By Peter Grieco
“Linguists need to know what utterances
mean to speakers of the language, whether
they are well-formed or deviant, whether they
are ambiguous or not, & what would alter
that meaning.”
“The cat is on the mat” differs
from “the hat is on the mat” systematically
having nothing to do with actual cats, hats,
or mats. “Thus for Saussure the identity
of two instances of a linguistic unit was
not an identity of substance but of form.”
The 8:25 from Geneva to Paris is the same
train—the same “social & psychological fact”—
whether or not it really is the same train.
This is because it is not the 7:25 or the 9:25.
It is “not so much the properties of individual
objects” that matter to the system but “the
differences between them” which the system
selects as significant—“just as a mathematical
point has no content but is defined by its
relations to other points.” We are said
to be missing the point by arguing that
unless an object does possess individual
properties it can’t have distinguishing
differences? Or that unless a point
has a unique position it can’t have
any relation to other points? What if
the train in question derails, plummets
into the Rhone, & never arrives in Paris?