Reinventing Structuralism: What Sign Relations Reveal About Consciousness (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM

This monograph argues that the structuralist movement in linguistics was curtailed prematurely, before its contribution to cognitive science could be fully realized. Building upon Roman Jakobson's pioneering work on the nature of the linguistic sign, a new and detailed appreciation of the role of sign relations in the ultimate structuring of consciousness is presented, proving that the structural approach has as much to contribute today as any current cognitive theory. This study takes the view that the structure which linguistic signs themselves evince should be treated as an organic property of mind in its own right, as the device by which the ultimate differences in meaning in the human cognitive sphere are realized. Adherence to this principle assumes not only that the linguistic sign must be fundamentally monosemic, but also that the level of abstraction at which the relations between signs function must lie beyond the logical or rational level where polysemy is the rule. The study demonstrates that while the conceptual relations or categories uncovered at such a higher-order level of consciousness are of necessity highly abstract and hidden from normal awareness, they are nevertheless neither ineffable nor devoid of content. Rather, the categories identified and defined in this study are shown to have verifiable correlates at the supra-rational level where transpersonal rather than ego-oriented psychology operates, the level that Jung termed the collective unconscious. It is here that we find corresponding properties in reports from altered states of consciousness, in the structure of myths worldwide, as well as in studies of the image-making capacity of the human mind. Ultimately, when the structure of actual linguistic signs is treated as an ordered set of conceptual relations, one necessarily arrives at the conclusion that the sign relations of different languages are anything but Whorfian, but are all pointing to the same universal set of conceptual properties. This set of properties is then shown to be able to account for the relations between signs in all areas of linguistic structure, from the grammatical to the lexical and the syntactic. The monograph goes on to provide a detailed account of the process of making reference, of how speakers are able to contextualize the truly abstract conceptual relations inherent in the structure of signs in their language, to produce a potentially infinite variety of polysemous meanings in actual speech situations at whatever level of concreteness they choose; and how the feedback from such acts of communication determines the evolutionary trajectory of a system of signs conceived as a living organism, specifically as a neuronal structure inherent in the human brain operating as a fundamentally probabilistic or stochastic system. Preface 7 Introduction: The promise of modern-day structuralism 13 1 Seeking the correlates of meaning in language 27 2 Sign relations as organic properties of mind 33 3 Language as a self-organizing system 41 4 Applying the sign principle to grammatical meaning 47 4.1 Past/non-past: The cancellation feature 48 4.2 Future/non-future: The objectiveness feature 52 4.3 Perfective/imperfective: The dimensionality feature 56 4.4 Plural/non-plural: The plurality feature 58 4.5 Relations creating separation: The distinctness feature 61 4.6 Relations defined on the present as a conceptual property: The extension feature 63 5 Case relations as a product of grammatical selection 67 5.1 The Russian accusative and instrumental 68 5.2 The Russian genitive and genitive/accusative 72 5.3 The Russian dative and subjectless sentences 76 5.4 The system of Russian cases 78 6 Extending the sign principle to syntax 81 6.1 The modification relation in English: The extension feature 85 6.2 The modification relation in Russian: The dimensionality feature 97 6.3 The modification relation in French: The plurality feature 106 7 The potential of sign theory in the domain of lexical meaning 113 7.1 Preliminary concepts 120 7.2 Verbal lexical systems 126 7.3 Nominal lexical systems 136 8 The feature hierarchy that defines human conceptual space 149 8.1 The evidence from transpersonal psychology 152 8.2 The evidence from the study of myth 157 9 Neurological evidence for the evolution of higher-order consciousness 165 9.1 The neurological structure of consciousness 165 9.2 The evolution of the language faculty 174 9.3 The sign relation and the origin of image-making 182 10 The position of structuralism in the modern era 193 10.1 Saussure’s langue and parole 193 10.2 Derrida’s différance 195 10.3 Lévi-strauss’ contentless structure 197 10.4 Lacan’s symbolic order 199 10.5 Bybee’s usage-based grammar 201 10.6 Jakobson’s relative autonomy 203 Epilogue: The wisdom of the primal mind 207 Bibliography 213 Glossary 219 Index 225 Main description: Structuralism was abandoned long before its potential as a cognitive science could be realized. Reviving it with what we know today about the self-organizing capacity of living systems provides new insights into the role of sign relations in the evolution of higher-order consciousness. Treating the signs of language as inherently evolutionary properties of mind offers a window into the constitution of consciousness at the most profound level