ABSTRACT
Havingattemptedtounderstandsomethingofthebasicnatureof humanlanguage,wearenowinabetterpositiontoask:what aspectsofalanguageconstituteitsgrammar?Wehaveseenhow languageisatwo-levelsemioticsystem,beinganalysableseparately forcontentandexpressionunits:ithasasetofmeaningfulcontent units(signs)andasetofmeaninglessexpressionunits(figurae), eachsetwithitsownsystemofvaluesandrelations.Hockett(1958: 575f.)referstothelevelofcontentunitsas"plerematic",withits minimalunits"pleremes"apparentlyembracingbothitemslikewalk, theandgrammaticalpatternslikesubject-verb-object.Thelevelof expressionunitshedescribesas"cenematic",withitsminimalunits "cenemes"(cf.Hjelmslev's"figurae")presumablyincluding phonemes,intonationpatterns,etc.,ontheonehand,andthe letters("graphemes"),punctuationetc.ofwrittenlanguage,onthe other.
