On de Saussure’s principle of linearity and visualization of language structures

Abstract A universal construction of self-similar fractals with a given dimension which are Cartesian products of Cantor sets or, trivially, of unit intervals are presented at first. Their successive approximations consisting of linear segments visualize language fractals in a strong sense defined in our earlier paper Andres (2010). Then the measure of semantics is defined for linguistic objects verified as more realistic language fractals in a weak sense. Their visualization is realized in a more sophisticated way as well. The process of production and reception of the text is explained by means of direct and inverse transformations from multidimensional visualized language structures to onedimensional (de Saussure’s) ones, and reversely (whence the title). The associated expansion (due to semantics) is called the pack of cards effect or the accordion effect. The supplied illustrative examples are based on the fractal analysis of E. A. Poe’s “Raven”.

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