Les rôles du procès entre structures conceptuelles et structures sémantiques

This study is about roles such as Agent, Patient, Addressee envisaged both as independent conceptual structures and as semantic structures, that is, as contents of linguistic forms of expression. On the one hand, roles are directly accessible to consistent thought, that is, to inference, and therefore not only admit but also require in the first place a purely conceptual definition. On the other hand, the direct accessibility of roles as conceptual relations does not imply that linguistic forms simply mirror independent conceptual relations. Between independent conceptual structures and forms of coding there is a manifold interaction, open to different empirical issues spanning from pure mirroring to deep restructuration and creation. This methodological stance is consistent with the idea that syntax is not a homogeneous kind of structure, either formal and independent or instrumental and iconic, but a composite kind structure – a confederation of structures of both kinds that cooperate in connecting atomic meaningful parts to form meaningful wholes. Thus, a grammar of complex meaningful expressions has both a formal component, which accounts for coding, and a conceptual component, which accounts for inference – that is, for the direct access of thought to consistent conceptual structures.