An attempt at constructing an enumerative classification of intertextual units

Abstract

The article attempts to construct an enumerative classification of intertextual units. Taking a «broad» approach to the interpretation of intertextual relations, the author suggests that intertextual units are any elements of text A or a set of texts B, as well as whole texts that have been borrowed in one form or another into text C or set of texts D. So the understood intertextual unit is proposed to be called the term connecteme, which is created according to the productive model for linguistic terminology (morpheme, phoneme, etc.) and conveys the idea of connection in its internal form. In different contexts, the same token can be represented in one or another of its varieties, which the author proposes to name connects. The most important task of the intertextologist should be the systematic description of connectemes as paradigms of connects. Such a description can be obtained if an enumerative classification of connects is constructed. From the author’s point of view, it should be based on the following triad of parameters: 1) attribution/non-attribution; 2) marking/unmarked; 3) canonicity/transformability. The application of this classification shows that the paradigm of the intertext units that make up the connecteme includes a set of eight basic variants, led by the main variant – a clearly attributed, marked and canonical connect. The remaining seven types are formed by applying the following operations to the main variant: 1) de-attribution; 2) removal of marking; 3) transformations. Different types of lexes are associated with their implementation in certain text positions. According to the author, three text positions are essential for the functioning of connects: 1) epigraph; 2) title; 3) body of text. Moreover, it is the position of the epigraph, specially designed to accommodate intertext units, that is strong for connects, which are usually preserved here by all the characteristics of the source text, are provided with clear attribution and are specially marked. The proposed enumerative classification of lexes allows us to describe and «predict» any option for using lexes, which opens up wide possibilities for its use.