The moment construal appears, it is almost immediately explained away.
We are told that:
- the child has learned that certain behaviours produce certain outcomes,
- associations have been strengthened through repetition,
- communicative intent has gradually formed through interaction.
In short:
meaning has been acquired.
This explanation is both intuitive and inadequate.
1. What acquisition presupposes
Accounts of acquisition rely on a simple structure:
- there are signals,
- there are meanings,
- and development consists in linking the two.
Through:
- exposure,
- reinforcement,
- and use,
the child is said to:
map forms to meanings.
2. The circularity of this account
This account fails at its starting point.
Because it assumes:
that meanings are already available to be mapped.
But this is precisely what is at issue.
Prior to the cut:
- there are no meanings,
- no construals,
- no roles bound to what they construe.
There are only:
organised patterns of value.
3. Association is not binding
It might be argued that:
- repeated association between behaviour and outcome produces meaning.
But association yields:
- correlation,
- expectation,
- and increased probability of recurrence.
It does not yield:
a behaviour functioning as something other than itself.
Association:
- links events.
Binding:
- organises roles and construals.
These are not equivalent.
4. Reinforcement stabilises behaviour, not function
Similarly:
- reinforcement can stabilise patterns of behaviour,
- increase their frequency,
- and embed them within interaction.
But it cannot:
reorganise what behaviour is.
It cannot:
- transform an act into a role,
- bind that role to what it construes,
- or introduce substitutional organisation.
It operates:
within value.
5. The missing transformation
What acquisition accounts cannot explain is:
the transition from behaviour as effect to behaviour as construal.
They can describe:
- how often an act occurs,
- how reliably it produces outcomes,
- how it is shaped by interaction.
They cannot explain:
how it comes to function as something.
6. Why learning is insufficient
Learning, in these accounts, is:
- incremental,
- cumulative,
- continuous.
But the transformation we have identified is:
discontinuous.
There is no:
- partial binding,
- gradual substitution,
- incremental emergence of role.
Either:
- behaviour functions as a construal,
or:
- it does not.
7. Reorganisation, not accumulation
What is required, then, is a different kind of explanation.
Not:
- addition of new elements,
- strengthening of associations,
- or accumulation of structure,
but:
reorganisation of the system’s function.
That is:
- the same behavioural resources are reconfigured,
- such that they can now operate in roles,
- and be bound to what they construe.
8. The nature of the reorganisation
This reorganisation:
- does not add meaning to behaviour,
- does not attach labels to acts,
- does not map signals onto pre-existing contents.
It transforms:
what it is for an act to occur within the system.
After the cut:
- an act is not merely something that happens,
- but something that can be used.
9. Why this resists reduction
This transformation resists reduction because:
- it is not located in:
- frequency,
- form,
- or observable sequence.
It is located in:
organisation.
Specifically:
- in the emergence of role,
- in the establishment of binding,
- and in the possibility of substitution.
10. The role of interaction revisited
This is not to deny the importance of interaction.
Caregiver engagement:
- stabilises patterns,
- structures environments,
- and sustains repeated contexts.
These are:
necessary conditions.
But they are not:
sufficient conditions.
They prepare the system.
They do not:
complete the transformation.
11. The developmental asymmetry resolved
We can now return to the asymmetry identified earlier:
- caregiver: already semiotic
- infant: pre-semiotic
Acquisition accounts attempt to:
- bridge this asymmetry through gradual learning.
But the asymmetry is resolved only when:
the infant’s system reorganises into a semiotic one.
Not before.
12. The position secured
We can now state the conclusion without concession:
meaning is not acquired.
There is no process by which:
- non-semiotic behaviour is gradually endowed with meaning.
There is only:
a transformation in which behaviour becomes capable of functioning as construal.
13. What comes next
With this in place, we can now properly characterise what follows the cut.
Not:
- the emergence of meaning,
but:
the organisation of meaning once it exists.
We will now turn to:
protolanguage as minimal semiotic organisation—
not as an early stage of acquisition,
but as:
the first stable system in which construal operates.
Only then can development be described without distortion.
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