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NUCLEAR SEMANTICS

CHRONOGENESIS AND THE VERB

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analysis is the inherent dynamics' of the language process, both at the level of the individual acts and at the level of collective practice. The concept of 'operative time' has precisely this function. Underlying the language processes there are constant mental operations. The time associated with these mental operations, i.e., operative time, has its course of progression in relation to the structure of a given language. All thought connected with language activity, is in movement, and this movement may be intercepted at points in its course, giving rise to different structural patterns corresponding to the stages of development of the operation. Coming to tjje subsystems in language, Guillaume observes that the use of any verbal form in French implies the choice of the following grammatical categories: (a) a voice, (b) an aspect, (c)ca mode, (d) tense and (c) person. Further, and most crucially, it implies the construction of a 'time-image' in the mind. The thought that is involved in the construction of the verbal system, is at the same time constructing a 'time-image' in the mind itself. This particular mental operation which can be represented on a longitudinal vector is referred to as 'chronogenesis'. Chronogenesis is a momentary mental operation resulting in the formation of a 'time-image', which happens every time a verb is uttered. Thus, this operation of mind is connected with a verb in discourse in an inseparable manner. The following is the schema for chronogencsis: C I NOMINAL _H|_(I_ MODE R M O A *N G O E G II SUBJUNCTIVE MODE E T N E E M S P I S) S III INDICATIVE MODE \/

The successive transversals (I, II, III) on the time-image represent the interceptions undergone in the chronogenesis of any verb. Each moment of interception (point of intersection in the figure) corresponds to the occurrence of a linguistic mode; each transversal in the above schema represents a chronothcsis, i.e., the point at which an interval is struck in the progression of the chronogenesis (the construction of the lime-image). Now, there arc three chronplhcss with respect to the French verbal system. These are, the initial chronothcsis (I) representing the nominal mode, the media"! (II) r-prescnting the subjunctive mode, and this final (HI) representing the indicative mode. Guillaume takes into accfount only the above three modes which he calls the 'modes of thought', and sets them apart from the imperative which he calls 'mode of parole'-. Each mode, characterised by a chronothesis, contains a possible ensemble of tenses. In addition, the category of person also develops in successive stages (of chronothcscs) along the chronogenesis. So that, the nominal mode is impersonal in French, person has already appeared t" I subjunctive, and with the indicative, this category (the pcrsdn) has fully rpatured. A parallel progression occurs in the case of the tenses^also. In the chronothcsis of the nominal mode, directionality of time in terms of the past-present-future (the epochs) has hardly Developed, in the subjunctive mode, it has developed partially, while in the indicative mode, there is maximum differentiation of the epochs. The notion of 'epoch', determinative of the tenses, remains rather obscure before the indicative mode. The unfolding of the temporality along the vector of chronogenesis is diagrammatically shown as below: NOMINAL MODE f ^

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medium completion

maximum of representative

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