to characterize linguistic and nonlinguistic
‘texts’.

University of Konstanz

Giitz Wienold (b. 1938), studied German and English Languages and Literatures,
Linguistics, and Philosophy (at Munich, Giittingen, Berlin, Mtinster, and St. Andrews)
1964-66 University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, 196670 Universitat Mtinster,
since 1970 Universit&t Konstanz (Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft).
Books: Genus and Semantik (Meisenheim am Glan, 1967); ed. Hermann Broth,
Zur Universitiitsreform (Frankfurt am Main, 1969) ; Formulierungstheorie - Poetik -
Strukturelle Literaturgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main, 1971).

17 Pan Books edition (London, 1966).

1s Cf. Carlos Clarens, An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967; here quoted
by Capricorn Books: New York, 1968), 15lf., and the still in the selections at the back
of the book.