Linking Fancy unto Fancy: Towards a Semantic Codex

Abstract

We will begin by considering Zholkovsky and Schecheglov's formalist interpretation of a fable by the Russian fabulist Krylov called “Trishka’s Caftan” (Figure 1). Their approach is a very general way of capturing and mapping out the meaning of texts. We will consider next the theoretical and technical framework of an alternative mapping framework, cascading summaries. Summary trees, cascading summaries, or Russian doll texts are a kind of stratified hypertext (Vandendorpe) composed of a set of cascading and interleaved summaries. Such summaries represent a novel framework for describing the structure of textual meaning, a framework which seems crucially dependent on the electronic medium. Summarization alters the view we have of text and its meaning. In particular a cascading summary gives us a concrete representation of a hidden dimension of texts. The horizontal, linear surface of the text is explicit; we follow it left to right in our normal linear reading. Concordances show us a second vertical dimension of text by stacking up or aligning concordant segments throughout the text. Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -- What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking Nevermore. E. A. Poe “The Raven” Summarization shows us yet a third dimension, the depth of the text, where text segments are grouped and aligned with a textual variant that is a more general, abstract expression of the subtexts' combined meaning. The abstract variant is not in the text segments explicitly; it is an expression of the meaning of the segments and must be generated through manual or automatic summarization. We all possess the natural language competence that allows us to say more with less; it is fundamental to our use of language. Dictionaries are built on the principle that a single word (less) can be unpacked into a an explicative definition (more). Dictionaries encode a general-purpose correspondence between words, not the specific correspondence that is progressively constructed through the vertical reading of text (linguists would say that definitions are part of langue, not parole). Yet narrative texts are on-thefly dictionaries. To interpret them correctly, we must understand how they accumulate meaning in words as the text progresses. “Trishka's caftan” means little before the story; much at the end. How do texts accumulate meaning in symbols? Summaries, like the words they are composed of, mean more with less.