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3.3. THE RELATION OF LANGUAGE AS A COMMUNICATIVE MECHANISM TO CONSCIOUSNESS AS AN INSTRUMENT OF RECOGNITION AND PROGNOSTICATION.
Meanings as specific communicative abstractions.
The schemes for working out formalogical and essence abstractions which have been examined above, and for the formation of patterns for Identifying signs and indicators, the realisation of pre-sign and sign communication, and of identification and recognition activity, now provides us with an opportunity to formulate more precisely the specific character of the relation between language and consciousness, language and speech etc. All this is essential if the degree to which prognostic and communicative operations in cybernetic machines are feasible is to be assessed.
As has been shown, the break down of patterns of real, single objects in the interpretor's memory, i.e. the break-down of concrete patterns into particular classes, is carried out according to the principle of the functional equivalence of these objects being a means of achieving a subject's particular standard goals, both utilitarian and cognitive. Each type of standard activity of the subject aimed at achieving a standard goal leads consequently to a special method for assessing the concrete patterns of objects of the external environment, and correspondingly it leads to the creation of a special group (set) of formalogical or abstract essence patterns, "embodying" the class of concrete patterns with each of the types of assessment. [104-107].
Naturally those types of activity which lead to the inclusion of both concrete and abstract patterns formed during other types of standard activity in a particular class are also possible. Without the functional break-down of patterns into classes and without the creation of abstractions there cannot occur standard thinking activity in forecasting results in standard situations.
It follows from the simplest sign communication scheme that the internal sign 0X" as a pattern of the external sign X, if it is capable on same basis or other of joining in an association with other patterns, is capable of playing a sign role with regard to them. If these other patterns are sociologised abstract representatives of classes of more concrete patterns, then abstract patterns join in an resemblance association quite easily with occasional representatives of their classes.
If we assess what has been said, it becomes clear that even without meaning as a specific type of abstraction sign communication is possible when the role of internal denoters is taken by abstract or concrete patterns if only the abstract patterns have a usual or occasional association with the pattern 0X" of the sign.
So the chain !0C"a - !! pp - !°X"a - !! X - !!X"b - !! xx - !0X"b - !! pp - ! oC"b reflects the case when an occasional resemblance (p) association is revealed between the abstract izogenic pattern 0C" and the abstract pattern 0X" of the sign X in the memory of the communicants a and b; as a result of this the sign X is a sign for the internal denoter 0C". Similarily the sign X can serve or operate a certain abstract pattern 0E", if a basis e is found for an association between the pattern 0E" as an internal denoter and the pattern 0X" as an internal sign.
But since an abstract unit, as a bearer of the general features of a group of concrete or specific units, easily joins in a resemblance association with any concrete occasional representative of "its" class, any occasional pattern in acts of communication can also became an internal denoter through the mediation of its abstract "embodier" (e.g. the pattern C" through the mediation of the abstract usual pattern 0C"). It can therefore be shown that the presence of specialised abstractions is again near to being superfluous if the pattern 0C" can enter an association with the sign pattern °X". [105-107].
What is more, abstract patterns which often engage in an association with the pattern 0X" can join in an association with the pattern 0X" not only occasionally by resemblance but also usually by contiguity, and then the process of selecting a sign for a concrete occasional pattern is simplified to an important extent.
It would seem that the problem of universal communication by means of a limited number of signs is fully resolved with this. Indeed, if each abstract sense was associated by contiguity with the pattern of a certain sign, then with every set of signs any abstract sense could be signified, and, through the mediation of abstract ones, any concrete sense can be signified.
However the matter is not quite so simple. If we take into account the variety of types of standard activity, each of which leads to a special break-down of patterns into classes and to the creation of special abstractions, and if we remember the existence of multistep abstracting leading to the rise of generalised patterns of the various levels of abstraction, it becomes clear that the number of easily reproduced and identifiable signs cannot be so large to serve or operate all - even abstract - patterns - be they a gestalt of the identification of external objects and situations, or a gestalt of the interpretor's resultative behaviour in standard situations.
Communicative behaviour necessitates accordingly the division of abstract and concrete patterns which have already formed into special classes which are convenient for effecting precisely this communicative activity. The boundaries of these communicative classes may have very little in common with the boundaries of classes which have formed in order to increase the effectiveness of other non-communicative types of activity, for example, forecasting.
The number of communicative classes, and consequently their size, is determined in the first place by the number of patterns permitting reversible reflection and consequently able to play the role of signs capable of being "representatives" of these classes. But an object becomes a sign of a certain sense only when its abstract pattern is associated as an internal sign with a sense as an internal denoter. And so it is essential for a given internal sign 0X" to be even just an indirect sign of any pattern of a certain communicative class. Including an abstract pattern, in order for it to be placed in direct association with the abstract pattern of the elements of this class, i.e. the abstraction from both concrete and abstract units of non-communicative activity, which should apparently be regarded as proper thinking ones.
So we come to the conclusion that the requirement for communication is the cause of the division of abstract and concrete thinking units, units of recognition, prognosis, and active non-communicative activity, into special, communicative classes; each of these is "embodied" by its abstract pattern of this class 0Y" which is directly linked with the pattern 0X" of the sign. The patterns 0Y" are intended to effect acts of communication, but not other types of activity.
The linguistic part of the psychological factors consists therefore above all of a combination of the pattern oX" of the signs X" fixed in the nerves of the brain by some method or other (for example, holographically, as K. Pribram supposes [147], which are contiguously associated with the generalised abstract patterns oY" of all thinking, or thought, patterns divided into communicative classes, i.e. with meanings. Any pattern of any of these classes Y" can be signified with a sign attached to the meaning oY" of this class; this is owing to the presence of a contiguity association between the pattern oX" of the sign X with the communicative abstraction oY" and the subsequent resemblance association of this communicative abstraction oY" with the pattern C" of the given class Y" which appears in a concrete communication act as the sense of a sign, a unit of "non-language" "exoglottic" thinking [24, vol.11, p.177].
A communicative abstraction "rigidly" associated with the pattern of a sign is the invariable which is preserved when any sense is designated by means of a given sign. Only this non-variable component of what is signified, which is represented by a given sign, should apparently by interpreted as a meaning of the sign. A double-component association of a sign's pattern with a meaning, an association which we named a moneme, enables us to understand what F. de Saussure had in mind when he spoke of the existence of "bi-lateral essences" as the basis of language, and to explain the "terminology for operating" an infinite number of sense units by a limited (finite) number of monemes [109-114].
The limited number of meanings and the limitless number of senses. We are convinced that language belongs to a class of specialised sub-systems in a system of higher patterns of the reflection of reality. The basic components of this sub-system are, first, the patterns oX" of signs (and also the patterns oX" of their indicators) which on the basis of the purely physical interactions of a communicant with the signs X as corporeal observable objects enter a resemblance association with the occasional patterns X" of these signs X; second, the meanings oY", which are abstract patterns of classes, communicatively broken down, of thought units, and third, abstract patterns of resultative behaviour in communication acts, all of which represent the methods and rules of choosing units of the first two types and linking them in speech sequence's (in Fig.8 these patterns of the programmes of linguistic thought and the control of speech processes are not reflected).
It follows from the language scheme we have examined (Fig.8) that the pattern oX" of the sign X is linked with the sense C" through the intermediary of the meaning oY" and in such a case the presence of a meaning for the sign is essential in any communication act - otherwise the sign will not designate any sense. And as meaning is linked to sense on the basis of a resemblance (y) association, a particular meaning, and through it a particular sign, cannot associate with a limitless number of senses containing (as do patterns) the basis y of the resemblance. Therefore the sense of a sign in any communication act is a quantity which is variable, occasional, rarely absolutely unique and is only represented in a single case where a given sign is used in a given sense, while meaning in all cases is invariable, obligatory, usual, and in such a sense extra-sensitive.
Sense, as is clear from our scheme, is a thought unit, an abstraction from a field which is non-communicative but is properly thinking, forecasting, for example, activity; it has only an indirect relationship to linguistics, first and foremast as an object which is served by the means of language in communication acts, but which has an independent existence and functions independent of language.
It is absolutely necessary, if communication is to be successfully effected, that sets of patterns oX" of signs X ("acoustic" or "auditory" patterns for Baudouin and de Saussure), and sets of meanings oY" and the correlationship of these patterns oX" of signs with meanings oY" in the psyche of each member of a communicative collective should be the same. Auxiliary operational commands by the linguistic units must also be the same. In other words, languages as combinations of psychic communication habits (skills) must be the same for all members of a language collective. But there cannot be full identity between them. This justifies our isolating in each language its basis, which represents features Identical with all members of the collective, and a periphery, i.e. the combination of features of an individual example of the language, peculiar to that example alone.
It is necessary, if practical problems are to be resolved in automated information systems where the processing and analysis of, and the search for, information is effected, to examine in more detail certain additional aspects of language and speech. In particular it is important to analyse the concept internal speech.
Linguistic thinking, language, and speech. So now we have established with sufficient certainty the distinction between thought processes as the recognition and forecasting of the states of an environment, and also of the choice of forms of resultative behaviour in this environment through the concrete and abstract patterns of the objects of the environment and the patterns of the change of internal states of the individual in his consciousness, on the one hand, and the process of communication between the consciousnesses of individuals on the other. It should now be obvious that although the thinking mechanisms mentioned can sometimes be provoked by acts of communication, they do however occur independently of communicative processes.
Proper thinking activity in an individual should not be confused with an auxiliary particular form of activity such as communicative activity for which a need arises only when the increasingly complex forms of the functioning of the object under adaptation (it is becoming the subject) require the development of effective means of exchanging individual experience. This exchange sharply increases the potentials of such individuals, by changing them into social objects, but nevertheless there is no basis for perceiving manifestation of either language or speech in the named thinking processes proper.
Of course the reverse is not true: communicative activity cannot occur separately from thinking activity. Indeed insofar as a sense is linked with a sign owing to a resemblance association with the meaning of this sign, it is straightaway impossible to do without the thinking operations of identification, comparison, and judgement of similarity by evaluating the degree of "similarity" in the sense and meaning, if the above-mentioned resemblance is to be shown (the degree of resemblance can incidentally be varied in various circumstances since senses can be absolutely unique). Consequently, if thinking processes proper, which for example aim at forecasting the states of the external environment, do not need to participate in communicative processes, then communicative processes include a series of thinking, i.e. non-standard, situatively irrepeatable, processes, which are not reflected in units, "prepared beforehand" of the communicative mechanism i.e. language.
These auxiliary non-standard thinking operations, accompanying communicative processes proper, could be called "internal speech", but the phrase itself is hardly the most apt, in that at the basis of the distinctions of "internal speech" and the language's functioning there lies the contrast of the thinking and the communicative, when the term speech is intended to characterise communicative processes alone, however it be interpreted. Baudouin de Court-enay's linguistic thinking [24, vol.11, p.74; 163; 186; 276; 326] corresponds more to the basic nature of the matter, indicating as it does the occurrence of both thinking, usual, communicative processes, and creative processes, which supplement the standard, usualised and sociologised communicative language processes proper [7; 33; 35; 39-42; 160; 163; 190].
The move from intention, i.e. the actual sense which requires sign expression, to the sequence of speech flow signs "includes" mechanisms of creative linguistic thinking as well, and everything that can be achieved in processes where senses are linked with meanings by standarised methods is effected by language as an automatic generating mechanism, Consequently we are above all concerned both before the start of the communication and during the communication process with language in its static state and in its dynamic state, carrying out the role of linking object between actual (occasional or usual) senses as units of thinking content and linguistic signs of these units through the intermediary of meanings as specialised communicative abstractions.
Therefore language in direct observation is like other psychic units, not given to the speaking person or the listening person. It is an object, forming physically in the psyche, and in this respect it is ideal.
But after language is included, under the influence of the links described, in the interaction with organs of articulation and with the environment, and through it a speaker reproduces the signs X (the order for the "manufacture" of which comes from the patterns oX" of these signs X) there will appear a qualitatively new physical object - a sequence of external physical signs X, generated by the language. This is truly a qualitatively new object and should be named speech or speech flow.
The impression might be given from the fact that speech "flows", that speech is in principle dynamic and language is contrastingly merely static. But this is not so. Language is static before the communication act, and dynamic during the communication act.
Speech is also dynamic in the communication act but if we establish it on, for example, a magnetic tape or as a written text, it then is transformed into a static object. Language is also dynamic when it is forming in an individual's psyche for example a child's when he is assimilating the language of people surrounding him through speech intercourse.
In this case it can be considered that we are concerned with the farming and adaptation of an individual example of language, with its otogeneses and in particular with its embryogenesis.
But being an object which has arisen so that certain functions can be realised in the meta-meta-system, language is dynamic on the level of phylogenesis as well, the level of the re-structuring of the composition of the signs, the set of meanings and the grammar of combinations of all these units, since both the set of its functions in the meta-meta-system and the functioning conditions of the language do not remain the same, and there take place in language constantly, though slowly, processes of adaptation, leading to the evolution of language, [24; 37; 38; 77; 89; 139; 143; 150; 151; 158; 164; 178; 183; 194].
Categories of linguistic form, substance, and material.
The reader will observe that in the scheme examined (Fig.8) general systemic categories are applied, defined above as categories of "material", "substance" and "form" both on the level of expression, i.e. signs and their patterns, and on the level of content, i.e. meanings and senses. Such a division in respect of units of a communicative arc is adapted mast consistently in the works of one of the founders of the so-called Copenhagen Linguistic School, Louis Elmslev [53; 54].
"Acoustic pattern" in de Saussure's scheme [166], i.e. the language sign oX" in our scheme, is a "form (i.e. type) of expression" for Elmslev. The field of articulation potentials and the sound environment where the articulated speech signs X arose is the "expression material". The "expression form", i.e. the acoustic pattern oX", representing the combination of articulation commands fixed in the psyche, imposes on the "expression material" the particular features of its structure, as a result of which a unit of "formed material" will appear, i.e. a unit of "expression substance" - the pronounced speech sign X". This "expression substance" is also de Saussure"s "speech signal".
With such an interpretation is there any distinction between our scheme, and de Saussure's and Elmslev's scheme?
De Saussure and Elmslev start with the full amorphousness of "expression material", but we note in our scheme that "expression material" is only relatively amorphous, or relatively pliable when under the influence of "expression form", and therefore the "expression form" cannot itself help also bearing certain "marks" of " expression material" properties, its "resistance" to the formative influence on it of the structure. Thus in de Saussure's and Elmslev's conceptions are perhaps also contained the ideas of Foma Akvinsky concerning the primacy of form over matter, while in our scheme the postulations of materialist dialectics on the mutual influences of form and substance, the materiality of form and the impossibility of absolutely amorphous material existing are given concrete expression.
Elmslev, when discussing form, makes de Saussure's thesis on the primacy of significance over meaning absolute, and strives with all his strength to reduce the distinctions of forms to distinctions of "functions", i.e. in actual fact of significances. Consequently only in a flow of "expression substance" units, i.e. in the scheme of the correlations of speech flow units with one another can the identity of the characteristics of the units of the "expression form" level, and the units of the "expression substance" level, be revealed, according to Elmslev.
In the scheme under examination, as in de Saussure"s, an isolated unit of "expression form" (the sign oX") already has an internal structure, and this structure is "coined", with a certain degree of accuracy, on a piece of "expression material", by changing it into a unit of the "expression substance" level, i.e. into a speech sign X.
Consequently, the scheme suggested is in essence identical to Baudouin de Courtenay's conception: he even introduces the special concept of "Kinakemes" [24, vol.11, p.327], which cannot exist in principle in Elmslev's scheme, to describe "expression form", i.e. for the signs °X", which is imposed on "expression material" during the "manufacture" of "expression substance" units.
The levels of "form", "material" and "substance", and "content plane" are also represented in our scheme.
A recognition of the possibility of non-verbal thinking, i.e. thinking by means of units which are not linked directly with language signs, provides a basis for saying that it is precisely non-verbal thinking which represents both in our scheme, and in de Saussure"s and Elmslev's, the level of "content material". The difference of our scheme, which develops de Courtenay's ideas, is that again the thought units are only relatively amorphous with regard to language units, because they remain patterns even on the most abstract level and are consequently "borrowed from both the physical world and the social world" [24, vol.11, p.163], i.e. they are formed to some degree by the properties of denoters and by those aspects of their examination which are determined by the standard functions of objects, and not only by units of the "content form" level - units of linguistic thinking proper, whose only important role is in communication.
Naturally if we understand "content material" properties in such a way we come once again to the conclusion that there are influences not only of "content form" on "content material", but also of "content material" on "content form". This conclusion is directly substantiated by the formation scheme of abstractions which are closely associated with the "acoustic pattern" we have already examined.
And so in de Saussure's scheme "content form" is the "concept" which presents the "signified" as the second side of a two-sided (bi-lateral) "linguistic sign", ("or moneme" in our scheme").
In Elmslev's scheme "content form" is only a "function", a significance, a bundle of relations with other units of the "content form" level. In de Saussure's scheme it is a question of both significance and the meaning of "the signified". In the scheme we are examining, "content form" is meaning having an internal structure and in an isolated state, although this structure oY" was not formed without the influence of the particular features of relations with the structures of other meanings: a meaning, being an abstraction, like any other abstraction cannot help bearing features reflecting the properties of the external environment.
Naturally that "piece" of "content material", on to which "content form" "projects itself" in the act of communication, is also a unit of "content substance", i.e. an actual, "occasional or usual" sense in our scheme, e.g. E"b C"e C"o.
In de Saussure's and Elmslev's scheme the mechanism for selecting the signified "piece" of a "vague idea", i.e. that "place" on the "amorphous surface" of the "level of content material", on to which a concrete unit of "content form" is projected, is not revealed and cannot in principle be revealed. In the scheme we offer, since the "thinking mass" in it is not absolutely amorphous but is represented by concrete and abstract patterns as non-linguified thinking units, e.e. E"k ,C"k , C"p while "content form" (oY") remains, even outside relations with other forms, the bearer of the patterns of a class of denoters represented by it, there are bases for the selective "inclination", by resemblance, of a certain "piece" of "content material" towards "content form" when this piece is changing into "content substance" (into a linguified, occasionally or usually thinking unit).
Therefore any "non-supportive" thinking unit (not having a direct, usual link with "expression form", i.e. with the linguistic sign oX") proves to be linked, through the mediation of thinking, non-linguistic operations for the revelation of links, sooner or later with the closest conceptual unit included in the meanings and consequently with the corresponding linguistic sign which will give a command for the forming of "expression material" into "expression substance", i.e. into a "speech sign" [109, p.3, 4].
Let us tabulate the correlating of the units of communicative systems of meaningful intercourse (e.g. units of natural language and thinking with the corresponding categories of de Saussure and Elmslev [112; 114] Table 1 on P.261 -original text).
An examination of the comparison table will lead us to the conclusion that our scheme of the correlations of speech linguistic, and thinking units, does not simply not contradict Elmslev's and de Saussure's system of linguistic and semiotic concepts, but makes these concepts more precise, by "balancing" the role of form and substance in the linguistic system, and of structure and function. But this balancing enables us to see how the "relatively mysterious phenomenon" (de Saussure [166, p.112] of the linking of linguistic units (i.e. meanings and the patterns of sighs associated with them) with elements of "amorphous" (as de Saussure and Elmslev call it) thought occurs, i.e. with senses (in our terminology) or, in other words, how the "joining or meeting" of meanings with senses is realised, especially occasional ones.
In linguistic literature which usually quotes de Saussure quite extensively, writers speak as a rule of the connection of the pattern of a sign with meaning and this connection or link is fixed usually, so that a moneme represents the relation between the "signifier" (the pattern of the sign) and the signified (meaning). But since here the pattern nature of meaning is not emphasised, the ability of meaning to enter an occasional resemblance association with senses (since they are also pattern), and to serve, owing to the presence of the resemblance, as a hint of the senses, remains unobserved. In other words it is shown in our scheme that apart from the "signifying" relation between signifier (the pattern of the sign) and the signified (meaning) in acts of universal communication, the principle role is played by yet another type of relations - the relation of hinting or suggestion. Here senses are as a rule hinted at or implied in the communication chain, while meanings, according to their origin and function rate the specialised function of being "impliers", i.e. a means of pattern implication of a sense or a reminder of a sense.
The absence of a "joining" link owing to an implication relation does not enable us to explain by means of de Saussure's and Elmslev's semiological concepts, the most important thing in each communication act: the basis of the choice or selection (from a limited composition of signs) of a sign from which receiver or interpretor of this sign can guess what occasional sense is represented by this sign in a given act of speech which the sign implies [113; 114; 129] compare with [3; 11; 12; 14; 17; 22; 26; 27; 30; 31; 33; 34; 37; 38; 41; 42; 46; 55; 56; 59; 65; 67; 68; 77; 78; 79; 108; 114; 149; 159; 163; 164; 167; 169; 179; 186; 191; 194; 199].
We emphasise once again that generalised patterns of signs - morphemes and elements of linguistic content associated with them by contiguity, i.e. meanings entering a hinting relation with elements of nonlinguistic content, i.e. with senses, only arise in the psyche when a requirement arises for universal communication to make accessible to each member of a human group socially useful experience acquired by any other member of this group as a result of interaction between nature and society. Consequently morphemes and their meanings, as a basis of natural language, and, correspondingly, natural language in general, are a secondary forming of the human consciousness, and it is specifically for the bringing about of communication, and for stimulation by means of signs reproduced in the speech flow of those thoughy processes in the psyche of the listener, which lead to end results corresponding to the intent of the speaker. The thought processes themselves in the listener's psyche, even if they do not arise from direct interaction with the environment nor in connection with a need for thought "play" of certain situations, i.e. even if they are stimulated and are stimulated and are directed only by the speech of the speaker, nevertheless occur outside a linguistic form, not verbally but on the basis of the interaction of the senses mentioned with other patterns of extralinguistic consciousess, i.e. with abstract and concrete, essence and utilitarian ones and ones which have been formed previously or are still only being formed. And such an interpretation of the correlation between language and thought only became possible after Baudouin de Courtenay introduced into linguistics the prinsiple of the functional nature of the appearance of units of an object under study, and saw the necessity of introducing the concept of the morpheme as the minimal linguistic unit, still endowed with meaning, and, consequently, began to interpret meaning as a semantic unit peculiar to linguistic thinking and serving as an intermediary between the linguistic sign and the senses expressed by a means of it, i.e. serving as a "hinter" of the senses.
After this the communicative chain appeared to consist not of three, as in many modern semiotic conceptions, and not of four, as in Peirce's and Baudouin de Courtenay's concepts at the end of the 1860's but of at least five links: the sign, the pattern of the sign (morpheme), the meaning of the morpheme (the hinter), sense (the hinted), the denoter (the original pattern of the sense). It is the "five-point figure" of Baudouin which is at the base of this author's semiotic concepts.
However it is necessary to note that the requirement both for the distinguishing linguistic and extralinguistic thought and for introducing the five links in the communicative chain, in order to explain the "joining" of the units of speech flow with units of non-linguistic thought and with objects of the external world (denoters), was perceived by the founder of European theoretical linguistics, V. Humboldt. It is true that for the majority of linguists Humboldt is the author of the concept of the unbreakable link between language and thought, the "spirit of the people" and the "spirit of language", but in fact in the latter published posthumously (German - see P.33 in original Russian) we find the following correlation scheme of the units of speech flow, language and transmitted content. In speech flow signs are presented as articulated sounds, while to these "in the soul" of the members of the linguistic group there correspond elements of "pure articulatory feeling" (i.e. generalised patterns of signs in Baudouin's and our scheme) formed before the act of communication. Only because of this the "intentions of the soul to generate" an articulated sound come to be realised [213, p.96]. These "pure", i.e. generalised, psyche units are included by Humboldt among the units of "linguistic thought" and are the representatives of the "external form" of the language. The origin of these linguistic units is purely functional: they are formed through the influence of the "effort of the soul" "to express a thought" and therefore they have a fully defined purpose in acts of communication [213, p.79], When this purpose is achieved the pronounced sign, for example, a word, becomes a "unit of sound and concept" [213, p.83], and, particularly important, this concept, this expressed idea, comes into the field no longer of "linguistic", but of "non-linguistic consciousness" (in our scheme, based on Baudouin's concepts, the field of senses as "linguistified units of extralinguistic thought").
But the picture drawn of the link of signs with thought was clearly incomplete: the method of linking "pure articulatory feeling" as a unit of linguistic thought, with "concept" as an element of the extralinguistic, "logical" thought remained unclear. And, being a dialectician, Humboldt was bound to start ("postulate", as we would not say) the inevitability of the existence of units of one more type which are also part of the linguistic consciousness. These units must fulfill the function of "intermediaries" between "pure feeling of articulation" and the "concept" expressed by means of it (i.e. between the pattern of the sign and the sense expressed, in our scheme). In contrast to the "feeling of articulation" as an "external form" Humboldt called this intermediary link "internal form", where at the basis of the rise of "internal form" units (i.e. in our scheme of meanings proper) "sense" and "visible" elements (i.e. pattern ones) also lie. This "visibleness" (patternness) enables "internal form" elements (i.e. first and foremost, meanings) to "hint" at the "extralinguistic" thought elements being expressed - "concepts" (senses) [213, p.121].
Certain important aspects of this explanation of the interrelation between the elements of speech, language and thought have been developed by followers of Humboldt: Steintal and Potebnya. However let us emphasise once again that until Baudouin de Courtenay introduced the concept of the morpheme, i.e. that single element of outer linguistic form which is universal for all the languages of the world, no matter what their typological peculiarities are, which is capable of being a direct expresser of invariable linguistic content, i.e. of meaning as a minimal internal linguistic form, sense could not before then be clearly delimited from meaning, and the idea of the independent nature of linguistic and extralinguistic thought did not acquire its due explanatory force.
Let us now look at those units of extralinguistic thought which have socially unified associations with fully determined meanings end morphemes, in order to define more precisely from Baudouin's standpoint a number of additional aspects of the correalationships between language and speech units on the one hand and units of extralinguistic thought content expressed, on the other.
The Dual Function of Usual Senses. The needs of convenience in the selection of meanings for components and areas of "content material", i.e. for "pieces" of thought, which must be expressed by means of linguistic and, via linguistic, speech signs, lead us to the fact that for thought units most frequently taking the role of senses, sooner or later in the linguistic collective are "felt" the most successful variants of the hints, i.e. resemblance associations of these senses with meanings. These successful associations tend to be very frequently used, and this leads, as has already been shown, to their being fixed, unified and transformed for all members of the linguistic collective into easily reproduced and Identifiable contiguity associations. Such senses, being first of all "normal" occasional ones, change into usual ones, linked, before and outside acts of speech, with fully determined meanings, and, consequently, with linguistic signs. Therefore the resemblance of meanings with stable senses changes from a means of hinting or implying to a means of reminding.
Usual senses thus prove to have two functions. First, insofar as they are units of "content substance" as a "linguified" part of the content material, they are used for thinking activity proper, directed towards salving those specific thinking tasks for which these usual senses formed. But since they have already been "linguified" and have therefore through this usual association with meanings outside acts of communication a link with fully defined linguistic signs, then in communication acts they not only use usual associations for their "personel" expression, but they also "help" those occasional senses which do not have usual links with meanings to be expressed. This "help" is as follows : an occasional sense, for example, C"e or C"o in Fig.8, can make use of some usual sense (for example oC"), if there is no obvious association with a particular linguistic sign or a meaning, as an intermediary for effecting a connection to that linguistic sign which is linked with this usual sense through its meaning.
Taking the role of a basis for a link between the given actual sense and a certain multimorpheme or unimorpheme linguistic sign, the usual sense of a sign thus becomes a link of the actual internal form of this actual sense.
If it is remembered that only what is absolutely identifiable in the consciousness of the majority of its members can be usual for the linguistic collective, then the following feature inherent in the basic mass of usual senses becomes clear: they must be by their nature representatives of very abstract thinking units. And since abstractions are farmed, according to the scheme under examination, in connection with the need to manufacture generalised patterns extracted from a class of concrete patterns of denoters, functionally equivalent to a certain type of activity, then it is natural that usual senses most easily enter, as has already been shown, into occasional resemblance associations with the concrete patterns of the class "personified" by them. Consequently when a usual sense itself appears as the actual content of a linguistic sign, this sign becomes the expresser of various types of social semantics, and when a usual sense, for example, °C" takes the role of intermediary and helps the linguistic sign to enter into an association with an occasional sense which is one of the concrete patterns "personified" by an abstract usual sense, for example, with the pattern oC", then this linguistic sign oX" becomes in the communication act a signifier for individual semantics [109, p.14], though through yet another intermediary implication link.
One readily notices that in this picture what essentially is shown is the difference in the content of "common" signs when they are used "in a dictionary meaning", i.e. in a usual sense, non-contextually, and in a "contextual", "situative meaning", i.e. in a concrete occasional sense, correlated with a component of a situation actually occurring or imagined. [104, p.91, 92].
In table 2 successive stages in the change from the actual external object - denoter (1) via its direct reflection in the consciousness of the speaker, i.e. via a concrete "individual" occasional sense (2) to a generalised, i.e. abstract usual typical sense (3) are shown in order to clarify what has been said; the abstract usual typical sense (3) has a direct association (a) with a communicative abstraction, i.e. with a meaning (4) becoming a moneme, the second side of which is a linguistic sign (5), giving a command for the reproduction of a speech sign (6). Here one simplification has been made: the linguistic sign is not considered to be divisible into components which have independent meanings, i.e. it represents a form of expression of a single moneme. Such a position is extremely typical, for example, with the Chinese language, but it is not characteristic of Russian. Consequently it is generally necessary to also examine multi-moneme linguistic signs.
Although usual senses are included in abstract thought units and therefore represent only generalised, extracted, (abstracted) "emasculated" patterns of the general which is peculiar to the whole class of fuller, and more concrete functionally equivalent patterns represented by an abstraction, nevertheless the abstract pattern also bears a large number of features distinguishing it from other abstractions. Therefore in order that the link of the speech signs used with certain abstract usual senses should be clear for members of a linguistic collective, the need may arise to hint, in the usual sense being expressed, by means of meanings, at several of its components. In other words several monemes can be required in order to indicate a single usual sense.
If in certain circumstances a certain chain of monemes is regularly used by members of a linguistic collective and therefore in communicative acts it is only reproduced, a corresponding chain of linguistic and speech signs must be called a complex sign (linguistic or speech). A linguistic unit, like a word, can be concluded in the complex signs group.
Since each sign of a complex sign, particularly a word, has a content form, i.e. meaning, the combination of meanings of members of a complex sign forms a complex meaning, e.g. the meaning of a word breaking down to the meaning of monemes combined in this word. These meanings can be associated with "pieces of sense", for example abstract and in particular usual sense. This sense, by definition, is an integrally whole pattern. But in order to identify an association with precisely this given sense from the combination of meanings it is not at all obligatory that all of its components without exception be presented as a separate meaning, rather as an integrally whole picture can be reproduced by pieces of a mosaic. It is sufficient that through meaning the most blatant hinting details of a sense (i.e. that "Kernel of the concept" which B.A. Serebryennikov considers to be meaning [159] should be expressed, while the rest of the details or parts can be supplemented by imagination and situative obviousness. Therefore a complex meaning, for example the meaning of a word, is formed only by a certain loose combination of hints (implications) of an abstract, e.g. usual, sense of a word.
The opposite case is also true. After a complex meaning has formed and become usualised it can in its turn serve as an implication or hint of many various senses, only if in each of them there was a certain minimum of components which are able to associate by resemblance with complex meaning components. In particular, any meaning and, even more so, a complex meaning can enter a usual association with several senses.
In this connection a fairly strict definition can be given to such linguistic lexicological categories as polysemy, synonymy, homonymy, autonymy etc. For example, if a pair of usual senses is presented through a complex meaning of the same word and in context these usual senses are contrasted so that we are concerned with the identity of the form of the signs used, the closeness (in the given case even the identity) of the meanings of these signs and with the contrast of senses, then such a correlation of the three discrete binary parameters serves as a definition for the concept of polysemy. An example of polysemy is this pair: "rise", in the sense "relief detail in a locality" and "rise" in the sense "process of entry on to a raised area". But in the pair "rise - ascent" the contrast of senses is supplemented by the non-identity of form when there is a closeness of meanings, and such a correlation of the three binary parameters examined serves as a determining feature of the concept of synonymy. Successful division and systemisation of 23=8 lexicological categories [115; 116] can be achieved. We can conveniently present the results of this classification of so-called synsemic relations in the form of a Boolean cube, (Fig. 9) and compare with [66].
Synsemic cube - three dimentional model of the types of relations between form, meaning and sense of linguistic signs. The axis X: the identity (0) - the difference (1) of the form - izomorphia - heteromorphia ; the axis Y: the similarity (0) - the difference (1) of meanings - "homomeme-heteroseme", the axis Z: identification (0) - the contrast (1) of the senses "synthesis - antithesis". (The order of sequence of co-ordinates: X, Y, Z).
In traditional linguistic terms which do not distinguish the meaning and sense of linguistic and speech units, there has been no successful description of the nature of the given semiotic catefories and therefore the question of the principles of their differentiation has remained a matter for debate over the centuries (or, more precisely, from the times of ancient philosophy). At the same time it is obvious that the construction of cybernetic machines for meaningful man-machine intercourse is impossible without a clear idea of what types of external and internal relations the signs used are situated in.
From our occasional communicative systems scheme we could thus deduce the possibility of the existence of complex signs, "knitted together", and reproduced in communication acts as independent units with a complex meaning.
Moreover, since an infinite number of senses exist it is clear that whatever number of "stocked-up", i.e. usual, not
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2. Isonomy
3. Synonomy
4. Polysemy
5. Kartsev Axis
6. Saussurite Axis
7. Reformative Axis
8. Homonomy
9. Heteronomy
10. Metasemy
11. Troponomy
only simple but also complex, signs are contained in a communicative system, for example in natural language, certain usual or occasional senses will have to be expressed by means of an occasionally selected group of usual signs. And in this case the formation rules of such groups must exist and be used in a communicative system, even for the most typical cases. An analysis of these cases enables us to make more precise definitions not simply in semiotic but in linguistic categories proper: syntactic and morphological. The usual linguistic approach, not having as a base our concepts on the correlation of language and thought in order to solve such problems, is insufficient.
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