Whorf’s lines of investigating specifically “cultural” [= socio-historically emergent] concepts:

[a] whether or not such cultural concepts exist in addition to, or in

contradistinction to, the grammatico-semantic and grammatico-pragmatic

categories through which we “calibrate” linguistic structures?

[b] if they exist as a distinct realm of default cognition effective as people

conceptualize or model and “rationally” act in the universe, where do they

come from?

[c] what, in particular, might be the role of denotational structure – or the partial

and “phenotypically” biased reflexive understanding of denotational structure –

in the coming-into-being and growth of cultural conceptualizations?

Whorf posed specifically a model of the space of agentive social consciousness

– ‘subjectivity’ in essence – where there is a dialectical coming together of [1]

the native language user’s misrecognition of a demonstrably unconscious or tacit

language structure with [2] the misrecognition of empirical reality that emerges

in-and-by the conventional use of language itself to denote (refer-to and

predicate-about) that empirical reality through the clunky digital (not analog)

syntax and morphology that concatenates intensional prototypes as category- or

extensionalizable concept-anchors.

[[[spin-]Vtr+p.p.] [lime+[stone-]N]N]N

i.e., a taxonomically specific kind of ‘stone’,

treated in some way

“Analogic” relationships

[a] In entextualizations, both denotational and interactional:

spring : summer : autumn : winter :: green : red : yellow : blue

Initiator : Respondent :: lower : higher :: griot : noble :: active : passive

:: wind : stone

[b] In Saussurean planes of semiotic structure, paradigmatic proportionality:

II: “regular” and “productive” proportions of differential signifier

(form) and differential signified (meaning); (all grammars leak)

I: simultaneously operative distinctive-feature dimensions of

proportionality of phonological segments;

III: simultaneously cued grammatical-categorial dimensions of

proportionality of meaning differences

[c] In the surface (lexically expressed) forms of denotational code, a force of

attraction of one form by another:

historically, reshaping of forms in the image of others (generally,

“irregular” forms becoming more “regular”)

English plurals: brother : brethr-en > brother : brother-s [brethr-en

becoming a meaning-narrowed form];

syllabus- + Pl > syllab-i [cf. alumn(-)us : alumn(-)i]

in the language community, imposing the form—meaning

relationship of one surface form on another

“Folk etymologies,” e.g., sparrow-grass (asparagus), Welsh rarebit

(Welsh rabbit)

The degree of abstractness of concept-generating social practice:

[a] directly physical expression in a unitary code-form [clock-

“time”]

[b] phenomenally unitary site of entextualization [the “colors”

of the seasons; the aesthetic dimensions of wine], or

[c] meta-level constructivity [Thai “edibility” concepts]

Mapping (Projecting) Denotational Entextualization into Interactional Entextualization

the connection between denotational entextualization – conveying

information – and interactional entextualization – co-constructing a

consequential social event – is mediated not merely by grammatico-

semantic and grammatico-pragmatic machinery but rather by cultural

conceptualization, -onomic knowledge (that can be created on-the-spot,

to be sure!) that locates those who invoke it in particular social locations

(categories of identity) in communities of practice.

QA8 An’ you[B] wént to undergraduate [school] hére ór

ÓhÓhÓhÓhÓh! I[A]’m an óld Jesuit boy myself[A],

╓unfortunately╖

RA1 [ ] Georgetown, down ╓in Washington╖

RB8 [ ] in Chicago át, uh, Loyola

╙Oh áre ya[A]?

QB1 Where’d╜ you[A] gó?

╙Ó:h yéah,╜ yeah

‘Key’ of Jesuit Institutions of Higher Education

Jesuit_Colleges_and_Universities (28)

Georgetown > Fordham > Boston C > Gonzaga … > … Loyola > …

of

Chicago

[Mr A] [Mr B]

i.e., TAXONOMY x HIERARCHY (SERIATION)

University of Chicago

Partonomy of Post-baccalaureate Organizational Units

Divisions and Schools of the University

Divisions Graduate > Law > Medical … > … School of > …

School of School School Social Service

Business Administration

[Mr A] [Mr B]

i.e., PARTONOMY x HIERARCHY (SERIATION)

The “Eucharistic” Quality of Qualia-fication

Christian Eucharist

[1] A’s act of incorporating Host

[2] A’s countervailing being

incorporated into

the corporate body of Christ

Dialectic of Indexical Orders

[1] A indexes

some condition of context

with an indexical sign-vehicle

as interpretable within a schema of

enregisterment

[2] A is indexically identified

by performing [1]

(as made relevant by the

interpretable register)

Putnam’s sociolinguistic division of denotational labor: the fact that communities of

metapragmatic discursive practice exist where words and expressions are used in certain

enregistered ways in producing genred texts-in-contexts by identifiable social kinds of

speakers/addressees authorized so to do. Every successful event of “literally” referring or

predicating rests not only on their being a universe of possible referents, as the positivists

think, but on a socio-culturally constituted community of referrers/predicators and those

referred-to/predicated-to. It’s socio-cultural reality “all the way down,” in which, as you

can see, grammar is the mechanism for supplying default, asymptotically de-

contextualized voice-from-nowhere-in-the-community stereotypy, a.k.a. differential

intensional prototypes – after all the other kinds of intensional prototypy – a.k.a.

sociolinguistically locatable stereotypy does its work.

The doctrine of “literal denotation” is essentially an appeal to a

socially un-locatable authoritative baptism of an extension-as-

prototype and numerous other denotata related to that prototype

intensionalized along many different axes of “likeness.” In

relation to a prototype exemplar at the extensional plane – the

lower edge of the Lockean rectangle, here! – the key issue is how

this exemplar is intensionalized – ascribed properties – on some

basis or other such that it differentially anchors or differentially

belongs to a class or category of denotata anchored by an

intensional prototype (set of values in a multidimensional quality-

space).