It is useful to think of texts as sign systems. This applies also to pictorial images and to literary texts.

Signs gain their meanings from a relation between two components, signifier (signifiant) and signified (signifi). Signifiers in language are words, also called lexemes. When we use language signs within a text or context, we very often need a hierarchy of analytic dimensions to understand the process of generating meaning: Semantics: analyzing relation of signifier to mental concept or signified, Syntax: for analyzing relation of signifier to other signifiers (obeying a principle of combination), and Pragmatics: analyzing relation of signifier to user and situation. These three dimensions need to work together, without any being isolated. Pragmatics is the highest dimension. A hierarchy is needed on a lexical level: it distinguishes meanings in cases where there is no simple one-to-one correspondence between signifier and signified. Such a hierarchy is also needed on a textual level: because sentences may be syntactically correct but may still be semantically incomplete or incoherent; semantically correct sentences constitute a text and have to be syntactically correct, but may still be pragmatically incomplete; finally, pragmatically correct sentences have to be both syntactically and semantically correct.

SEMANTICS OF TEXT
When we speak of the relation between signifier and signified, we can broadly distinguish between a digital relation (no similarity between signifier and signified, also called 'nonmotivated' relation) and an analogic relation (similarity between signifier and signified, also called 'motivated' relation). Using a classic form of communication theory, we can think of the digital relation as conveying the information content of a communication (usually factual or objective), and of the analogic relation as conveying the relation between the communicants (usually creating attitude or guiding response). Since communicants are users of signs, understanding the coordination of semantics (or meaning) and pragmatics (or user and situation) is essential for an understanding of cultural productions of meaning: the signifier/signified relation in the context of analysis of user(s) and situation(s) is important for the understanding of a culture. This applies to any kind of text. In semantics, at the lexical and the textual level, meaning is developed FIRSTLY by an act of selection: in any utterance, we select from the full range of synonymous signifiers (also called words or lexemes) in a semantic field. The user's selection is governed by her/his knowledge of the range of connotations (=general associations) of a lexeme.

When the lexemes are combined to form a textual utterance, in most kinds of text lexemes with a homogeneous level of connotation and valuation are selected. This means that words with a homogeneous level of value are combined to form a coherent text, on a consistent stylistic level. But how does selection refer to combination? To understand this, we need to consider that meaning is developed SECONDLY at a more elementary level of analysis. This is the level of individual lexemes. Any lexeme gains its meaning from one or more smallest units of meaning (=semes) in the user's mind (e.g., TREE = trunk + leaves + green + gives shelter etc.). How do we define the semes of a lexeme? This can usually be done intuitively, with simple texts, or if need be by a specialized procedure based on componential analysis of lexemes (e.g., Leech). When lexemes combine to form a text, only certain semes are selected to produce meaning, while others are ignored. A good example is the homonym, such as "ball": this may have several unconnected semes; the sentence "The ball was carried into the stadium" only selects one of the semes. This process of selection of semes within a text is called monosemization (according to Greimas). The user's selection of semes is governed by her/his knowledge of the semes that several lexemes have in common, i.e., of semic overlap as lexemes combine to form a text. This common semic basis between lexemes usually forms a relationship of what we call equivalence: this is usually similarity/parallelism. Thus, when we want to discern meaning in a text, we normally identify (often by intuition) the semes that create similarity/parallelism between a number of lexemes. When they do so, they become prominent or dominant within that text. Dominant semes creating similarity/parallelism are often called classemes. They form homogeneous levels or patterns of meaning, so-called isotopies. (Dominant semes, classemes and isotopies are all terms that refer to the creation of homogeneous levels of meaning.)

SEMANTICS OF LITERARY TEXT

In more complex kinds of text, the equivalence between lexemes can also be thought of as contrast. When this happens, the homogeneous level may be ruptured: for instance, different fictional users (characters, speakers) within a text may monosemize a lexeme differently, understanding or playing on a word in another sense. In such cases, a second classeme is created, which may have a different value level as against the first. There may even be a third classeme, or a fourth. This process opens a further dimension of a larger isotopy.

It usually takes some active involvement of the listener/reader to grasp the isotopic dimensions, and thus to determine the meaning(s) of a complex form of textual coherence. Such a combination of different (ruptured, heterogeneous, complex) isotopic dimensions hence requires a pragmatic dimension, since it involves the user, in this case the listener/reader's activity. A literary text operates in this way, and thus represents--more than any other kind of text--the complexity of non-literary (or non-linguistic) reality.

ANALOGIC RELATIONS
At this point, we can come back to the idea of analogic relation. Further above, we made a distinction between digital and analogic relations of the sign. Since analogy here means similarity, and since creating textual coherence may involve different communicants (users, readers), the complex isotopies which a literary text communicates carry a similarity to the meaning of the text, while that meaning involves the users/readers. This means that the linguistic or rhetorical form of a literary text has a similarity to the information or content that is to be conveyed. And because--as explained above--the pragmatic dimension is integrated with literary form, the analogic and the pragmatic meet in a literary text's communication. In other words: literary form and language as such carry information content. This is the process which enables a text to speak to users in later times or other cultures: the pragmatic dimension, which creates meaning in relation to a text's users and situation(s), is built into the literary form and language and thus travels with the text. The concept of analogy is useful also in another way: to explain metaphor, which is a characteristic feature of literary texts. It operates within the signified (signifi). An analogic relation may exist between our mental concepts of different objects: this enables us to transfer a concept and its designation from one object to another, based on either similarity between objects or parallelism of relation between objects. Metaphor may be understood as a link between an image-producing ("donor") and an image-receiving ("recipient") field. It may be a form of complex isotopy, as one part of one field may be combined with one part of the other field to form metaphor (e.g., "tasting books"). The actual combination is the listener's/reader's task, and hence once again involves the pragmatic dimension. Metaphor is not only a characteristic feature of many literary texts. In a more abstract sense, it is also useful in helping to explain the creation of literary text: in any utterance, according to Jakobson, a lexeme or a unit of meaning is selected from a larger lexicon on a so-called paradigmatic axis (because in any paradigm we make selections between alternative forms; it corresponds to metaphor because of a relationship of equivalence or similarity between synonymous lexemes or units of meaning). It is then combined with other lexemes or

meanings, ones that are actually articulated and belong to dissimilar word classes, to form a sentence on a syntagmatic axis (corresponding to metonymy, a figure that often appears in texts: metonymy may be understood as a transfer of designation from one object to another, based on contiguity--e.g., producer/product, part/whole, cause/effect). See Paradigmatic. When a literary or poetic text is created, the principle of equivalence (i.e., similarity or sometimes contrast) governing the paradigmatic axis is transferred from thence to govern the structure of meanings on the syntagmatic axis as well.