The Function of the Viewpoint in Čechov's “Griša”

Abstract

Starting from a special sentence-conception (De Groot) and from the idea of ‘stratification’ of the language utterance (Ingarden) we have tried to investigate a grammatical category, viz., that of the viewpoint. To this end realizations of this category in the various strata were considered; the psychological subject and predicate (intonation, word order) diathesis (activum/passivum), division into main sentences and subordinate clauses, the differences between the grammatical persons, differences between pronomina such as ‘here’ and ‘there’, ‘this’ and ‘that’, the differences between the parts of speech and lexemes as ‘large’ and ‘not small’. In a text beyond one sentence we tried to connect these realizations with the point de vue. A viewpoint is considered a concomitant factor of a dicendi field. Characters not uttering dicendi fields do not present viewpoints. The viewpoints may be supported by observandi constructions. After that the point de vue was compared to the handling of a moviecamera. Hereby the following facets were distinguished: the person who handles the camera (dicendi field structure), the kind of camera apparatus used (filter), which is at the verge of the viewpoint and is a kind of device (‘making it strange’), the ‘position and the direction of the shots of the camera’, with which is connected the choice of personalia (I, you, he) and demonstrative indications such as ‘here’ and ‘there’, ‘distance’, ‘exposure’, and picture frequency, which are connected with bringing into the fore and pushing into the background elements of content such as personages and objects, in the simple sentence corresponding with psychologic subject and predicate, the division into main sentences and subordinate clauses.