Textual Enumeration

Abstract

This chapter pursues a two-level objective. On one hand, it presents a study of the textual object of an enumeration type, from four aspects: syntactical structures, semantic operations and functions, logical aspect and pragmatic performatives. The first point is addressed, from the point of view of internal structures, drawing on specific concepts such as the initializer, the classifier, the item, etc.; and from the contextual point of view by shedding light on relations specific to the enumeration on the level of both sentence and text structures. The second aspect considers the different types of operation an enumeration allows or requires, for example in terms of definition, description, categorization, etc. With regard to the latter operation, enumeration seems to be a form of presentation of what cognitive psychology considers to be functional categorization. The logical standpoint considers the conditions of identity and existence of an enumeration as a textual object, and other aspects related to reference and categorization. Finally, from the pragmatic point of view, we aim to characterize the type of speech act that the textual act of enumeration performs: importance is given to the ‘co-enumerability’ of constitutive items. This notion can have an explicative relation with the properties of syntactical and functional non-parallelism of some enumerations, as well as with the functional aspect of enumerative categorization. On the other hand, we would like this study to offer the reader, through the example of one type of textual object, a reusable model for the analysis of specifically textual objects, as well as an illustration of various points of view that could be relevant to the study of these objects and for the objectives of textological research.