Bifurcation note 2 Ontogeny of language
Kristeva’s psycholinguistic research “Detected in the first mimetic utterances of infants as ‘rhythms and intonations anterior to the first phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, and sentences’ (1980, Desire in Language) this semiotic chora . . . While syntactical language with its rules and boundaries ruptures this amorphous anteriority to constitute a separate subject—the ‘I’ who speaks—the semiotic continues to function as a primary process of language . . . This modality, moreover, is privileged by avant garde writers and feminists alike since its phonemic and rhythmic evocations undermine the rigidities of symbolic codes and logical syntax.” (from Cahane in Rudnytsky, 1993. Closely related to Winnicott.)