Study about the deprivation in Semiotics

This article of Linguistic Historiography discusses the deprivation, a component of the test in Semiotics of Greimas. The test was presented in the inventory of functions developed by Propp (1984a), who identified them through analysis of the Russian folktales. Greimas (1973) promoted a reduction of the functions of Propp and retained the notion of test linking it with other concepts of his theory. Later, Greimas and Courtés (2008) wrote that the test consists of three utterances: confrontation, domination and consequence. In consequence, the deprivation is its negative form as opposed to its positive form, the acquisition. If on the axis of the consecution the consequence is the last of the constituent utterances of the test and its resultant is deprivation, them is the closure of the axis. However, as suggested by Greimas and Courtés (2008), this axis can be replaced by the assumptions on which the consequence implies the domination, which implies the confrontation. This new focus suggests that the deprivation can stand as a determinant in the first utterance of the test, a start. It is this possibility that this article is based, in order to deepen in the theoretical issues concerning the narrative organization.