Being

The term being possesses at least two meanings:

1. It serves as a copula (link word) in utterances of state. Example: 'Mary was ill'. Such utterances characterize descriptive passages. Together with utterances of doing they make up a narrative. In semiotic terms, being expresses a relation of conjunction or disjunction between a subject of state and an object. Examples: The sky is blue'; here 'the sky' (subject of state) is in conjunction with the object of value, i.e. blueness. In the utterance The man is not rich', on the other hand, the subject of state, 'man', is in disjunction with the object, 'wealth'.

 2. The term being is also used to name the modal category of veridiction: being/seeming. This modal category is often brought into play in stories relating to acts of treachery or deception where the hero/heroine is not what s/he appears to be. In the story of Aladdin, for example, the exchange of Aladdin's old lamp for a new one appears to his wife to be an act of generosity (seeming) whereas we (the reader) know that it is theft and that the old lady is a villain in disguise (being). The opposition being versus seeming can also be paralleled with the dichotomy immanence versus manifestation. Being here relates to the plane of underlying structure (immanence) whereas seeming relates to the plane of outward manifestation.

See also veridiction.

مواضيع ذات صلة

Cataphora

Canonical narrative schema

Binary

Binarism

Believing-to-be

Being-able

Axiomatic

Axiology

Author

Attribution

Aspectualization

Appropriation