Seminar 3.19: 9 May 1956 — Jacques Lacan

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(All parts in English)

I have tried here to introduce, under the title of opposition:
– the relationship of similarity in discourse, in the functions of language,
– and that of contiguity.

Naturally, I do not mean to suggest that I consider the phenomenon—more or less hallucinatory—experienced in the verbal order, in the order of positive verbal phenomena in psychosis, as in any way comparable to those of aphasia. I will say more: it is important to return to the points I had previously emphasized concerning aphasia, in order to clearly highlight what I take from this opposition between the two types of disorders in aphasia.

This is especially pertinent given what I indicated last time—that there exists between the two types of disorders in question an opposition of order, which manifests itself no longer in a negative manner but positively, in what represents the most accomplished forms, the expressions or figures of language within each of these two orders. These are, specifically, metaphor and metonymy.

I have been told, to a lesser extent, that this opposition has caught the attention of some, unfortunately. And I have the certainty that it caused them great embarrassment, as some have reportedly said to others:
“Metaphor has indeed shown us the importance, in metaphor, of opposition, contestation, and confusion”[?].

Obviously, handling concepts like the signifier and the signified is not something that simply substitutes for the famous and equally inexpressible opposition between, for example, the idea and the word, or thought and the word. Indeed, as a sort of subtitle, someone who was truly a remarkable grammarian produced a remarkable work that contains only one error: the unfortunate subtitle “From Words to Thought”, whose formulation, I hope, can no longer be tenable for any of you.

Evidently, the signifier and the signified are at play, and one can easily see under which framework. Metaphor is something whose constant life we grasp in those sorts of transfers of signifieds, an example of which I gave you last time: “Her sheaf was neither miserly nor hateful.” There is a fine example of metaphor. And one could say, in a sense, that meaning dominates everything, and that it is meaning that, all at once, imposes on the subject “her sheaf,” which she generously scatters as if it were of her own volition.

However, it is equally true on the other hand that the point I wanted to emphasize—as did the figure who considered metaphor to be the essential figure, as a transfer of signified—is precisely what is significant.

This is to say that the two terms, signifier and signified, are always in relation to one another in a connection that, on this occasion, we can call dialectical. That is to say, it is necessary to grasp the movement of this relation in order to understand its full scope.

This is the point I wish to revisit, so that for you, it does not remain a simple pair of opposites, one to which we return and that ultimately remains always the same. Namely, the relationship upon which the notion of “expression” rests—that perpetual, ineffable something, more or less indefinable yet existing. Be it the so-called feeling, the thing itself, or whatever one refers to, and the word considered as expression, as label, as the thing attached to what it refers to.

It is precisely to dissolve this—and to show you how to use a different instrument than that—that my entire discourse is constructed, because it is absolutely essential. It is the only way to see what the function of language truly is. This point cannot be revisited enough, especially since misunderstanding tends to reestablish itself every time, which is to say, at every moment.

This is the emphasis I placed when beginning with the phenomenon of aphasia, when I brought it back into discussion for you.

You must have heard of the so-called “sensory aphasic” individuals.

In their extraordinarily vivid and rapid speech—seemingly fluid to a certain extent—with which they express themselves, precisely as they are attempting to express themselves, they find they cannot.

They express themselves admirably on the theme that they cannot, in fact, find the word. They use an array of highly nuanced articulation, including conjunctions and syntactic articulations of discourse:
– to indicate to us that they are aiming at something whose proper word they have, so to speak, on the tip of their tongue, or a very precise historical reference in their mind, but they are incapable of anything other than circling around it,
– to show you that indeed, they possess it and that it is the very one they wish to bring forth at that moment.

What is striking and captivating in such instances—what I might call the permanence, the existence—despite this localized powerlessness of intentionality, is the subject in such moments.

Much has been said, even insisted upon, in these forms, about what could be termed a sort of correlated intellectual deficit. This has been claimed as the focus. Let us call it, if you will, “pre-demential,” which would be correlated with this verbal powerlessness.

In other words, the investigation has been directed toward a nuanced view of the initial broad notion, which was that it was a mere inability to passively grasp verbal images.

Naturally, there has been progress in this research on a deficit, which shows that the disorder is far more complex than it initially appeared. For now, what strikes us, when we truly observe, when we fully grasp the phenomenon as I have just described it, is that, undeniably, the subject—whatever other deficits they may exhibit elsewhere—if we place them in a defined task under the modes characteristic of testing, may indeed show certain deficits.

Nothing will be fully resolved as long as we do not understand the mechanism and origin of these phenomena.

But what is well-assured and clear in the dialogue is that when the subject, for example, raises an objection, it is in relation to the reading of an observation containing a very specific historical detail: a date, a time, a behavior. And it is at that moment that the subject steps out of their discourse, regardless of how disrupted and jargon-like it may be. It is entirely evident that this is not by chance; even if they are mistaken, it is nonetheless about a well-defined historical detail, which they possessed just five minutes earlier, that they begin to bring into play, to engage in the dialogue.

Likewise, this presence of intensity, even of intentionality, and the fact that it is at the heart of the deployment of discourse that fails to reach it, is precisely what is striking about this aspect of sensory aphasia. If one wishes, one could note the characteristic I want to highlight: that it is a language which, due to some disorder, deficit, interrupts inhibition in its mechanism—a deficit of the apparatus.

We hold to a phenomenology of paraphasic language, in other words, a language of paraphrase. It is through paraphrase that the sensory aphasic, the Wernicke aphasic […] in its form not deep enough to be entirely jargon-like, dissolves. Even though this jargon-like state is characterized by the abundance and ease of articulation and sentence formation, no matter how fragmented these sentences become, one can clearly see that this is the final stage of something that initially manifested through what I have called paraphrase. I say paraphrase because it seems to me to be the most important characteristic to emphasize in this form of sensory aphasia I am describing to you.

And it is in this sense that paraphrase, which dominates in such cases, which is their mode of expression, strictly opposes what one might call “metaphrase.” They are strictly incapable of metaphrase if one defines it as everything that belongs to the order of literal translation, for that is precisely what they are incapable of doing.

That is to say, even in what they have just told you, if you ask them to translate, to provide an equivalent, to repeat the same phrase in a synonymous way, or to enter another dimension of language—which is precisely, and this is why there is a disorder of similarity—they cannot produce a phrase similar to the one they just uttered. They may follow up on your statement, and this is precisely why they have so much difficulty initiating or beginning a discourse.

From them, you receive responses so vivid, so pathos-filled in their desire to make themselves understood, that it borders on the comedic due to the complete failure of their attempt to communicate. Even the most experienced listeners cannot resist a smile. One must truly focus on the phenomenon itself to avoid laughing. This phenomenon of similarity consists of this: they are incapable of metaphrase. What they have to say belongs entirely to the realm of paraphrase.

The aphasic individual, crudely termed “motor aphasic,” includes a whole series of increasingly severe disorders. These begin with the well-known agrammatism disorders and progress to the extreme reduction of verbal stock, epitomized in the immortalized image of being unable to express anything beyond the famous “pencil.”

This other dimension of aphasic deficit, entirely different, can very well be ordered and understood within the framework of disorders of contiguity. This is because it is primarily the articulation and syntax of language as such that progressively deteriorates along the scale of cases and even in the evolution of certain cases. This degradation renders these individuals incapable of occasionally maintaining a precise nomination, a deficit which can extend to varying degrees and can manifest as a correlational inability to articulate what could otherwise be correctly named in a complex sentence, leading to the dissolution of propositional capacity, if one may call it that.

It is the proposition they are incapable of constructing, despite the fact that this element, at different levels, is not only still within their possession but perfectly recallable under defined conditions.

In this sort of hide-and-seek game presented by language phenomena, it is essentially this difficulty we face: that due to the very properties of the signifier and the signified, the linguist, and even more so those who are not linguists, are inevitably and from the outset victims of an illusion. This illusion consists of believing that what is most apparent in the phenomenon constitutes the whole of that phenomenon.

Indeed, linguists themselves have fallen into this trap. For instance, the emphasis they place on metaphor—which I deliberately avoid—has always been much greater than on anything else in language that pertains to metonymy.

For in full and living language, what is most striking, most essential, and yet most problematic, is precisely this: how can it be that language achieves its highest efficiency when it says one thing by saying something else? There is something gripping and captivating about this. One might even believe they are approaching the heart of the phenomenon of language.

Some, guided by this confusion, have imagined a superimposition, as if in tracing, of the order of things and the order of words. One might think a great step forward has been taken. But one fails to see that it is not enough to take just one step; a second step must also be taken.

Namely, one must return to the phenomenon of language to realize that the “transfer of meaning,” the mystery of the “equivalence of the signified” […] the fact that the signified indeed never reaches its goal in language except through the mediation of another signified, referring to yet another meaning, […] is only the first step. It is necessary to return to the importance of the signifier, that is, to realize that without the structuration of the signifier as such, none of this would be possible.

This is why some of you rightly perceived last time that this is what I meant when emphasizing the role of the signifier in metaphor.

Thus, when we start from the phenomenon of deficit, which is not necessarily the most illuminating but at least somewhat familiar to introduce you to the depth of the problem, we observe two facets:
– the first is a kind of dissolution of the link between intentional meaning and the apparatus of the signifier, which remains globally intact but can no longer be controlled in line with intention,
– the second concerns a deficit in the internal connection of the signifier. Ultimately, this appears to show us, at all levels, a sort of regressive decomposition within this internal link.

This decomposition aligns with the theory, for instance, of Jacksonian disorders, which suggest a reverse-order decomposition of functions—not in their development but in their decline—progressively reducing language to an “idealized primary” form of a child’s language, as the logical connections dissolve.

Was it on this that I wanted to place emphasis by showing you this opposition? I say no, because according to the general law, which can be called a kind of general law of illusion concerning what occurs in language, it is not what appears in the foreground as an apparent opposition that is important.

What is important is the opposition between two types of links that are themselves internal to the signifier: the positional link, which is merely the foundation of the link I just referred to as propositional, namely, the link constituted by what, in a given language, establishes that essential dimension of word order, which is absolutely critical for any language. This order may differ from one language to another, and to understand this, you only need to recall that in French, “Pierre bat Paul” is not equivalent to “Paul bat Pierre.”

This positional link is absolutely fundamental, primary, essential. What is most important to note, precisely concerning the second form of aphasic disorders, is the perfectly rigorous coherence that exists between the maintenance of the concept of the positional function of language and the support of a sufficient stock of terms. This is absolutely essential, an incontestable clinical phenomenon that demonstrates a connection that is the fundamental connection of the signifier.

What appears to us at the grammatical level as characteristic of the positional link can be found at all levels, establishing this synchronic coexistence of terms at each of their levels:

– Verbal expression, for example, which is its highest form,
– The word at a lower level, which seems to represent, even to itself, a kind of stability—though you know this has been rightly contested.

While the independence of the word may manifest at certain levels, from certain perspectives, it cannot be considered radical. The word cannot, at any level, be regarded as the unit of language, even though it constitutes a privileged elementary form. At an even lower level, phonemic couplings and oppositions characterize the ultimate radical distinction from one language to another.

The coherence between the positional link and the synchronic maintenance of signifying oppositions explains why, for instance, in French, “bou” and “pou” are opposed. Regardless of your accent or tendency—perhaps due to regional proximity—to pronounce “bou” like “pou,” you would still pronounce the other “pou” differently. French is a language in which this opposition holds. In other languages, there are fundamental oppositions unknown in French. The connection of opposition as such, as relational and oppositional distinction, is essential to the function of language.

It is the opposition of this register with the link of similarity—and not resemblance—that I wanted to highlight as the essential distinction. For this similarity itself is implicated as such in the functioning of language. It constitutes the other dimension. The possibility within language of this dimension of similarity as such is precisely tied to the infinite capacity of substitution. This substitution itself is only conceivable on the foundation of the positional relationship as fundamental.

This is why, in the metaphor “Sa gerbe n’était point avare ni haineuse” (“Her sheaf was neither miserly nor hateful”), the metaphor is possible because the sheaf can take the position of the subject in place of Booz. What underpins the metaphor is not the transposition of meaning from Booz to the sheaf. At this point, someone interested in the matter might rightly ask:

“What differentiates this from a metonymy? After all, Booz’s sheaf is as metonymic as if you alluded to what lies beneath this magnificent, unnamed poetry—namely, his royal penis. It’s not the sheaf. That’s something of the same order. It’s a metonymy.”

No, what creates the metaphorical virtue in this case of the sheaf is that the sheaf is placed in the position of the subject in the statement: “Sa gerbe n’était point avare ni haineuse” (“Her sheaf was neither miserly nor hateful”). This is a phenomenon of the signifier.

In other words, to articulate what I am saying to you, I would like you to go, for example, to the limit of phonetic metaphor, the kind you might hesitate to call surrealist metaphor—although you should not imagine that metaphors awaited the Surrealists to exist.

You cannot necessarily say whether it makes sense or not, but what is certain is that it functions. I would not claim that it is the best way to express things, but in any case, it works. Let us take another phrase, one that I believe you would not dispute as remaining within the realm of metaphor. Then you will see whether meaning truly sustains a metaphor in a phrase like this one:

“Love is a pebble laughing in the sun.” [Paul Éluard]

What does that mean? It is unquestionably a metaphor. It is quite likely that if it was born, it carries some meaning. As for finding that meaning, I could dedicate a seminar to it. To me, it even seems like an undeniably accurate definition of love. I would say, for me, it is the latest definition I have settled on. And it seems indispensable to keep in mind if we want to avoid constantly falling into irreparable confusions.

The question is precisely this: namely, that a metaphor is supported above all by a positional articulation. This can be demonstrated even in its most paradoxical forms. I assume that none of you have failed to hear of the sort of exercise undertaken by a poet of our time, titled A Word for Another by Jean Tardieu, a kind of one-act play.

It involves two women who exchange remarks like this: one of the women is announced, and the other approaches her, saying:

“Dear, very dear, how many pebbles has it been since I last sugared your bread?”
“Alas, dear,” the other responds, “I have been very, very glassy myself. My three youngest crabs, one after the other, etc.”

This confirms that even in its paradoxical form, that is to say, in its most radically sought-after form in the sense of psychosis, not only does meaning persist, but it tends to persist in a particularly felicitous and metaphorical manner.

One might say it is, in a way, renewed: at every moment, one is on the verge—no matter the poet’s effort to push the exercise towards demonstration—of poetic metaphor. This is not something different in kind from what emerges as natural poetry as soon as a powerful meaning is engaged. This dimension is that of similarity, the other dimension of language.

What is important to recognize here is not that it is sustained by the signified—we make this mistake all the time:
– It is that the transfer of the signified is possible because of the structure of language itself.
– It is that all language implies a metalanguage.
– It is that language is, by its own dimension and register, already a metalanguage.
– That all language is essentially, virtually, translatable.
– That language involves metaphrase and metalanguage, that is to say, language speaking about language.

It is for this reason, and within this same dimension, that the phenomena of the transfer of the signified—so essential to everything in human life—are possible. But this transfer is only possible due to the structure of the signifier. And you must firmly grasp this idea because it is only by first solidly establishing the concept of language as a system of positional coherence that you can then move on to the notion that this system is one that reproduces itself internally, and even with extraordinary, almost terrifying fecundity.

It is no coincidence that the word prolixity is the same as proliferation. Prolixity is the frightening word. It is so ill-suited, in fact, that there is in every use of language a kind of terror, where people stop themselves. This is precisely what translates into what one might call “the fear of intellectuality”: phrases like “he intellectualizes too much” or “you intellectualize too much” serve as a pretext and alibi for this fear of language.

And why does this alibi exist? Quite precisely and always—you will observe the phenomenon whenever you have the chance—in connection with uses of language that are labeled, and not unjustly, as verbalism. This is because, in these cases, too much weight is placed on the signified as such. People believe that language halts at a certain signified that sustains everything within the system.

However, it is precisely by pushing further toward the independence of the signifier and the signified that the operation being carried out—theoretical or otherwise, the operation of logical construction—reaches its full scope.

In other words, to the extent that one moves away from the signified, at least in the phenomena that interest us most, the key becomes glaringly evident. I could confidently demonstrate to you that it is always in proportion to how closely we adhere to what I call “significative mythology” that we fall into the reproach of verbalism.

And yet, it is clear that the use of language in mathematics, for example—a pure language of signifiers, a metalanguage par excellence, a use of language taken solely as a system and reduced to its systematic function, upon which another system of language is constructed, capturing language in its articulation as such—has an effectiveness on its proper plane that is beyond doubt.

I would like to return to the origins and make you feel this reversal of position. The person I alluded to regarding this poorly understood distinction—I must say it cannot be reproached to anyone, since when one reads the Rhetoricians, they never arrive at a fully satisfactory definition of the opposition between metaphor and metonymy.

Hence the formula that metonymy is a poor metaphor. One could argue the exact opposite: metonymy is the starting point, that is agreed—it is what makes metaphor possible—but metaphor is something that operates on a different level than metonymy.

Let us approach this in terms of acquisition, in terms of the most primitive phenomena, and consider an example particularly vivid for us as analysts: what could be more primitive as an expression—one that is, in a sense, a direct manifestation of meaning, that is to say, of desire—than the example Freud gives regarding his own youngest granddaughter, who later took an interesting place in analysis, namely Anna Freud?

Anna Freud, while asleep—things in their pure state—dreams of large strawberries, raspberries, flans, and puddings. This is something that appears to be the signified in its purest form, and indeed it seems entirely convincing. It is, properly speaking, the most schematic, most fundamental form of metonymy.

For what is at stake here is not to understand that she undoubtedly desires these strawberries, these raspberries. It is clear enough that it does not naturally and simply follow—and already, even at the level of the objects evoked and desired—that it is self-evident that they should all be present together.

The fact that they are juxtaposed, coordinated in articulated nomination, in a positional manner that places them in a position of equivalence, is something that constitutes the essential phenomenon. But there is something that must prevent us from believing that this is a purely and simply expressive phenomenon of something that a psychology—let’s call it Jungian—might make us grasp as a sort of imaginary substitute for the invoked object. This is evident because the sentence begins with what? With the name of the person, that is, “Anna Freud.”

She is a 19-month-old child; we are operating on the plane of nomination, within the plane of equivalence, of nominal coordination, of the signifying articulation as such. It is only within this framework that the transfer of meaning becomes possible.

The fact that this lies at the heart of Freudian thought is evidenced, first and foremost, by the very mass of Freud’s work and everything it concerns itself with—by the fact that Freud’s work begins with dreams and that in dreams, all mechanisms, from condensation to displacement to figuration (when understood correctly), belong to the order of metonymic articulation. It is only subsequently, building upon the foundation of metonymy, that metaphor can intervene.

I will later return to something related to the eroticization of language, which will become even more striking at that level. Indeed, if there is an order of acquisition, it is certainly not one that would allow us to claim that children begin with one element of the verbal stock rather than another. There is the greatest diversity here because, in fact, one does not grasp language from a single end—just as some painters begin their paintings from the left side. For language to come into being, it must always already be taken as a whole.

However, it is certain that for language to be grasped as a whole, it must first be grasped by the end of the signifier. What is mistakenly taken to be the concrete aspect of language in children is, contrary to appearances, something that relates to what I call “contiguity.”

To illustrate, let me give a recent example: someone shared with me something their child, a boy about four years old (though actually two and a half), said. As his mother leaned over to bid him goodnight, he called her “my big girl full of buttocks and muscles.” What does this language mean? It is clearly not the same as “Her sheaf was neither miserly nor hateful.” The child is not yet doing that. Nor does he say “Love is a pebble laughing in the sun.”

Any effort to claim that children understand surrealist and abstract poetry as a kind of return to childhood is absurd. Children detest surrealist poetry and reject certain stages of Picasso’s painting. This is because they have not yet reached metaphor; they are still in the realm of metonymy. When children appreciate certain works by Picasso, it is precisely because these works involve metonymy.

Metonymy is as perceptible in such cases as in passages from Tolstoy’s work, where, whenever a woman is approached, a metonymic device of high style causes a shadow of a fly or a spot on the upper lip to appear in her place. What does one see there? A dimension always forgotten because it is the most evident: a certain style of poetic creation, in its own way, known as “realistic style” as opposed to “symbolic style.” Realistic style has no more realism than anything else; it is merely a different use of a different function of language. This function is more essential since it sustains metaphor, but it operates in a completely different dimension—that of contiguity.

Clearly, this does not pertain to poetic language. In Tolstoy’s prose, this promotion of detail, which characterizes a certain realistic style, has absolutely no more realism than anything else.

Imagine that outside of very specific paths—precisely those that can produce a detail as a guide to the function of desire—there is no evidence that any random detail could be promoted as equivalent to the whole. The proof lies in the efforts we must make to demonstrate the value of certain details through a series of meaningful transfers, such as in labyrinth experiments or others designed to show what we call animal intelligence.

You may call it intelligence—it is merely a matter of definition, namely, extending the field of the real to fit into their current capacity for discernment, provided they are instinctually, libidinally motivated. The supposed realism of certain descriptive modes of reality—for instance, description through detail—is conceivable only within the framework and register of an organized signifier. This is why, when the mother is called “my big girl full of buttocks and muscles,” we can observe how the child evolves.

However, it is certain that it is based on early metonymic capacities that, at a certain moment, buttocks could become for him an equivalent of the maternal figure. Whether buttocks possess this or that meaning related to vital sensitization changes nothing about the issue.

It is on the basis of this metonymic articulation that such phenomena can occur. There must first exist the possibility of signifying coordination as such for transfers of meaning to take place. In this order of cases, which are often extreme and paradoxical, we can see that the formal articulation of the signifier dominates over the transfer of the signified.

It is within this framework that the question arises of the function of language in relation to the other, of how disturbances in this relationship affect the function of language. Just as we have seen the opposition between metaphor and metonymy, which I have attempted to present to you today, so too we see the fundamental functions of speech opposing one another in terms already highlighted: foundational speech on one side and basic words on the other.

Why are both fundamentally necessary? And what distinguishes them? This question necessarily arises concerning a third term. If it is so crucial for humans to use speech to find themselves or to regain themselves, it is evidently because of something related to their natural position or propensity to disintegrate in the presence of the other.

How does one compose and recompose in this context? Here, we rediscover the dual disposition constituted by metaphor and metonymy: the opposition of metaphor and metonymy corresponds precisely to the two possible functions of the Other.

This is what we will return to next time. For now, you can already discern in the phenomena presented by Schreber something striking: the elevation and overwhelming promotion of what I demonstrated last time in the interrupted sentences. This also occasionally includes the question and the response, something whose oppositional value is clear in contrast to what I called “foundational speech,” which consists of receiving one’s own message from the Other in an inverted form: “You are my wife.”

In this very dimension, where one does not ask the other for their opinion, the function of interrogation, of the question and the response as such, insofar as it is valorized by verbal initiation, is literally its complement and counterpart, undoubtedly its root. In a way, it exposes, in relation to the deeply meaningful nature of “foundational speech,” the signifying foundation of said speech at all levels. In the phenomenon of delusion, you will find this exposure, this highlighting of the signifying function as such.

I will immediately give you another example: the famous equivalences that leave one perplexed, those reported by the delusional Schreber concerning the famous “birds of the sky passing in the twilight” with their assonances: Chinesentum or Jesum Christum.
(“Es verschlägt daher für sie wenig, ob man sagt: Santiago oder Karthago, Chinesentum oder Jesum Christum, Abendrot oder Atemnot, Ariman oder Ackermann usw.”) [S. 210]

What should we retain from this?

Is it simply the absurdity? The striking fact, even to Schreber himself, is that these birds of the sky are literally brainless. To which Freud has no hesitation: they are young girls. One always expects such superficial games, not without reason—it’s true. But afterward, what is the important point?

The important point is that not just anything is equivalent to Chinesentum; it is Jesum Christum. Not just any assonance will suffice. What is important is not the assonance but the correspondence, term by term, of very similar discriminative elements, which have relevance only within the German linguistic system for a polyglot like Schreber. This is due to the succession of an “n,” a “d,” and an “e” in the same word. This is not something you would find in French. Similarly, it is quite rare for foreign words or for people who cannot speak French to produce […] It simply does not exist. Dilemma.

In other words, this operates on the level of a phonematic, signifying equivalence—purely signifying. This is evident in that it would not be possible to establish a satisfactory coordination between “the need for air” and “twilight” in this list. Of course, one could always attempt to find such a connection, but it is entirely clear that this is not the point of the elementary phenomenon Schreber highlights here with all his perceptiveness. The relationship between Jesum Christum and Chinesentum once again demonstrates how what is being sought is something within the order of the signifier, that is, phonematic coordination.

The Latin word Jesum Christum is included here only because in German, the ending “tum” carries a particular resonance. This is why the Latin word can function as an equivalent to Chinesentum.

This promotion of the signifier as such—just as I mentioned earlier regarding the promotion of detail—this emphasis, this emergence of the always-hidden substructure of the function of language, which is metonymy, is precisely what must first serve as the pivot and focus before any possible investigation into functional language disorders in neurosis or psychosis.

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