Abstract

The article presents a linguistic and cognitive overview of the nineteenth century French fictional text production processes and mechanisms. The proposed frame modeling method has confirmed that one of the dominant strategies in Stendhal’s “La Chartreuse de Parme” is represented by the conception frame FOCUS, actualized through such cognitive operations as observation and judgment. The conception frame FOCUS is represented in Stendhal’s narrative by slots of grammatical and lexico-semantic levels. This conception frame is activated through verbalization of these slots by terminals or terminal elements in the narrative. Grammatical slots of the conception frame FOCUS are VOICE, TIME, and SPACE as textual embodiments of the narrative categories of voice, temporality, and space, based on the grammatical categories of person, tense, and mode of action, are expressed through corresponding endings of verbs and personal pronouns. The conception frame FOCUS is also constructed by the presence in Stendhal’s “La Chartreuse de Parme” of language elements that have an anthropocentric component and are related to the category of modality.