02/11/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 8 of 11)

1058 Now, about that rumor about AI discovering glyphic writing while examining fossilized dinosaur nests which were dated to 65Myr (millions of years ago), right before the asteroid impact that ended the Epoch of Weird Multicellular Animals (600-65Myr).

1059 The university involved in the incident apologized.

Apparently, over the Easter holidays, the Anthropology Department wheeled the new AI computer in use by the Archaeology Department, which had been examining photos of fossilized dinosaur nests for patterns, to take a look very early pre-cuneiform tablets.  They trained the AI to recognize cuneiform, but when they applied the program to the early tablets, the AI said that this pattern showed that an egg lies here and that pattern is a dinosaur footprint, and so on.

Frustrated, the anthropology team returned the AI computer to the archaeologists, who were surprised when the AI started reporting, around Pentecost, that the nesting material contained intentionally written glyphs that could be interpreted.

1060 It is like the Greimas square.  Train a student on the Greimas square, then every spoken word becomes a focus for the technique.  It is quite remarkable.

I suppose that applies to myself, because it seems that all I see is the TMS fundament and derivative interscopes in every semiotic paper that I examine.

1061 So, maybe I should take a step back and draw a line between the virtual nested form in secondness for the fundament interscope and Torop’s table describing Bakhtin’s chronotopical system (Figure 2).

1062 Uh-oh.

Once I do this, I gestalt the following.

If “gestalt” is a verb, that is.

Reality expands into Peirce’s category of thirdness.

Time and space spins into Peirce’s secondness.

And, phonics associates to Peirce’s firstness.

1063 Surely, this diagram looks like it matches a comparison of the fundament and Torop’s Figure 2.

However, the levels look more and more suspicious.

Do they contain category-based nested forms?

1064 Consider the perspective or “reality” level.

Does a normal context of metaphysical reality3c bring the actuality of psychological reality2c into relation with the potential of ‘topographic reality’1c?

Surely, that looks well… may I use the word, “unrealistic”?

1065 So, what if I switch reality to correspond to three nested normal contexts?

Here is a picture.

1066 Now, that looks more realistic.

Overall, the normal context of reality3 brings the actuality of space and time2 into relation with the potential of ‘tone’1.

For three levels, reality3 is a normal context operating on the possibility of ‘tone’1, where ‘tone’ is most clearly expressed in terms of music-related explicit abstractions.  The label corresponding to ‘tone’1 changes from content, to situation and on to perspective.

1067 Yes, that seems more reasonable.

Here is the resulting interscope.

1068 On the content level, the normal context of topographic reality3a brings the actuality of concrete (or specific) time and space2a into relation with the potential of ‘homophony’1a.  Homophony is like a melody.

On the situation level, the normal context of psychological reality3b brings the actuality of subjective time and space2binto relation with the potential of ‘polyphony’1b.  Polyphony is like harmony and dissonance.  A melody is situated by harmony and dissonance.

On the perspective level, the normal context of metaphysical reality3c brings the actuality of mythological time and imaginary space2c into relation with the potential of ‘heterophony’1c.  Heterophony is like the visual appearance and acoustic character of the venue in which a musical or dance performance occurs.

1069 Now I ask, “Does the above figure look like a semiological3a structuralist3b model2c?”

02/10/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 9 of 11)

1070 Torop continues to recount the lessons that come from Bakhtin’s notes.

The next section is titled, “Semiotics of culture and chronotopicality”.

Not only does a chronotopical analysis distinguish three levels in every text, but, for literature, the three levels display narratives and performances.

Is this where semiotics enters into the picture?

1071 The author offers another table correlating levels of the text and the sphere of semiotization.

Here is a picture.

1072 The same principles apply as before.

Chronoscopy goes with Peirce’s category of thirdness.

Narrative and performance associates to secondness.

The world belongs to firstness.

1073 Similar to before, the above figure looks like a semiological3a model2c.

On the content level, a topographical homophonic normal context3a brings the actuality of story and events2a into relation with the potential of ‘an intertextual storyworld’1a.

On the situation level, a psychological polyphonic normal context3b brings the actualities of narration and performance2b into relation with the potential of ‘a multimodal, innerworld with self and others’1b.

On the perspective level, a metaphysical heterophonic normal context3c brings the actualities of verbal and pictorial descriptions2c into relation with the potential of ‘cohesive principles establishing a conceptual world’1c.

1074 Now I ask, “Do these arguments add up to a semiological3a structuralist3b model2c?”

1075 By the time that the author finishes this section, he has intimated that Bakhtin’s article and scribbles on the chronotope offers a semiological structuralist model composed of interscopes, rather than category-based nested forms.

Here are the virtual nested forms in the category of thirdness for each interscope.

02/9/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 10 of 11)

1076 The author moves on to the topic of “cultural semiotics as semiotics of cultural history”.

I love topics like this.

They almost make my wordplay appear reasonable.

1077 According to Lotman, each generation has a language to describe yesterday.

1078 What does this imply?

Torop has a positivist language2af, historically developed within the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (on its preparation for a second iteration, this examiner hopes), for translating the somewhat disordered clues left by Bakhtin into a text, consisting of tables.  Each of these tables correspond to an interscope (Peircean constructions, which the author does not have at the time, but are implicit to the tables, themselves).

There are two tables. 

The one dealing with narrative and performance associates to the semiological level of the fundament interscope.

The one dealing with space and time associates to the structural level of the fundament interscope.

These tables correspond to the literary text2bf as form for the fundament interscope.

1079 In Torop’s language, langue as matter2am consists in what Bakhtin is thinking, and wondering about, in regards to the way that literature works.  This matter2am sort of emerges from a signfied1a in the normal context of Saussure’s semiology3a.   Parole as form2af consists in the article that Bakhtin writes and the pages of notes that survive concerning the nature of the “chronotope”.  Indeed, the spoken word, “chronotope2af” situates the signifier1a that Bakhtin imagines and Torop uses to tag the article and the pages of notes.

Bakhtin’s works correspond to langue2am and parole2af in the fundament interscope.

1080 These associations allow me to apply the fundament interscope, as a semiological structuralist model2c, to Torop’s tables2bf.

1081 To me, this application is appealing.

1082 I now move on to the rest of Lotman’s observation.

Each generation, in principle, does not have a language to describe tomorrow.

1083 How does this apply?

In 2017, Torop does not have Peirce’s construction of the interscope.

The basics are presented by Razie Mah’s e-books, A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

1084 Despite this lack, Torop successfully communicates that Bakhtin’s parole2af of the “chronotope” serves as the language2bm that substantiates two tables2bf.  The universality of the “chronotope”2af and the intelligibility of Torop’s two tables2bf are weighed when one regards them as contributing to a semiological3a structuralist3b model2c.

1085 Here is corresponding interscope.

1086 The above interscope may be compared to the interscopes postulated by this examiner as characteristic of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

1087 But there is more.

02/7/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 11 of 11)

1088 The final section, on cultural semiotics as semiotics of cultural history offers the trope… er… slogan… saying, “Culture is memory.”

On the fundament, the literary text2bf offers something to remember, if for no other reason than it is encoded as a text. Texts may survive to be available to the future.  Parole2af is often not so lucky.

Time is cruel

So many texts have been lost.  Precious few oral traditions remain intact.

The issue is twofold.  The text or the oral tradition needs to survive.  Also, a code for translation must be retained… or… recoverable.

This is one of the problems with the writing of ancient Mesopotamia, where there are few texts that have more than one script in a single document.

1089 Lotman spends many hours reflecting on text and code.

Some of his reflections end up in his book, Universe of the Mind.

1090 The author presents a table on Lotman and Uspenskij’s views of the temporal aspect of chronotopical analysis.

1091 Of course, the above table does not correspond to Torop’s original table2bf (fundament and derivative, Figure 1).

Perhaps, this table further develops and refines Bakhtin’s semiological structuralist model2c (Figure 2).  

However, it is hard not to imagine that the above figure translates into an interscope.

1092 Say what?

1093 The Tartu-Moscow School expresses two interscopes, the fundament culminates in the semiological structuralist model2c and the derivative rises to a yet-to-be-determined perspective-level actuality2c.

1094 Bakhtin’s notes and scribbles express two interscopes as well.  These two interscopes constitute two adjacent tiers within a model more expansive than the semiological2a structuralist2b model2c.  The construction of Torop’s article intimates that this expanse is well worth investigating.

1095 The way that Lotman’s thing includes time shows how Torop’s tables2af entangle a language2am of presence1b (as well as meaning1a).  Lotman recognizes2bm time2af as a formal requirement of the chronotope2am and forces Torop to construct his own table (Figure 4 on page 330) as a way to situate2bf that entanglement2a.

1096 Here is a juxtaposition of the virtual nested form in the category of secondness for the derivative interscope and Torop’s reconstruction of Lotman’s approach.

1097 A virtual nested form proceeds down a column in a three-level interscope.

Here are the columns in the realm of actuality2.

1098 In the general form of the derivative interscope, a perspective-level actuality2c (to be determined) brings the situation-level actuality of {cognition2bm [substantiates] social interaction2bf} into relation with the possibility of {a literary text2af [entangling] a language2am of meaning1a, presence1b and message1c}.

1099 For Torop’s table addressing Lotman (Figure 4), the perspective-level actuality2c of {semiotic arrangements2cm[substantiate] human conditions2cf} virtually brings the situation-level actuality of {Lotman’s recognition of time2bm[substantiates] Lotman’s thing with respect to time (as a three-level table)2bf} into relation with the content-level possibility that {Torop’s tables as text2af [entangle] the chronotope’s formal requirements2am of the normal context of the Tartu-Moscow School3a}.

1100 Oh yeah, that makes sense.

Cultural history manifests in the framework of the semiotics of the text, where the text is a representation of culture.

Bakhtin’s culture, that is.

Lotman’s culture, too.

1101 If Bakhtin’s insights are formalized as text by Torop’s tables, then Torop’s tables constitute a semiological structuralist model2c of Bakhtin’s insights2af and support the entanglement of a language2am that sounds very much like any language of interpretation.

What is the meaning1a, presence1b and message1c of the chronotope?

Lotman’s thing focuses on time and produces a variation of the fundament interscope.

Torop’s table of Lotman’s consideration of time produces a categorical stairway to a perspective-level actuality2c in the derivative interscope.

1102 Once again, what is Lotman’s thing?

Oh, yes, it is the archaeological recovery of an insight that is present… at least in potential… since the very origins of Slavic civilization.

In the beginning is the Word, and the Word as matter substantiates the human condition as form.

1103 Here is a picture.

Such is the resolution, of the confounding where history substantiates culture and culture entangles semiotics.

1104 My thanks to Peeter Torop, for putting pen to paper and for building the tables that demonstrate the fecundity and the surprising beauty of the first iteration of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.  May a second iteration follow.

02/6/26

Looking at Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova’s Book (2025) “Sphere of Understanding” (Part 1 of 3)

SaH 0001 The full title of the book before me is Sphere of Understanding: Tartu Dialogues with Semioticians.  The book is volume 23 of the series, Semiotics, Communication and Cognition, edited by Paul Cobley and Kalevi Kull, published in 2025, by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.  

Kalevi Kull is a biologist who joined the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu in 1997.  Ekaterina Velmezova is a linguist and historian who graduated from Moscow State University.  Each, in their own way, represents the two poles of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

0002 The question is: Does this book mark the end of the first ascent or the beginning of the second ascent for the Tartu Moscow School of Semiotics.

0003 After the introductory chapter, extolling the virtues of dialogue, the authors offer a brief history of semiotics in Estonia.  The arrival of Juri Lotman, a scholar of Slavic literature, initiates a transnational collaboration within the old USSR.  The summer school at Tartu University proves seductive.  Here is a place where scholars in Slavic literature are free to play.

0004 So, one aspect of the sphere that the authors desire to understand is a historical conception, sired from the intellectual loins of Juri Lotman, that has taken a life of its own.  The only question is: Who is she?

0005 Kalevi Kull wrestles with emergence in biological systems.  What about this semiotically inclined child of history?

0006 Ekaterina Velmezova performs translation into English, as well as, I imagine, editing in Russian.  After all, these are times when Estonians may want to hedge their bets.

0007 Who knows?

Can the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics be born again?

The interviews provide clues.  They are gems framed in their historical moments.

0008 So how do I, a crypto semiotician, respond?

0009 First, I look at back issues of the journal that Juri Lotman founded, Sign System Studies, and find a special issue in 2017 bearing the title: Semiotics and History.

Second, I review several of the articles, plus one from 2016, in order to produce my contribution to the book’s dialogue.

Third, I package the results into an online independent mini-course, the first in a series titled, “Semiotics and History”, by Razie Mah, starting in December, 2025.

0010 The editors of the journal, Sign System Studies, have permission to scrape the blogs of this mini-course for a special on-line issue, as well as permission translate the blogs into other languages.  After all, time is cruel.  If the blog goes off-line, then the editors will retain a response that addresses what the authors seek.

0011 What do the authors seek?

0012 First, they seek a “sphere”.  Shall I add… “of influence”?  Or, shall I be satisfied with “of understanding”.

The interviewers ask semioticians questions.  After the year, 2008, these queries include how the semiotician came into contact or awareness of the (first ascent of) the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (1960s-1980s).  The authors want to appreciate the school’s sphere of influence.

0013 Second, they seek understanding.

Here is where the discrepancy between Saussure and Peirce comes in.  Today, practitioners of both traditions are called, “semioticians”.   But, Saussure called his path of inquiry, “semiology”.  And structuralism?  Structuralism virtually situates semiology.  Structuralism is semiology as matter substantiating aesthetics as form.

0014 So, what am I doing?

I follow the path of Peirce, into the labyrinth of triadic relations, and attempt to identify the normal contexts (thirdness) and potentials (firstness) of the actualities (secondness) of semiology and structuralism.

0015 What do I find?

I find that “she” is Slavic civilization, herself.

0016 My examination of articles in the 2017 special issue of Sign System Studies, titled “Semiotics and History”, pays tribute to the authors’ search, embodied in the title, and provides a way to understand the Tartu-Moscow School’s sphere of influence, for both the first iteration in the old USSR and its second iteration in the upcoming Eurasian convergence.

02/5/26

Looking at Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova’s Book (2025) “Sphere of Understanding” (Part 2 of 3)

SaH 0017 The authors quest for a sphere of understanding.  They seek the egg, so to speak, impregnated by Juri Lotman’s genius.  In the interviews in chapter 2.1, Lotman is spent, although still alive.  He is old.  The interviewer is a youth, a personification of the metaphysical love-child born after Slavic civilization reveals herself to Lotman’s circumspection.

0018 The miracle of Lotman’s arrival in Estonia is, weirdly, recounted in the last interview (2.14) with psychologist and cultural theorist, Jaan Valsiner.  As it turns out, Valsiner’s step-father was instrumental in getting Juri Lotman to Estonia after the Second World War.

0019 Jaan Valsiner demonstrates that the Tartu-Moscow’s sphere of influence is diffuse.  His testimony is seconded by Paul Cobley (2.13), Terrence Deacon (2.12), Jesper Hoffmeyer (2.11) and Stuart Kauffman (2.10).

0020 The sphere becomes less diffuse in interviews with Roland Posner (2.9), Gunther Kress (2.8) and Wilfred Noth (2.7).

Notably, Noth conducts a discourse on the crucial potential of truth, as opposed to the potential of will.  Indeed, the contrast between truth and will turns out to be integral to my examination of a 2017 article on Russian identity.

0021 Finally, the sphere becomes tangible with interviews with American anthropologist, Myrdene Anderson (2.6), who researched indigenous people in Sweden, Italian semiotician Paolo Fabbri (2.5), who railed against the wooly thinking that passes for “models” in contemporary humanities, and the Italian know-it-all Umberto Eco, who noted the importance of iconicity in semiotic humanity.

What?

“Semiotic humanity”?

What about semiology?

0022 Contemporary academic discourse is currently conducted with expert-coined spoken words, but these utterancescannot picture or point to their referents.  Academics swim in a pool of differences… er… two arbitrarily related pools of differences.  No one can tell where he or she flotates.

Flotates?

This is what happens when spoken words are placeholders in two arbitrarily related systems of differences.

0023 Finally, the interviews engage a still-living member of the original Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, Boris Uspenskij (2.2).  This interview gets a full examination in the course on Semiotics and History.  Uspenskij stands within the sphere that the authors aspire to understand.

0024 So, what does Razie Mah’s contribution under the banner of Semiotics and History offer?

0025 For the diffuse sphere, these examinations will present a historical narrative of ideas in the style of diagrams of purely relational structures.  In short, Peirce-inspired diagrams offer a new way to narrate intellectual history.

0026 For the almost tangible sphere, these examinations practice a method of association, followed by a discussion of the implications.  The articles provide material to fill in the empty slots of relational structures.  When associations are made, implications become apparent.

0027 For the sphere itself, one unexpected insight is that, as the first ascendant of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics struggles to fulfill the political mandate of the USSR (to make all fields of inquiry “scientific”), the researchers excavate the recently-buried remains of the civilization that is their subject of inquiry.

Imagine a scientific investigation of Russian language, history and literature, as a archaeological excavation into the being of Slavic civilization.

0028 Is that the same “she” that… um… you know… captured the attention of Juri Lotman?

How confounding.

0029 The next blog offers an introduction to Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

02/4/26

Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (Part 3 of 3)

SaH 0030 This course is a fully on-line study that appears in Razie Mah’s blog.

The course should be conducted (ideally) by a mature reader along with one novice or more, (less ideally) by two novices in collaboration and (perhaps, heroically) by a novice reader working alone.

0031 The field of home-schooling is exploding (a term associated with Juri Lotman) in America, but a wary public wants to taste the products, before committing to purchase.  This online course is the first of many, I suppose, but the import for this particular exposition is obvious when considering current events.

0031 Estonia is awkwardly situated (along with the other Baltic states) between the Slavic civilization of Russia (to the east), and the Swedish, German and Polish civilizations (to the west).  Estonia was part of the USSR, during the cold war; part of the West, during the American Empire’s unipolar moment; and now is about to be nudged into a Eurasian convergence, as predicted by political theologian, Alexander Dugin.

A nudge is both a danger and an opportunity, especially for the University of Tartu, with its department of semiotics, and for the University of Moscow, with its unique constellation of intellects.

0032 One of the questions asked in almost every interview in Kull’s and Velmezova’s book goes like this, “What needs to be researched by semioticians?  Or, what topics of inquiry need exploration by newly certified semioticians?”

This course offer a number of suggestions, several in connection with a stunning post-scholastic discovery that may be attributed to the first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

Discovery?

Look and see.

The original articles are available online.

0033 Here is the list of examinations.

Go to the month in Razie Mah’s blog and scroll down.

0034 (1.) Looking at Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2016) “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”  (December 2025, 27 blogs, points 1-376)

0035 (2.) Looking at Ekaterina Velmesova and Kalevi Kull’s Article (2017) “Boris Uspenskij…” (January 31-10, 2026, 19 blogs, points 377-641)

0036 (3.) Looking at Boris Uspenskij’s Article (2017) “Semiotics and Culture” (January 9-2, 2026, 8 blogs, points 642-743)

0037 (4.) Looking at Mihhail Lotman’s Article (2017) “History as Geography” (late February 2026, 8 blogs, points 744-840)

0038 (5.) Looking at Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2017) “Semiosphere and history” (late March 2026, 8 blogs, points 841-952)

0039 (6.) Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics as Cultural History” (early February 2026, 11 blogs, points 953-1104)

0040 In a little over 1000 steps, the home- or guided-schooler can find out where the Tartu-Moscow School as been (in its first ascent) and where it may be going (in its second).

02/3/26

A Course on Semiotics and History: A List of Online Contributions

SaH0001 Razie Mah offers three foundational courses that cover human evolution.

These are:

The Human Niche

(also see the four accompanying commentaries as well as the three-part Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019))

An Archaeology of the Fall

(also see the three part Instructor’s Guide, as well as The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace and Original Sin and Original Death: Romans 5:12-19)

How To Define the Word “Religion”

(also see the ten primers, starting with A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction)

These courses are on sale by various electronic booksellers.

The texts are designed to be read and discussed in a seminar setting.

0002 For inquirers. educators and students would who like to try their hands at Razie Mah’s approach, Semiotics and History offers a path.  This is one course consisting of many strands.  Like a fiber in a rope, each strand strengthens the entire conceptual apparatus.  With few execptions, each course completely appears in the blog.  Some strands will have an electronic e-book component.  So, don’t be afraid to make a purchase.  You will find that the costs of Mah’s electronic works are reasonable.

In the following list, the date corresponds to the cover page of each strand.  A strand typically covers a month.

0003 The following list extends into the future, because more strands will be added over time.

Feb 6,5, 2026

Looking at Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova’s Book (2025) “Sphere of Understanding” (Part 1 and 2 of 3)

Feb 4, 2026

Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (Part 3 of 3)

May 30. 2026

Semiotics and History: Baroque Scholasticism

May 7, 2026

Semiotics and History: Baroque Scholasticism and Early Modernism

June 30, 2026

Semiotics and History: Early Modernism

July 31, 2026 Semiotics and History: Gnosticism in Modern America

01/31/26

Looking at Ekaterina Velmezova and Kalevi Kull’s Article (2017) “Boris Uspenskij…” (Part 1 of 19)

0377 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 404-448) by two well-regarded semioticians.  The full title is “Boris Uspenskij on history, linguistics and semiotics”.  Kalevi Kull conducts the interviews.  Ekaterina Velmezova performs translation.

The article consists of two sit-downs.  The first takes place at the end of a eighth session of the Tartu Summer School of Semiotics, in August 25, 2011.  The topic of the Summer School was Semiotic Modelling.  The second takes place at Uspenskij’s home in Rome on May 27, 2012.  The questions are based on his book, Ego Loquens: Language and the Communicative Space (2007).

0378 This examination seeks to appreciate how one of the leading figures of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, which flourished from the 1960s to the 1980s, weaves Saussure’s definition of spoken language as two arbitrarily related systems of differences, into a science-friendly inquiry into the literature of the Slavic civilization.

0379 Two arbitrarily related system of differences?

Parole (speech talk) also corresponds to the written word as well as symbolic artifacts.  Parole can be observed and measured.

Langue (the machinations that automatically decode and encode speech talk) cannot be directly observed in the same way as parole.  Yet, langue is there.  It must be.  Otherwise there is no way that someone can think before speaking, should that person choose to do so.

0380 Parole and langue are two contiguous real elements.  The continuity, if placed in brackets is [arbitrarily related].

This configuration satisfies the definition of Peirce’s category of secondness, where one real element [is contiguous with] another real element.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the two real elements are matter and form.  I label the contiguity, [substance] or [substantiates], but it also could be [entangles].  Substance is typical.  Entanglement is tricky.

0381 Here is a picture of the comparison between Aristotle’s hylomorphe and Saussure’s definition of language.

0382 Saussure’s definition of language appears to be scientific, because there is no substance.  That is, there is no metaphysical reason for why what we think comes to be associated to what we say.  So, the arbitrary relation is simply a conditioned response.  A conditioned response conforms to truncated material and efficient causalities.

Another term for “conditioned response”?

How about “code” and “decode”?

0383 Okay, if that is the case, then what?

What if what we think (langue) is like matter?  What if what we say (parole) is like form?

Then, the contiguity, [arbitrary relation], seems to say that we can attach any word to any thought, without structure.  So, something structural would need to situate the content of a spoken word, even if that structure is a habit or a convention.  Once that happens, then the hylomorphe, {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}2a, occupies the actuality2a on the content-level of a two-level interscope.  Language2bm is the situation-level matter that induces a constellation of the content-level hylomorphe.

0384 Okay, if language2b is (by Saussure’s definition) the dyad, {langue2am [arbitrary relation] parole2af}, then how can language2b situate itself2a?

This can only happen if language2b is already participating as a situation-level category-based nested form involved in the production of statements2b.

0385 Here is a picture.

0386 It is as if the content-level actuality2a is immediately situated by a demand to substantiate a statement, as if language2b is matter and a statement2b is form.

0387 But, obviously, there is more.

The content-level actuality2a is accompanied by a normal context3a and potential1a.

So is the situation level actuality2b.

0388 For the content level, the normal context of Saussure’s semiology3a brings the dyadic actuality of {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}2a into relation with the potential of ‘a signified and its signifier’1a.

0389 For the situation level, the normal context of a linguistic structure (or genre or system)3b brings the dyadic actuality of {language as matter [substantiates] statements as form}2b into relation with the potential of ‘the laws of the system’1b.

01/30/26

Looking at Ekaterina Velmezova and Kalevi Kull’s Article (2017) “Boris Uspenskij…” (Part 2 of 19)

0390 Here is a picture of the resulting two-level interscope.

0391 The article begins with a pithy introduction.  Boris Anreevich Uspenskij (1937-present) is a linguist and semiotician from Moscow, one of the leading figures in the Tartu School of Semiotics, and a protege of Juri Lotman.  He is one of the founders of the above nested form, which I label “semiological3a structuralism3b“.  But, he has never encountered the diagrammatic formulations portrayed above.

0392 Each row constitutes a category-based nested form where:

Actuality2 emerges from potential1.

Actuality2 situates potential1.

Normal context3 contextualizes actuality2.

Normal context3 brings actuality2 into relation with potential1.

The subscripts, “1, 2, 3”, correspond to Peirce’s categories directly.  The subscripts “a, b, c” correspond to the levels of content, situation and perspective.  The three levels constitute a category-based nested form composed of category-based nested forms.  The relational structure is called an “interscope”.  The above interscope has only two levels, typical for sensible construction.

0393 All this is discussed in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0394 The two-level interscope associates to sensible construction.

So, I ask, “Where in these interviews does the idea of sensible (as opposed to social) construction manifest?”

0395 On page 408, in a question on deixis and language, Uspenskij notes that both parapsychological relations (between mother and infant) and imitation (an innate tendency) play roles in language acquisition.  Mother-infant interactions exhibit the character of signifier (the gestures, facial expressions and sounds) as well as signified (perhaps expressed as a theory of mind).  It is as if each signifier poses the challenge, “Guess what I am thinking.”

However, not only are mother and infant good at guessing, and psychologically supported by their mutual reinforcement, they display an actuality2a, {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}2a, that manifests systemic laws.  Each mother tongue is a structure3b operating on the potential of ‘lawful correspondences’1b.  Years later, when the child goes to school and learns to write, the content-level actuality2a will be situated by a similar appearing dyad, {language as matter [substantiates] literary text as form}2b.

0396 Of course, Uspenskij does not say this directly.

I only suggest that what he does say comports with semiological3a structuralism3b as portrayed in the Peirce-inspired diagram above.

0397 On page 409, the discussion turns to one of Uspenskij’s unanticipated discoveries: the first Russian grammar book written in Russian.  At the time, there are Russian grammar books in German, French and other languages. This is the first written in Russian.

Uspenskij tells the story of how his interest in iconic Byzantine painting led to the unexpected treasure.  He originally wanted to appreciate the actuality of Russian iconic painting2b within a formalized artistic system3b, with its own laws1b and its own way of communicating2a.

0398 Indeed, his original inquiry follows the contours of semiological2a structuralism2b.

0399 Of course, the associations may not be as straightforward as that.

0400 But it is a good starting point.

On the content level, the normal context of symbol-rich artistic expression3a brings the dyadic actuality of {human ideation2am [substantiates] visual signifiers2af}2a into relation with the potential of ‘a signified (the saint) and a signifier (the icon of the saint)’1a.

On the situation level, the normal context of the Orthodox tradition3b brings the dyadic actuality of {the icon of the saint (which is also the signifier1a)2bm [substantiating] a painting as an artistic production2bf}2b into relation with the potential ‘laws of the artistic style of the sacred icon’1b.

0401 The young Uspenskij formulates a hypothesis.

Byzantine religious icons are meant to be viewed in flickering candlelight.

The rich-unreflective clothes, the serious face staring back at the viewer, and the gold inlay of the background catching the import of every flicker of the flames belong to the laws of the artistic style1b.  The candlelight assists in drawing the viewer into the visual elements2bm… the visual matter2bm… until suddenly… what?

402 The saint in the figure speaks to me.

How weird is that?

403 Eighty years after Uspenskij proposes that Russian icons are designed to be viewed in flickering candlelight, Razie Mah reviews two books in September and October 2025: Looking at Steven Mithen’s Book (2024) The Language Puzzleand Looking at Julian Jaynes’s Book (1976) The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. These reviews are combined in the e-book, Synaesthesia and the Bicameral Mind in Human Evolution (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  This e-book justifies Uspenskij’s hypothesis as a characteristic of human practices long before the start of civilization.

404 Here is a picture.

0405 In this case, the structuralist system2b is a neural adaptation3b that facilitates the addition of vocal utterances to hand-talk word-gestures under less than ideal visual conditions, such as before a campfire at night.  As it turns out, this neural adaptation3b also engages a previously established adaptation called the interventional sign-relation (not pictured).  If Julian Jaynes is correct, then this system undergirds what he calls “the bicameral mind”.