A term proposed by A.J. Greimas and accepted by narratologists to indicate the most essential categories of the development of the plot. From the beginning, Greimas suggested having three such categories, each in binary opposition:
- Subject/object;
- Sender/recipient;
- Auxiliant/opponent.
In identifying these categories, he was guided by VI Prop, who in “Morphology of the Fairy Tale” analyzes in folk tales the terms villain, donor, helper, princess someone who is being searched for, her father, sender, hero, and the fake hero.
Later, Greimas renamed the auxiliant/opponent in the status of auxiliant. The role of the actant is often taken over by a certain character in the story. However, the actant role is a function that is not necessarily performed by a particular character or person in the story. It can also be performed by more than one character (acteur then differs from actant).
In addition, the function can be performed by a non-human being or even by an inanimate object (for example, a tower can function as an opponent or a Batman car can be a helper).
An acteur within a given narrative plays a role or many roles in an economic plot development (for example, Merlin plays the role of helper in the legend of Arthur).
If this is not the case, we assume that the story is incorrectly constructed. Just as a poorly constructed sentence violates grammatical rules, so does a poorly written story. This suggests that there is grammar in the story.
Greimas and other modern semiotics have devoted themselves to discovering just such grammar. Their research is not prescriptive, but explanatory, ie. their interest is not in establishing rules for all narrators to follow, but in identifying the mechanisms by which the meaning of the level of the narrative is created.
The need to terminologize the plot development in abstract functions is related to the need to create narrative grammar. Such grammar aims to isolate basic units from the semiotic field and to discover the rules by which these units are connected.
Actantial analysis is the technique used by narrators, and more generally by readers, to extract meaning from a story.
