This work analyses the development of a recent discourse theory, namely French Semiotics. It refers to the principles that form the basis of that theory, its progress regarding the establishment of a meaning generative process, the course it has followed towards the complexification of the narrative level through a study of the modalizations of doing and being, ranging from the building up of theory concerned with the pragmatic dimension of the narrative to a theory focused on the cognitive and pathematic dimensions of the narrative. Furthermore, this work examines current paths of investigation which seek to analyse not only what underlies but also what goes on beyond discourse. In the first case, by means of the concepts of aesthesis, aspectualization and modulation, the recovering of the signification pre-conditions continuum in discourse is investigated; in the second case the problem of the relationship between the level of content and level of expression is examined.
Semiotics; Generative process; Passions; Semi-symbolism; Aspectualization; Modalization