0996 Let me offer a simplification.

Here is a picture of the resolution of history substantiating culture and culture entangling semiotics as a century-long chronotope.

0997 The story starts with the Russian Revolution at the end of the first World War.

Saussure’s thing is a viable alternate to Marx’s thing soon after the end of the second World War.

The first manifestation of the Tartu-Moscow School becomes a star in the constellation of Russian Theory during the third World War.  The fundament interscope is constructed.

The production of the derivative interscope and the formulation of Lotman’s thing occurs in the waning years of the third and the early years of the fourth Battle Among The Enlightenment Gods.

0998 Here is a date for orientation.

In 1973, Juri Lotman and others publish Theses on the Semiotic Study of Culture (as Applied to Slavic Texts).

The literary text is incorporated into a science-oriented model.

0999 To start, Saussure’s dyadic actuality_2a is placed in the proper normal context_3a and potential_1a.

Here is a picture.

1000 Many features of Formalism may be repurposed to explain how spoken words as things_2a emerge from (and situate) the potential of ‘signified [and] signifier’_1a within the normal context of Saussure’s semiology_3a.

1001 In short, the content-level encompasses topics familiar to linguists and scholars in rhetoric.

1002 Next, Saussure’s thing on the content level is situated by a literature-loving thing on the situation level.

1003 Culture enters the picture here as the milieu in which language_2bm substantiates a work of art_2bf.

Culture also enters the picture in the guise of influence_3b(1b)), corresponding to the normal contexts₃ and potentials₁ of both the content_a and situation_b levels.  Here, artistic expressions are situated by genre, style and so forth.

1004 For example, from the situation-level point of view, the parole_2af of dance consists of movements that constitute artistic expression_2af.   A dancer trips over something on the floor.  That is not part of the parole_2af of the dance_3a, because it_2am has no corresponding langue_2am.

During a performance_2bf, dancers adhere to certain laws of choreography_1b that vary according to the dance genre_3b.  Tap dancers make lots of noise.  Ballet dancers do not.

1005 Each language_2a must be performed_2bm.

1006 The language_2a supporting the performance_2bm is universal.

For example, a dance where the dancers merely wriggle in place looks like the visual equivalent of babbling.  Similarly, a dance where the dancers merely perform acrobatic feats does not demonstrate… well… artistic effort.  Also, a dancer wrapped up in linen as to appear as a round ball can only be said to be on a roll.  So, there must be something universal to the language_2a that corresponds to what the author calls “subtextual meaning”.

1007 The performance_2bm should be intelligible.  For dance, the coordination of bodies moving in unison offers a feeling of intelligibility.  Often, cinematic approaches to dance cut away before movements are complete, often in unintelligible manners.  Also, dance is rarely composed for cinema, even though cinema offers unique points of view, unavailable to stage.

1008 So, what am I saying?

What am I asking?

Will a model_2c put all this into perspective?

Does a model_2c bring the intelligibility of the performance of a particular work_2b into relation with the universality of the “words” of its language_2a?

Well, a model_2c can do this, only when the model_2c is not mathematical or mechanical.

1009 What if the perspective-level follows the appearance of the empirio-schematic judgment, where the normal context of a disciplinary language_3c brings the actuality of a mathematical and mechanical model_2c into relation with the potential of ‘observations and measurements of phenomena’_1c?

1010 Here is a picture for how that perspective-level category-based nested form may appear.

1012 The normal context of a language that allows formal and final causes_3c brings the actuality of a semiological_2astructuralist_2b model_2c into relation with the possibilities inherent in the observations and measurements of artistic phenomena_1c.

1013 Well, that is close enough to science that a scholar schooled in Slavic languages and literature gets.

I call the resulting interscope, “fundament”, because it takes the inquirer from the mother tongue_2a through the composition of the text_2b, to a model_2c that is based on the nature of signs_3a and on the way that any particular genre, style, fashion, and artistic expression constitutes a system_3b bound by rules_1b.  The fundament applies to a wide range of “languages” in so far as a specific style of artistic expression displays distinct elements, or forms_2b(2a), that correspond to mental thoughts_2a and linguistic matter_2b.

1014 Here is a picture of the fundament interscope.

1015 Perhaps, most striking is the Aristotelian character of the fundament.  The content-level hylomorphe_2a is universal.  The situation-level hylomorphe_2b should be intelligible.  The perspective-level model_2c is a relation that brings the intelligibility of the situation-level hylomorphe_2b into relation with the universality of the content-level hylomorphe_2a.

The fundament seems to be an exercise in aesthetics as much as modern science.

Juri Lotman labels it, “Russian theory”.

1016 Is it any coincidence that Russian Theory spontaneously constellates at the same time as Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology?  Both strive to assess what the noumenon must be, given the phenomena of matter and form.

1017 Phenomenology re-articulates technical achievements (such as a particular style of architecture) as social things, arriving at noumena whose phenomena engage the social sciences.

See the e-book course, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Also see the three part e-work, Biosemiotics as Noumenon.

1018 Russian theory re-articulates literary achievements (as well, all the modern arts) in Slavic civilization as… um… semiological and structural judgments_2c, lingering like Byzantine shadows of Aristotle in the Marxist-illuminated hallways of Moscow and Tartu Universities.

1019 Indeed, the fundament is so… um… profound that Marx’s thing gets entangled in semiotics as matter.

1020 How confounding.

The dangers of this confounding are palpable in the interview with Vyacheslav Ivanov, appearing in Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova (eds.), Sphere of Understanding: Tartu Dialogues with Semioticians (2025, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, pages 47-68).

1021 One can only admire Lotman’s bravado when it comes to the bureaucratic morons, who are both culturally Slavs (having an intuitive Orthodox appreciation of entanglement) and indoctrinated not be be Slavs (by the Marxist insistence that Christian superstition is scientific nonsense) and are therefore already conflicted.

Sometimes, morons can advance science by simply not resolving their conflictions.

1022 But, that is another story.

1023 Here, on page 321 of the text under examination, Torop shifts into the technical details of a literary order.  He offers a table, listing levels for intratextual and extratextual relations.  Intratextual relations concern the text itself.  Extratextual relations concerns what type of text it is.

1024 The actualities of the fundament interscope compare well with Torop’s intratextual relations.

1025 On the content level of word and meaning, Saussure’s dyadic actuality compares to subtextual and lingual meanings.  In short, an author must craft thoughts_2am into words_2af.

1026 On the situation level of the structure of the textual material, the dyad of {language as matter_2bm [substantiates] the literary text as form_2bf} compares to what Torop calls “the structure of material (dominant element or level)”.

1027 What does the term in parentheses imply?

Does “the dominant element or level” represent the normal context of structure (or sign-system)_3b operating on the potential laws of the system_1b?

For example, a text on history may be an epic tale, a historical analysis or a fairy tale.  Each manifests a different structure_3b and lawfulness_1b.

1028 On the perspective level of poetics, a semiological structuralist model_2c compares to textual specificity.  To me, both actualities contain some sort of judgment.

For example, let me propose a thesis in the humanities that consists of concatenating plagiarized passages from various experts on a particular topic.  When the submission is debated by the student’s faculty committee, they may consider the fact that the passages were chosen by the student may represent a unique intellectual advancement offered by the student.  In comparison to the visual arts, the submitted text is a collage.

The problem is obvious.  A submission on say, a Slavic work of literature, cannot be labeled a “thesis” when it is really the textual equivalent to a collage.

1029 So, Torop’s label of “poetics” for the perspective level conveys a certain irony.

1030 When the lazy faculty members vote to award the degree on the basis of this “literary collage”, and after the funds for the college’s endowment are released by a nervous, yet protective donor, a rumor goes out that the nature of the academic thesis in languages and literature has changed.  “Literary collages” are now accepted as original academic work.

1031 Spoken words can be so slippery.

So, actions speak louder than words.

1032 Of course, in order to justify the move, one of those lazy faculty members may be induced to write a defense, in which a semiological structuralist model_2c is constructed in order to portray the student’s submission as a literary text_2afthat emerges from the potential of ‘the meaning of an intellectual accomplishment’_1a in the normal context of… well… a positivist intellect that is more compromised than that of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics_3a.

1033 Here is a picture of the perspective-level of the fundament interscope and the content-level of a derivative interscope, which is not under the umbrella of Russian Theory for this example, because the entire exercise is a scam.

1034 The semiological structuralist model_2c of perspective-level of the fundament interscope stands for the literary text_2af on the content-level of the derivative interscope in regards to a modern intellect_3a operating on the potential of ‘positivist meaning’_1a.

1035 According to Peirce, a sign-vehicle (SV) stands for a sign-object (SO) in regards to a sign-interpretant (SI).  The above diagram expresses what I call “the interventional sign-relation”, as described in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in October, 2023.

In this case, the guilty faculty member’s semiological structuralist model_2c of the “collage thesis_2bf“ (SV_i) stands for literary text as form_2af (SO_i) in regards to the academic institution’s positivist intellect_3a (which is not TMS, for sure) operating on the potential of ‘an acceptable intellectual accomplishment, worthy of an advanced degree’_1a (SI_i).

1036 Recall that the semiological structuralist model_2c brings the intelligibility of the literary text_2b into relation with the universality of language_2a.

So, a semiological structuralist model_2c that that brings the intelligibility of a concatenation of plagiarized texts_2b into relation with the universality of the language of the visual arts_2a (SV_i) stands for the way that {this literary text as a form_2af [entangles] the language of meaning as matter_2am} (SO_i) in the normal context of an obviously compromised academic stance_3a operating on the potential that ‘a literary study may be compared to a visual collage’_1a (SI_i).

1037 Enough of this.

I’m sure the reader has a good idea that this academy engages in sophistry.

Can one build a sensible interscope on an exercise of sophistry?

Well, one can try.

Here is the general sensible construction that anyone with integrity would produce.

1038 I leave it to the reader to produce the sensible construction specific to the scam.

1039 Why?

I am plunging headlong into displaying the derivative interscope, which emerges from and situates the fundament interscope.

Here is a picture.

1040 On the content level, a positivist intellect comparable to that of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, in its 1960s-1980s hey-day_3a, brings the actuality of the dyad of {the fundamentally modeled literary text as form_2af[entangles] a discursive and derivative language as matter_2am} into the relation with the potential of ‘meaning’_1a.

Here, the potential_1a does not refer to subtextuality, but to “functionality”, in the broadest sense of the word.  ‘Meaning’ is not “functional” unless it satisfies the formal requirements of its design_3a and the intentions of its final causality_3a.

1041 On the situation level, the normal context of cultural studies concerning the reception of the work_3b brings the actuality of the dyad, {cognition as matter_2bm [substantiates] social interaction as form_2bf}, into relation with the potential_1b of ‘a presence’ that situates the matter of language_2am.

1042 Returning to the scam, in the next academic year, the department of languages and literature receives many applications by students eager to explore the opportunities offered for constructing a thesis based on plagiarized material cut and pasted into a “literary collage”.

1043 The problem arises when this new style of thesis is compared to theses from other academic institutions.

I suppose this problem figures in the general perspective-level category-based nested form in the above figure.

Perhaps, this is why the perspective level is left empty.

1044 The derivative interscope compares to the table on extratextual relations in Figure 1 on page 321.  The title of Figure 1 is “The construction of text”.

1045 Here is a table comparing the virtual nested form in actuality for the derivative interscope with Torop’s extratextual relations.

While the fundament interscope addresses the text itself.  The derivative interscope assesses the text in relation to other texts.  Such an assessment characterizes extratextual relations for the work.

1046 Are the correspondences sufficient to conclude that this examination’s fundament and derivative interscopes and Torop’s intratextual and extratextual relations are similar… if not identical?

If the answer is “yes”, then this examiner has a clue to the nature of the missing perspective-level actuality_2c.  The perspective-level actuality_2c assesses how a particular text relates to other texts, and in doing so, weighs the intelligibility of the reception of the work_2b against the universality of its functional meaning_2a.

1047 An affirmative answer also brings this examiner to the topic of Bakhtin’s chronotopes.

Figure 2 on page 322 of Torop’s essay presents what may be Bakhtin’s chronotopical system.

In fact, the table in Figure 2 is assembled from a short piece, “Forms of time and of the chronotope in the novel”, written around 1937-1938, along with “concluding remarks” added in 1973.  Plus, there are entries in various notebooks, scribbles on papers that were preserved, and so on, adding clarity… and weirdness… to a distinction between architectonic time (corresponding to the chronotope) and the time when the story or artwork is composed (and, presumably, the author and the author’s cultural scope are alive).

1048 For example, consider a sci-fi author completing a story about “life in the future”, the day before the world ends.  The chronotope must be life in the future.  The time when the story is composed corresponds to the day before an asteroid hits the Earth.

Oh, this is the twist.

The author belongs to a rare breed of dinosaur living 65 million years ago.

The translation occurs when an AI program trained to scan fossilized dinosaur nests suddenly recognizes patterns within the nesting material that correspond… through comparison with patterns in other… what?.. ancient Mesopotamian glyphs, allowing for some sort of translation.

1049 So, what is the title of this unbelievable literary text?

“Actuality to be determined_2c“.

1050 Am I saying that Bakhtin’s chronoscope is the actuality to be determined_2c?

Am I saying that the actuality to be determined_2c is more than intertextual specificity?

It_2c is the time envisioned in a story written the moment before the author, and the author’s cultural scope, vanish into the past.

1051 So, what is this moment in the present, where the past recedes and the future awaits the text itself?

It must be the moment when langue_2am [substantiates] parole_2af.

1052 Just as there is a time-piece within a radioactive atom that determines when the unstable isotope decays into another element, there is a time piece within every author and cultural scope.  That time-piece determines when the time of composition and the chronotope separate into the author and the text.

1053 An academic can study the author and the text in order to produce, using the fundament interscope, a semiologiccal_2a structural_2b model_2c.  This model_2c, when regarded as the noumenon of the text_2af, may entangle key elements within the chronotopical system, as shown in the following figure.

1054 But, there is a problem.

The closer that the semiotician swerves into Bakhtin’s chronotopical system, the more and more the semiological structuralist model_2c looks… well… irrelevant. 

Look at the poetics level.

Surely, a semiological structural model_2c is bland and uninteresting compared to topographic, psychological and metaphysical realities.

No?

1055 Okay, there is another problem.

It is not at all obvious that my one-to-one association with each of Bakhtin’s triads corresponds to content-, situation- and perspective-level actualities.

The chronotope does not seem to match the fundament and derivative interscopes, at least not directly.

Plus, Torop loves Bakhtin as much as he does Lotman and Uspenskij.

The essay makes that obvious.

1056 On top of that, the article itself swerves from the TMS school (olive color) to Bakhtin (orange color) and back (to olive color).

Here is a picture with color-coded section headings.

1057 So, the author goes from the TMS school to Bakhtin and back again.

What does this imply?

The swerve into Bakhtin must be crucial.

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 reality_3c bring the actuality of psychological reality_2c 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 reality_3a brings the actuality of concrete (or specific) time and space_2a into relation with the potential of ‘homophony’_1a.  Homophony is like a melody.

On the situation level, the normal context of psychological reality_3b brings the actuality of subjective time and space_2binto 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 reality_3c brings the actuality of mythological time and imaginary space_2c 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 semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c?”

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 semiological_3a model_2c.

On the content level, a topographical homophonic normal context_3a brings the actuality of story and events_2a into relation with the potential of ‘an intertextual storyworld’_1a.

On the situation level, a psychological polyphonic normal context_3b brings the actualities of narration and performance_2b into relation with the potential of ‘a multimodal, innerworld with self and others’_1b.

On the perspective level, a metaphysical heterophonic normal context_3c brings the actualities of verbal and pictorial descriptions_2c into relation with the potential of ‘cohesive principles establishing a conceptual world’_1c.

1074 Now I ask, “Do these arguments add up to a semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c?”

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.

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 language_2af, 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 text_2bf as form for the fundament interscope.

1079 In Torop’s language, langue as matter_2am consists in what Bakhtin is thinking, and wondering about, in regards to the way that literature works.  This matter_2am sort of emerges from a signfied_1a in the normal context of Saussure’s semiology_3a.   Parole as form_2af consists in the article that Bakhtin writes and the pages of notes that survive concerning the nature of the “chronotope”.  Indeed, the spoken word, “chronotope_2af” situates the signifier_1a that Bakhtin imagines and Torop uses to tag the article and the pages of notes.

Bakhtin’s works correspond to langue_2am and parole_2af in the fundament interscope.

1080 These associations allow me to apply the fundament interscope, as a semiological structuralist model_2c, to Torop’s tables_2bf.

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 parole_2af of the “chronotope” serves as the language_2bm that substantiates two tables_2bf.  The universality of the “chronotope”_2af and the intelligibility of Torop’s two tables_2bf are weighed when one regards them as contributing to a semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c.

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.