Abstract: Greimassian semiotics has long been regarded as an“object semiotics”that ignores the problem of subject. Since the 1980s, the semiotics of passions has become one of the main research issues of the Paris School of Semiotics as represented by A.J. Greimas. Meanwhile, the problem of subject, which is closely related to the passional phenomenon, is brought into intensive discussion. In the research of the semiotics of passions, Greimas uses the“modes of semiotic existence”to describe the generative trajectory of subject’s state of being in the narrative. Furthermore, he defines“potentialization”as the mode of existence of the impassioned subject.“Semiotic existence”is essentially relational. In the perspective of the semiotics of action, the semiotic existence is used to characterize“the present”functional relationship between actants. While“potentialization” shows“the absent”intentional relationship between impassioned subject and its“goal image”. Impassioned subject and its“goal image”are mental entities whose relationship only depends on the subject’s intentionality and has nothing to do with the external reality. Thus, unlike the subject of action merely as a carrier of narrative functions, the impassioned subject is essentially a body with protensive intentionality and proprioception. The exploration of the subject’s“modes of semiotic existence”and the“potentialized”existence of the impassioned subject constitutes a unique entry of Greimassian semiotics into the problem of narrative subject.

Key words: semiotics of passions, impassioned subject, mode of semiotic existence, potentialization, protensive intentionality