Abstract
I propose here a re-reading of and commentary on Structural Semantics focused on “The isotopy of discourse”. Greimas describes the organisation of discourse as a process of determining meaning based on a semantic equivalence
mechanism for which lexicographical description (designation and definition) is
the model, and which is characteristic of the “metalinguistic functioning of discourse”. After setting this conception within the perspective of linguistic studies
of annotation, Greimas’s reasoning is carefully examined and the method, together
with the premises underlying it, is considered in the light of a semantics of enunciation (Culioli). Different avenues for investigating meaning thus emerge, based
on the limits of structural semantics and of what this leaves on the margins, while
at the same time carefully contriving openings.