Argumentative links, informativity, and composition of lyrical discourse

The paper is concerned with the most prominent compositional division proper to lyrical discourse, consisting in that normally lyrical poem first reports some experience open to the author, and next goes on to its transcendence, i.e. to discovery of some significant, more general truth and/or substantial change in the author’s attitude towards himself and/or the world. It is shown that one of linguistic means employed for delimitation of this divide are argumentative links, i.e. links between the relevant utterance itself, and consequences that it (often tacitly) implies, the latter ones being of importance for hearer or reader, and being calculated by them based on pragmatic rules, their current needs and priorities, their view of speaker/writer’s intentions, etc. Normally, such a procedure depends on commonly assumed view of the world, but in some instances, in order to establish relevant links, this view must be reconsidered. If this is the case, other things being equal, relevant utterances must be more informative, and one may expect them to show especially high incidence in most important fragments of lyrical discourse, i.e. in those ones, where transcendence is to be found. Several examples testifying to this claim are analyzed at some length.