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For structural semiotics the modes of existence are only: virtualized, actualized,
potentialized and realized. They are only supposed to qualify the epistemological
status of the theoretical entities used in semiotic analysis. This notion had yet
another meaning in Greimas. In Greimas’ Structural semantics, modes of existence
are modal auras or colorations of perceived and experienced semantic microuniverses. This places Greimas in the line of William James and Etienne Souriau,
and there is in this conception all the necessary ingredients to make room, twenty
years later, to the emergence of alternate worlds in De l’Imperfection. The
reconstruction of this filiation will be our purpose in this paper.