ABSTRACT
Through the realisation of meaning practical linguistic closure enables the marks of language to be held as one with other parts of sensory closure, but it is formal linguistic closure that enables the marks of language to be combined. It differs from practical closure for instead of holding a word or phrase as some aspect of experience through the realisation of meaning which the word and the sensory closures share, formal closure realises meaning through which one linguistic mark can be held as another linguistic mark. Since most uses of language involve more than one linguistic mark formal closure is involved in the majority of language use. Formal closure is even present in the case of single linguistic marks and has already been implicit in the account of meaning that has been proposed of an individual word or phrase, for the meaning we associate with a word is itself a closure realised from the variety of previous, and inevitably different, practical linguistic closures with which the word has been associated. Formal linguistic closure is involved therefore in the realisation of a single meaning which holds as one the variety of different practical closures associated with the same linguistic mark. The primary concern in this chapter however will be the role of formal closure in combining different marks, since aside from the self-generated character of linguistic marks, it is the capacity to realise new material through the combination of linguistic marks that makes language such a powerful form of closure.
