BREV TIL: Eli Fischer-Jørgensen FRA: unsure (1955-09-11)

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Istanbul 11/9/55

D©ar Miss Pischer-Jorgensen, I was glad to have your summary and the article which 1 will return after re-reading. x am sorry I misunderstood you over the role of substance in glossematics. aut in turn you rather misunderstand me about the question of the vicious circle (where by the way did ^edberg write — it is a new name to me?). As 1 said my- self (in the review of Togeby's book) there is no vicious circle for those who are ready to choose some distinctions of substance as having a prima facie claim to be likely^correspondents with ^another distinction of substance the other plane. ( hough 1 would not talk of a ’semantic substance’, I'm pre- pared to allow it for the purposes of argument here.) Ike vicious circle arises only when all differences of substance are re- garded as 'equally good' to begin with. -*-f one i3 prepared to face the possib- ility that there may be ten different degrees of vowel-aperture, and also that the language may distinguish between actions performed by men in green coats and actions performed by men in red coats (or even actions performed ih the day- time from those performed at night, a distinction which is said to be made in some Amerindian languages), no beginning can be made. Nor, suppose, did Hjelraslev ever assert that/ anything so absurd would be possible. But he never tells us how it is that we are able to select certain phonic reap* semantic features in order to apply the commutation-test to them* Actually it is clear that we begin with our own language (and such others of which we have experience)^ ^e assume for instance that the distinction of voice and unvoice is relevant* ^nd we assume e.g. that the distinction of aspirate and non-aspirate is irrelevant* *hen we find that 'book* and ’cow' are homo- nyas in our new language* ^his does not worry us. but we begin to worry when we find that there are a hundred such homonyms* Iwo schoold of thought then On® school is of the opinion that a semantic link can be found between

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arise• the 'homonyms'— and such people point out that books are made of cow-hide, etc. etc«. The otføer school pursues the idea that a distinctive phonic feature has been missed. ither school may be right* In other words, just .trial and error, which you say is now the recognised glossematie method. ®ut then, what is left of the magic commutation-test after this revision? I1 here remains the expression-commutation as always applied by the Prague School. but how does one apply this test in the first instance? wot by asking whether the expression-features answer to a ghostly 'content', but by asking whether they answer to some differences of expression in whatever lan- guage is taken asr starting-point* Por instance, the difference between buk and / kau in English./ Ihe so-called 'differences in semantic substance' could never f fee noticed at all if no language had a formal distinction in the expression. C ^hereaa differences in expression can be, and are, noticed when® they are never utilised for any semantic function. °ne deceives oneself entirely if one imagines that one can start from a 'semantic substance'. what one starts from (e*g* in asking 'what do you call a table?) is t^e expression of another language. Io sum up. sither the glossematie principle involves a vicious circle, or it adds nothing to the principles already accepted by the Prague Schfcol»

^ours very sincerely