Phrasing

Cassirer's genetic derivation of Language misses an important step. On his account, the decisive step from animal to human expression is from interjective cry to name. But the Formaterial analysis of Experience reveals an intermediate stage. According to that analysis, all Individual activity is a combination of Material and Formal processes, e. g. an emissive impulsion, and a shaping of that emission. Thus, the act of speaking is constituted by an emission of sound, and a shaping of that sound. Likewise, the act of handwriting is constituted by an emission of ink, and a shaping of that ink, whereas in typewriting, printing, and word processing, the combining is accomplished mechanically. Even in most cases of speaking, the combining is so habitual that the entailed Material-Formal distinction is obscured. But, one activity in which their interactivity is more palpable is in scat singing, in which a performer carries out the actual shaping of sound, a process that can be called 'Phrasing'. Usually, the Phrases generated in scat singing are characterized as 'nonsensical', but such a judgement is merely conventional, i. e. it is based only on a Phrase having no generally-accepted import. However, that any 'nonsensical' Phrase, e. g. 'copacetic' can, via repetition and fixing, become 'meaningful', demonstrates not only how Phrasing is an intermediate stage between amorphous interjecting and naming, but that it is a fundamental stratum of any utterance.