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holding in the nineteenth century) /marriage/ is to be analyzed as a relation between two human beings of opposite sex, rMm could not hold (or /marriage/ would have to be intended as a mere figure of speech introduced at the discoursive level). |
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Thus S-necessary properties, once established as a link producing the syntax of the fabula, are also submitted to the requirements of their semantic nature. Therefore they can belong to different semantic categories such as |
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relations of graduated antonymy (x is smaller than y);
relations of complementarity (x is a male as opposed to y who is a female);
relations of directional opposition (x is at the left of y), and many others, comprehending members of nonbinary oppositions (see Leech, 1974; Lyons, 1977). |
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In any case, all these semantic relations in the fabula are structurally linked by S-necessity, and this relation is symmetrical in the sense that the narrative function of one element is established by the presence of another (or of many others). |
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Accidental properties do not interest the fabula. The fact that Raoul took a coupé is accidental and, as far as the fabula is concerned, our two heroes could have returned home walking. |
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Notice that, if Marguerite had forgotten or lost her purse in the coupé and the fabula had been focused upon the quest for the mysterious coupé, we would have a story like Le fiacre n. 13, Le chapeau de paille d'Italie, or ''The Purloined Letter,'' in which the coupé could be a precise individual to be singled out through procedures of identification based upon S-necessity. |
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By S-necessity, supernumeraries in a fictional world are as necessary to each other as two distinctive features are to distinguish a given phoneme from another. To quote a dialogue from Calvino's Invisible Cities, when Marco Polo tells Kublai Khan about bridges: |
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"But which is the stone that supports the bridge?. . ."
"The bridge is not supported by one stone or another. . . . but by the line of the arch they form."
". . . Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me."
". . . Without stones there is no arch."
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It is only because of this S-necessary relation that two or more characters in a fabula can be taken as the actors embodying different roles. Narrative functions à la Propp (Villain, Helper, Victim, Hero, and so on) can exist only by a mutual relation of S-necessity. Fagin is not the Vil- |
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