Introduction

There is no doubt that Algirdas Julien Greimas (Lithuania, 1917 - Paris, 1992) is the most prominent of the French semioticians, along with Roland Barthes. Greimas developed a formal method of analyzing semiotic productions, and narratives in particular.

We are indebted to Greimas for the following concepts, among others: isotopy (the repetition of a single element of meaning), the semiotic square (the elementary structure of signification, built on an opposition), the actantial model (which breaks an action down into six actants), the narrative program (which represents an action as two opposite states in succession), and the semiotics of the natural world (the world is a sign, and as such, is made up of signifiers and signifieds).

Greimas' theory of the generative trajectory of meaning combines several of these concepts into a coherent whole. As meaning takes form, it passes through the following levels: (1) the deep semio-narrative structures (including the semiotic square); (2) the surface semio-narrative structures (where we find devices used to describe actions: the actantial model, the narrative program, and the canonical narrative schema); (3) the discursive structures (including figurative/thematic/axiological analysis and other elements); and (4) manifestation (that is, the phenomenon that is manifested empirically to some degree, such as a text).