La théorisation sémiotique des modalités et le statut de la vérité

This article dynamically rereads four of Greimas’s texts in Du sens II, which are devoted to the semiotic theorization of modalities. We begin by showing how this theorization relates to the progress of narrative semiotics, and in what direction it takes it. We then set out to clarify the problems it raises regarding the definition of modalities, their typology and their metalinguistic designations. Finally, given that this theorization encounters in these texts interests specific to the theory of logic (from which the very notion of modality is borrowed), we attempt to grant the notion of truth a status that is compatible with semiotic theory. To this end, a distinction is made between truth enunciated by default and modal enunciations (alethic and epistemic, no less than axiological and fiduciary) of truth.