European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 LINGUISTICS OF SAYING Jesús Martínez del Castillo, PhD Almería University, Spain Abstract: Linguistics of saying studies language in its birth. Language is the mental activity executed by speaking subjects. Linguistics of saying consists in analyzing speech acts as the result of an act of knowing. Speaking subjects, speak because they have something to say; they say because they define themselves before the circumstance they are in; and this is possible because they can know. Speaking, then, is speaking, saying, and knowing. In this sense there is a progressive determination. Knowing makes possible saying, and saying determines speaking. The problem thus is to determine the linguistic intention of the individual speaker to say in every speech act. Key Words: speaking, saying, and knowing; intellective operations; intentional purpose of speaking. 1. Linguistics of saying. 1.1. Linguistics of saying is a proposal made by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset and formulated by me in 20041. It starts with language considered in its birth. Language is born whenever it is spoken. From this point of view language does not have concrete existence: it is mental activity, the creation of meanings; a particular language is something virtual, that is, linguistic knowledge, the knowledge of speakers to speak thus consisting in a technical knowledge. The only thing with concrete existence is speaking subjects, that is, human beings as they execute the activity of speaking, which is not merely the use of words to create utterances but the activity consisting in speaking, saying, and knowing about things and the world constituted of things thus understanding things and the world. 1.2. Human subjects speak because they have something to say. They say because they define themselves before the circumstance they are involved in, thus creating things and a world constituted of things. Speakers define themselves because they can know, that is, they can apprehend things and create something about them thus adding something new to their apprehension. Language, thus, consists of this treble reality: speaking, saying, and knowing. In its deepest genesis knowing is first, then, saying, and finally, speaking. In other words: knowing is the possibility of saying; saying is the determination of speaking and speaking is the manifestation of both knowing and saying. 1.3. In linguistics of saying the production of speech is to be examined when it is created. Language manifests itself in speech acts produced by human subjects. Language cannot be verified in it. The only thing you can verify is speech acts, innumerable speech acts. Language is born daily in every speech act. Speech acts are entirely new, since they are made of both utterances and the topics utterances deal with, that is, they consist in creation of both words and expressions and the content or logos or thought expressed in those words and expressions. Linguistics of saying analyses language starting with the content of expression. In this sense linguistics of saying is interpretation, that is, hermeneutics, defined as "the crossroads and mutual connection of different disciplines, linked together purposefully by a man's self-reflection"2. 1 Cf. Martínez del Castillo 2004. 2 Cf. Di Cesare 1999: 3-5. European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 1.4. This perspective involves interpreting the speech act as the result of an act of knowing thus stressing the intellective operations in accordance with the speech act has been constituted. This means determining and interpreting the speech act as the result of the meaningful intentional purpose of the speaker. In linguistics of saying the problem is to determine the meaningful expressive intention of the individual speaker in the creation of speech acts. 2. Functions in linguistics of saying. In linguistics of saying you can see two functions given in all linguistic expressions but given differently in every speech act and every language. These functions are the object of saying and the object of knowledge. In a speech act the creation of these two functions is executed by means of the different intellective operations we are going to see below (cf. § 3). 2.1. The object of saying. 2.1.1. The object of saying is the aspect, underlined or not grammatically, because of which the expression is formulated. It constitutes the ultimate purpose of the utterance. For example, when you say an expression such as, My father has a Roll Royce you can ask: what is the meaningful intentional purpose of this expression? Who or what is the author of this expression speaking of? Is he speaking of his father? Why is this expression said? The author of this utterance, given for granted it is real, is speaking of himself. The significance of this expression is remarking how proud or happy the speaker feels since his father has a Roll Royce and probably his mates' fathers do not have a Roll Royce. The information in the sentence is given by the phrases "my father" and "a Roll Royce" put together by the verbal content of "have". But the most unimportant grammatical element, the possessive determiner "my", is used by the speaker in question to orientate the whole sentence towards himself. "My" represents the message of the expression, the meaningful intentional purpose, that is, the "saying" of the expression, the object constituting the reason why the expression is said. The object of saying thus is the best representative of the original intention to say by the individual speaker. It is the determining element in terms of which the whole expression is organized. 2.2. The object of knowledge. 2.2.1. The object of knowledge, on the contrary, is the means of expression used to create the saying of the expression, that is, the information given to execute the meaningful intentional purpose of the speaker. The means of expression for a free human subject can be very varied, some of which may be linguistic and some non-linguistic accompanying or substituting the linguistic expression. In the example above, the object of knowledge is "a Roll Royce". The speaker tries to draw his listeners' attention on a high quality car belonging to him since it is his father's. 2.2.2. Consequently, the meaningful intentional purpose of the speaker in a expression (the object of saying) is something to be confronted to the information given (the object of knowing). The meaningful intentional purpose of the speaker will always determine the information given. Because of this language, from the point of view of the individual speaker, is nothing but the intention to say. 2.2.3. Analysed in the act of knowing, the object of saying constitutes the base the speech act is founded on. It involves re-structuring the things constituting the circumstance the speaking subject is in. Thanks to this re-structuring (or this creation of meanings) the speaking subject has something to say. The thing determined in the linguistic expression (the object of knowledge) can be said in many ways thus depending on the perspective imposed by the individual speaker (his intentional meaningful purpose, the object of saying). 2.2.4. These two functions are to be found in all speech acts. Since speaking is speaking and understanding, the speech act is formed by a set of intellective operations European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 manifest in it. A language as a background where acts of knowing are executed manifests these intellective operations as well. 3. Intellective operations in the speech act. Intellective operations are aimed at expressing the meaningful intentional purpose of speakers. For a speaking subject the problem is to say. The meaningful intentional purpose of the individual speaker constitutes the determination of the speech act. Linguistic expressions manifest the procedure used in the conception and expression of things. To say you must create the following things: a) an object to say of; b) what you want to say of the object created; c) a class of objects to define the object created; d) find out a name to the object and class created; e) apply the object and class created to things in the world; f) relate the object and class created to something previously known; g) and finally offer your creation to others. All this is executed in the speech act, the act of creating language by a free subject aiming at a meaningful purpose, based on the act of knowing and using the means of expression of a language. 3.1. An initial intuition or aísthesis. 3.1.1. Human subjects, to survive in the circumstance they are in, must do something. The circumstance the subject is in may be hostile or friendly. The first thing they must do is to know about the things surrounding them. The speech act as the performance of the act of knowing is an entirely free act. It consists in transforming what comes to you through your sense organs, something concrete, into something abstract, something liable to be manipulated. What comes to you through your sense organs cannot be but lived, not manipulated. However, human subjects imagine something representing what comes to them through the sense organs to transform and manipulate it, if only mentally. The thing transformed into, or created, or fabricated, can be used as a model to modify the world surrounding the intelligent3 subject. It will be used not only in the situation the subject is in but in many other possible situations. 3.1.2. The act of knowing starts with an initial intuition on the part of the subject. This initial intuition is of concrete character: it is sensation, called by Aristotle aísthesis4, something you cannot describe but merely feel or live. Intuition is something you can or cannot have, at the most something you can prompt. It constitutes the condition sine qua non of the act of knowing. This kind of intuition or sensation is something had even by animals. If for a sensitive being sensation cannot be manipulated, for the free, creative, intelligent, saying and speaking subject it can be transformed and made into something representing it. Because of this, you can see the following intellective operations manifesting in the speech act and in some way or another in languages. 3.2. Selection 3.2.1. The first intellective operation in a speech act is selecting something from the initial intuition (sensation or aísthesis) had by the intelligent subject. Out of the many potential relationships of signification or perspectives liable to be imposed on the initial intuition -intelligent subjects are creative just because they are free when conceiving-, one is selected or the whole intuition is considered under a perspective or point of view. Since the original intuition is sensation, the intelligent subject is in the need of explaining it, first, to himself thus creating thought and his conscience, and then to others thus creating language. 3 I d rather use the words intelligent when applied to humans and intellective when applied to other semantic objects thus avoiding the words cognition, and cognitive. From my point of view the latter must be redefined; cf. Martínez del Castillo 2008. 4 Cf. Ortega y Gasset 1992a: 128-130. European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 This explanation, either internal (to himself) or external (to others), starts with selecting something out of the original sensation, or imposing a perspective on the thing felt. In this sense selection means transforming what originally was sensitive into something nonsensitive but abstract. 3.2.2. But to do this the intelligent, saying and speaking subject has to explain what he feels with words not created by him but the community. Consequently, the speaking subject contemplates four different realities: a) what he feels (his intuition), b) the image he has created to represent what he feels, c) him himself as different from his sensation and the thing he has selected or fabricated. This fact is the base for the creation of human thought and conscience, and d) the words and expressions of a language. 3.2.3. Selection is made through abstraction. The intelligent subject "extracts" something from his original sensation thus creating something new. 3.2.4. Selection manifests differently in particular languages. For example, paraphrasing may be a manifestation of selection. The contents in, say, he is married to a young wife, he married a young wife and he has a young wife refer to the same fact of experience. "He" and "wife", in the examples keep some relationships of signification thus representing different extracts from the same intuition. The same can be said of I cannot drive a car as against I am no driver: it is different perspective imposed on the same fact of experience thus interpreting it in different ways. 3.2.5. The same can be said when you count with cardinal or ordinal numbers. Counting with cardinal numbers means reducing the things counted to the concept of unit. You do not count, say, women or men, but units of the class specified: ten women and ten men. Counting with ordinal numbers means establishing an order on the things counted: the first thing I did was to greet my friends, the second, to announce my intention. 3.3. Delimiting semantic objects or establishing a designation. 3.3.1. The second intellective operation in a speech act is prompted by the need of constituting an object to say of it. 3.3.2. The object to be created can be something with designation5 in the world, for example a mountain; or something in an imaginary world, a flying pig; or something with no designation whatsoever in the physical world, happiness, goodness, justice, truth. The mental operation of delimiting an object to say of it is always present in human knowledge. 3.3.3. Delimiting semantic objects may not be a problem when both the semantic object created and the reality designate exist in the tradition, or there is a basis in the physical world. It is the case of tree, flower, river: they appear as having concrete existence since there are objects in the world denoted with the name of some semantic classes. The semantic objects, on the one hand, and the semantic classes, on the other, appear to the speaking subject as if they constituted the same reality. 3.3.4. But it may appear problematic when the semantic object and thus the semantic classes created appear only as contents of conscience without any possibility of designating anything in the world. It is the case of, for example, beauty, faithfulness, profit. In these cases, both the semantic objects and the semantic classes created appear to be the same. If you say, for example, an area of outstanding natural beauty, you have two different realities, the semantic class denoted (outstanding natural beauty) and the semantic object created (an area) to be applied the semantic class created. The semantic class created is something completely different from the semantic object created. They both answer to the need of delimiting a 5 I d use designation and designate rather than reference and refer to mean the connection between the meaning of an expression or word and the thing in the world represented. European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 semantic object to say of and the need of creating what to say of it (the class, concept, or category). 3.3.5. Both the thing denoted, that is, the semantic object, and the semantic class created belong to the world of imagination. They have been created by the intelligent subject in the very act of conceiving and expressing a new state of affairs. They both are based on the intuition on the things perceived or apprehended. 3.3.6. Delimiting semantic objects can be illustrated with the following example. If you say this is true you refer something delimited by the word this and the context thus creating a semantic object. However, this as an element of the English language (a determiner) can refer anything. This can represent very different things of very different nature. This can be constituted with a unit, a part of a unit, or a set of units. The important thing is that you consider this as representing the thing you want to say of. This fact has the following implications: a) if the things denoted by the determiner are many you will reduce them to only one; b) if the things denoted have reality but only diffusely, that is, if you refer, not things properly, but relationships or abstract concepts, you will consider them as something capable of being said something of, that is, as if they were units; c) if the things referred to, either if they are many or only one, or if they have designation in the real things or in something abstract, will be considered objective, that is, they will be considered as if they formed a unit or «a thing». 3.3.7. Delimiting semantic objects involves two functions: a) the attribution of reality to the mental object created thus considering it to exist, for example, a problem, and b) the delimitation of the semantic object created in some way, either specifically, the problem raised at the meeting, or by context, the problem with this is... 3.3.8. The intellective operation of delimiting semantic objects is, thus, mental, abstract, fantastic, free, and based only on the interests of the speaking subjects. It is a mental operation necessary for the speaking subject to create an object to say of. 3.4. Creation of a semantic class or essence (or a category). Once you have an object to say of, it is necessary to specify what you want to say of it. This intellective operation is double: it can be constituted with the creation of a class or essence or by the operation of relation. Both are closely connected: they both create semantic classes and are constituted with series of intellective operations basically consisting in the creation of relationships of signification that can either describe or put the thing created together with another one previously known. In both cases, however, the result is a new state of affairs, that is, something able to be described. 3.4.1. The creation of a class or essence consists in the creation of a concept defining and including a larger or lesser number of objects, that is, it consists in the creation of a category of things. To understand this intellective operation you have to bear in mind the elements constituting it: a) the essence to be created, that is, the concept defining a larger or lesser number of semantic objects, b) the class (or category), that is, the set of semantic objects defined and grouped by the essence created. For example, when you may say, mountain you may mean a) the relationship of signification because of which you say this is a mountain, that is, you apply the condition of "being a mountain" to anything you consider appropriate. You can say, for example, I am so tired that this walk is just like climbing a mountain; b) the condition of "being a mountain", something putting together different semantic objects. For example, the mountains of Scotland are very low -probably the items designate in the example might be said hills somewhere else. But the fact is that either European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 if you designate the items in the example as mountains or hills you put together those semantic objects with the other semantic objects called mountains (the Pyrenees, the Appalachians, the Carpathians). c) A semantic object classified as a mountain. For example, the Andes. 3.4.2. The creation of a class or essence involves two operations: a) the creation of an essence, that is, the concept, the class or category, and b) the attribution of the class created to the construct already selected delimited and attributed reality thus constituting the new semantic object (cf. 3.3.) The result of this intellective operation is a new creation, a new description of a state of affairs, something able of being denoted. Considering the function performed in a speech act, description is to be conceived as a state of affairs able of being considered in it, or as the result of a relationship established between different states of affairs, or different semantic objects, or as the combination of both a state of affairs plus a relation. 3.4.2.1. In accordance with this the state of affairs denoted with adjectives, for example, a relationship of attribution of the meaning given by the adjective to a semantic object with designation in the world (old in an old house), can in itself be considered a description. In the same sense, when you say relation, from an intellective point of view, you merely say that two concepts or meanings are put together. 3.4.3. The intellective operation of creation of a class or essence is very complex. The nature of the construct created depends entirely on the type of intellective construct created. The class created, then, can be: a) something entirely new. For example, a textile beach, a nudist beach; b) something created on the base of meanings already existing in the language. For example, sandy beaches; c) something new made on the base of old meanings. For example, real mother in my real mother is my grand-mother; d) or something created merely by combining two existing traditional meanings. Compare cardinal in the combinations cardinal point, cardinal number, or cardinal error. In all these cases you have to speak of a new construct, since in itself, as an individual speech act, the creation of a class or essence means the creation of meanings to be applied to semantic objects, thus involving the three types of creation said above (the essence or the class, the application of it, and the semantic object) with a new meaning. 3.4.4. In the creation of a class or essence abstraction plays an important role. The concept of abstraction, however, is not a simple one. The thing abstracted (that is, extracted) from the initial intuition, something arbitrary, capricious, and unpredictable, represents something existing in it apart from the thing it was given in. 3.4.5. The characteristics abstracted in a speech act might be considered common to a group of things. But they are not. The speech act as an act of knowing is a singular and unique one. Because of this comparison with other acts of knowing is not possible. When you know something, the thing being known is new to you: it is something being created just because it is new. Consequently, there cannot be comparison with other objects in other speech acts; at the most there may be relation, that is, conceiving a concept relating it to an old one, that is, putting it together with another one previously known. 3.4.6. The creation of a class or essence is created with the mental operation of attributing indefinite or universal capability of designation to the construct being created. So, if you know something new, something you did not know earlier, say, an animal or a plant, you attribute universal capability of designation to it, that is, you assume that all possible members of the same kind are like the one you have in front of you. That is, you define the category and all possible items of it with analogy. Afterwards when you find a new item of the same kind you will verify whether your idea of it is right or not; if it is right you will European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 confirm your first intuition; on the contrary if your idea does not coincide with it, you will soon reject your first idea and create a new one. With this you can see that in human knowledge, the class or essence or category of something is first; then, the members or items of the class specified. 3.5. Relation 3.5.1. The next intellective operation, relation, consists in putting together the object created so far to something previously known by the intelligent subject. For example, you cannot understand what a textile beach means unless you relate it to its contrary, a nudist beach. In the same way, you cannot understand the concept of father unless you know the concept of son; nor can you know what abstract is unless you relate it to concrete. 3.5.2. Relation is to be executed in a double sense, a) internally in terms of traditional meanings, that is, in terms of the linguistic contents used; and b) externally in terms of the things being referred to. 3.5.3. Because of the first aspect speakers will usually look at similar meanings or meanings with a basic content in common. It is the case of contraries: good: bad; young: old; new: old, etc. As to the second aspect, speakers will relate both the semantic class of objects and the semantic object created to the things they know. For example, a bookkeeper is not someone keeping books but an accountant: you cannot understand the meaning of this word unless you relate it to the things described: it is someone "keeping an accurate record of sums of money spent and received by a business or other organization"6. 3.5.4. In the creation of meanings, the knowledge of things plays an important role. Speakers when they know something new, they will conceive that piece of knowledge in terms of the cultural background they are in. In this sense, the cultural background of a language is different from the cultural background of another one, thus determining the meanings of the language in question. On the other hand, the intellection of a linguistic expression depends on the knowledge every speaker has of the contexts and universes of discourse the new piece of knowledge may belong to7. 3.6. Nomination 3.6.1. When the intelligent subject has created a new semantic class, and applied it to a new semantic object, he will look for a label, that is, a name to keep the construct he has just created. The label the speaker looks for may be a traditional word or a new expression. 3.6.2. Nomination has two functions: it is used a) to keep the new construct created in the conscience of the intelligent subject; and b) to offer the new construct to others. 3.6.3. Because of the first function intelligent subjects will relate the construct created to the world, that is, to the things surrounding them, thus creating a mental image of them and verifying it in the world. 3.6.4. Because of the second function the semantic construct created is made social and since it is offered to others, who will accept or reject it, may become traditional, that is, common in the linguistic community the speaker belongs to. Then what started as an act of knowing becomes a speech act, that is, an act of speaking, saying, and knowing. Intelligent subjects, with nomination, make their mental intervention in the world into an act of saying thus manifesting themselves as subjects who create the world in their interiors, and making themselves responsible for the things said. 3.6.5. Nomination constitutes the central problem in linguistics, namely: establishing a functional nexus between a symbol and a meaning8. Linguistic expressions reveal the creativity, freedom, intelligence, and historicity of speakers. Nomination is free election, thus 6 Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary. 7 Cf. Coseriu 2006: 72 and ff. 8 Cf. Coseriu 1986: 58-59. European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 making the historical language a set of possibilities offered to speakers. The language already performed and constituted in a tradition in the technique of speaking constitutes the background in accordance with speakers will perform their freedom to know, say, and speak. 3.6.6. Nomination has two important effects in the speech act. It involves 1. the transformation of the nature of the construct being nominated, and 2. the objectification of this construct. 3.6.7. Thanks to nomination words are objective and even have concrete existence in two aspects: a) they convey contents, that is, they mean; and b) they have concrete form, that is, they are made in contents with sounds. Because of nomination words and meanings are interchangeable, that is, social, and, when in use, they become real. Meanings exist since they belong to the tradition of speaking in a speech community or language. In this sense, meaning is common: its degree of commonness constitutes its degree of reality. 3.6.7.1. A mental construct, by the mere fact of being conceived, that is, by the mere fact of having been selected, delimited in some way, given reality, made a virtual semantic class, specified as an objective semantic class and a semantic object, and then nominated, acquires with it what you may say its conceptual contraries. Why? 3.6.7.2. Because in the act of knowing the only means to delimit the constructs created out of concrete sensation is by imagining the non-existence of the sensation they are made out of. For example, if you feel cold and try to explain -if only to yourself- that state affecting you alone and not others, the only thing you can do is opposing it to its absence. That is, you are cold and wish you were not cold. In this situation you mentally oppose cold to non-cold. The only means to delimit a sensation mentally is by imagining its non-existence thus putting the concept of it together with its contrary. 3.6.8. With this the initial sensation, which was sensitive, is made both sensitive and non-sensitive; it is sensitive since if affects you; and it is non-sensitive since you relate it to something created mentally and arbitrarily. That is, you conceive something both sensitively and conceptually, or in other words: you extract something not existing (non-sensitive) out of something existing (sensitive). And this creation is clearly conceptual since both cold and non-cold cannot coexist in the real world, the world of sense organs. 3.6.9. The existence of contraries in meaning is a fact to be verified in languages. Most meanings are organized in contraries, for example, young-new, young-old, happy-unhappy, happy-miserable, something-naught, something-nothing, male-female, natural-artificial, beautiful-ugly, beautiful-plain, etc. 3.6.10. Because of their abstract character, semantic constructs once nominated become linguistic signs, that is, they are conceived as something separated from their creators. If at the beginning, the initial intuition belonged only to the intelligent subject, the new construct once nominated is a word, something independent and separated from its creators. 3.6.11. Meanings, once created and nominated, that is, words, do not belong to their creators but the community (the historical language in question) since they are offered to others. In this sense, nomination is necessarily historical, that is, it is made with words belonging to a language, or with new words made with traditional elements thus belonging to a language as well. 3.6.12. In this sense since language is speaking, saying, and knowing, language is the creation of meanings; a language (a historical language) constitutes a tradition in the technique of speaking offered to speakers. A technique of speaking involves a set of words, contents, rules, procedures, attitudes, and beliefs, common in a speech community. Speakers, at the same time as they create words and utterances of their own, will accept the forms, contents, rules, procedures, attitudes, and beliefs functioning in their speech communities. In this sense language is thought, logos, the creation of meanings, and the acceptance of models to be executed just to know, say, and speak. European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 3.6.13. As an illustration of the aspects discussed so far in the intellective operation of nomination let's comment the formation of the word Eurosceptic. Here the inventor of this expression -whoever he may have been -used traditional forms, the root euroused to represent the concept of Europe and the noun sceptic. The technique of combining two nouns is traditional in English but the application of it in the example is new: it is a traditional technique applied to traditional terms thus making a new coinage with a new meaning. The issue was to nominate the fact "to be against closer connection with Europe"9 as contrary "to be for closer connection with Europe". The expression is new since it is perhaps the first word coined with this negative sense: you do not say, for example, *he is a reform-sceptic (for he is against reforms, or against this reform) or *he is an abort-sceptic (for he is against abortion). Anyway, it was an individual creation offered to others and accepted. Today it is a traditional word and may constitute a model for the creation of new ones (cf. Europhobia). 3.7. Determination. 3.7.1. The last intellective operation in a speech act consists in orientating the construct created towards things in the real world. The construct created so far (something concrete made into abstract, delimited in some way, given a degree of reality, made virtual, objective, traditional (or common in a linguistic community) and thus social, is now a semantic construct designating, not things but categories or classes. Thanks to this, speakers can understand one another with a peculiarity: every speaker in every speech act can interpret those categories differently since they are virtual and potential. The construct created, consequently, needs the application of it to real things. This application is made through the intellective operation of determination. 3.7.2. The intellective operation of determination is made by means of some historical elements usually referred to in grammars as "determiners" (articles, demonstratives, possessives, some adverbs, certain syntactic combinations), or by means of context. The expression then says something about things in the world. For example, I may say occupation and may refer a class or things, that is, a general state of affairs having to do with employment. In contrast, I may say my occupation and then I mean a job. And if I say teaching occupation then I refer the state of affairs 'occupation' applied to an activity constituting a job. That is, in every case the category «occupation» is orientated to contexts or things existing in the real world, thus constituting different semantic objects, and giving different clues or shades of meaning (senses). Because of determination the semantic construct becomes real. 3.7.3.1. Determination is something in language going beyond particular languages. Some languages do not have determiners, for example, Latin, and some use determiners in cases not used in other languages. For example, in English you do not use determiners in universal or abstract statements: men have reason; animals have instincts, etc., but this is not the case in Spanish. 3.7.3.2. Determination is a language universal since it belongs to the speech act. Determination has to do with the creation of meanings, something inseparable from knowing, saying, and speaking. It manifests in languages, sometimes with determiners, sometimes with certain syntactic combinations, sometimes through context or by means of gestures of any type. This fact manifests that speaking and the speech act are wider than languages. Determination is closely connected with saying since saying means the definition of intelligent subjects before the circumstance they are involved in. Without determination there is no saying. 3.7.3.3. Determination plays an important role in human thought. Human thought, before determination, is constituted as a process of abstract creation; after determination the thing created is linked to reality. In a speech act, as we have seen, knowledge started with the 9 Cambridge Dictionary Online. European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 apprehension of something concrete; then, concrete was changed into abstract; abstract into a content of conscience; a content of conscience into something virtual; virtual into objective; objective into traditional or common, and now, with determination, we can see how the construct fabricated is changed to refer to real things. Human knowledge by means of language (speech acts) starts with sensation and ends with the real. Real things are created since they are designated through determination, that is, real things are created when the abstract constructs created are applied to things surrounding the speaking subject by means of determination. 3.7.3.4. A real thing, then, is both abstract and concrete. It is abstract since it necessarily means the systematization of facts of experience made by the intelligent subject in his conscience, and it is concrete since the systematization created is applied to the real and verified in the real. The line separating both phases in the human of act of conceiving or apprehending things, necessarily through language, is determination. Before determination the human subject creates something to know the world, after determination the human subject knows the world. Before determination the intelligent subject creates classes or categories, or even theories; after determination, the intelligent subject starts with a new act of knowing, thus "letting things speak to him"10. With this the act of knowing is perfectly described in the double direction it takes: it starts with the sensitive and concrete into the abstract, and ends with the orientation of the abstract to the real. The speech act or, more precisely, the act of knowing, then, is the union of opposites. Conclusion: 3.8. If you base speech acts on an act of knowing you can see the following steps in the birth of language and the changing character of semantic constructs as they are being made. a) The speech act, an act of knowing, saying, and speaking starts with an initial intuition or aísthesis, something sensitive; b) then it is selected and made abstract and thus something existing only in the conscience of its creators; c) then it is delimited and given reality thus constituting a new semantic object, something apart from the conscience of its creators; d) then it is made a class of objects or a category and then related, thus making it virtual, e) then with nomination the new construct is made objective; f) and finally, with determination it is changed into real. References: Coseriu, E., Introducción a la lingüística, Madrid: Gredos, 1986 [1951]. Coseriu, E., Sincronía, diacronía e historia: el problema del cambio lingüístico, Madrid, Editorial Gredos, 1988 [1957]. Coseriu, E., Competencia lingüística: elementos de la teoría del hablar, Madrid, Editorial Gredos, 1992 [1988]. Coseriu, E. y Ó. Loureda: Lenguaje y discurso, Pamplona, Eunsa, 2006. 10 These words are an interpretation of the following ones by Heidegger: "si el hombre ha de encontrarse en la cercanía del ser, entonces debe, ante todo, aprender a existir en lo inómine. [...] El hombre debe, antes de hablar, dejar que el ser le hable de nuevo, corriendo el peligro de que bajo esta alocución tensa poco o raramente algo tiene que decir. Sólo así le será devuelta a la palabra la preciosidad de su esencia, mas al hombre la vivienda para el morar en la verdad del ser" (Heidegger 1970: 14) [if Man is to be near Being, then He must, before anything else, learn to coexist in the Unnamed. [...] Man must, before speaking, let Being speak to him again, with the risk that under that tense speech He can say little or nothing. Only in this way will the Word be given back the truth of its essence and the Man the dwelling to live in the truth of Being (my translation)]. European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol. 2 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e – ISSN 1857-7431 Di Cesare, D. Wilhelm von Humboldt y el estudio filosófico de las lenguas, traducción de Ana Agud, Anthropos, 1999. Heidegger, Martín, Carta sobre el humanismo, Madrid: Destino, 1970. Martínez del Castillo, Jesús, La lingüística del decir. El logos semántico y el logos apofántico, Granada: Granada Lingvistica, Serie άρχή και λόγος, 2004. Martínez del Castillo, Jesús, «Hablar, decir y conocer: el acto lingüístico», Oralia, 11 (2008): 375-97. Martínez del Castillo, Jesús, La lingüística cognitiva: análisis y revisión, Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, S. A, 2008. Martínez del Castillo, Jesús: «El logos semántico y el logos apofántico» Enérgeia I, OnlineZeitschrift für Sprachwissenchaft, Sprachphilosophie und Sprachwissenschaftsgeschichte. 2009: 50-80. Martínez del Castillo, Jesús: El problema de las relaciones lenguaje-pensamiento o el problema del logos. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, S. A., 2010. Ortega y Gasset, José, «El decir de la gente: la lengua. Hacia una nueva lingüística» in El hombre y la gente, 2001 [1957], Alianza Editorial. Ortega y Gasset, José, «El decir de la gente: las "opiniones públicas", las "vigencias sociales". El poder público» in El hombre y la gente, 2001 [1957], Alianza Editorial. Ortega y Gasset, José, "En torno al coloquio de Darmstadt", published in Meditación de la técnica y otros ensayos de ciencia y filosofía, 2002 [1982]: 192-233. Ortega y Gasset, José, "Apuntes para un comentario al banquete de Platón", Obras completas, IX, Taurus, 2009: 729-758. Ortega y Gasset, José, La idea de principio en Leibniz, Alianza Editorial, 1992a [1958]. Ortega y Gasset, José, ¿Qué es conocimiento?, Alianza Editorial, 1992b [1984].