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Page 29
ordering me /come here/, I can summarize the content of the expression as «There is someone wanting me to go there» or something like that. Once again, the macroproposition is longer than the microproposition manifesting it.
As for conversational texts, consider the following:
(17) Paul: Where is Peter?
Mary: Out
.
Paul: I see. I thought he was still sleeping.
From text (17) one can extrapolate a story telling that (i) in the world of Paul's and Mary's knowledge (probably identifiable with the 'real' one), there is a certain Peter; (ii) Paul believed p ( = Peter is still sleeping) while Mary assumed she knew that q (= Peter is out); (iii) Mary informed Paul about q and Paul did not believe any longer that p was the case and presumed to know that q was the case.
Once this has been ascertained, all the other problems concerning this dialogue (presuppositions about the fact that Peter is a male human being, that he is known both to Mary and to Paul, that the conversation takes place within a house or any other closed space, that Paul wants to know something about Peter, and that the time of the conversation is probably late morning) are a matter of semantic disclosure.
In text (17) the fabula can be the one I have tried to extrapolate, but a more abstract macroproposition may be «Paul is looking for Peter», «Paul is asking Mary about Peter», or «Mary gives Paul unexpected information». Later it will become evident that each of these three summaries involves other boxes (the third summary, for instance, involves box 10).
In the same way all the examples of conversational implicature given by Grice (1967) carry on a virtual story. The pragmatic value of implicatures consists only in that they oblige the addressee to outline a story where there apparently was the accidental or malicious flouting of a conversational maxim:
(18) A: I am out of petrol.
B: There is a garage round the corner.
(Story: A needs petrol and B wants to help him. B knows that A knows that usually garages sell petrol, knows that there is a garage round the corner, and knows (or hopes) that this garage is open and has petrol to sell. So he informs A about the location of the garage. Will or will not A follow successfully the suggestion of B?) As you see, this story has also a potential rate of narrative suspense.
0.7.1.3.
One should accept either a large or a more restricted definition of fabula. A restricted definition of a narrative structure as a description

 
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