When opposing is unifying: from multiple discursive values of the pronoun "on" to a unique potential meaning

Abstract

This study analyses the internal and external oppositions for the linguistic sign on, where this notion is used on a metalinguistic level, in Gustave Guillaume’s psychomecanical perspective. On the one hand, this notion consists of the opposition of two paradigms, indefinites and personals, with which on shares semantical and syntactical characteristics. On the other hand, it reveals, by an internal opposition within the sign itself, the various notional components based on its potential meaning. Thus, the ordination of those components juxtaposes two categories: person and number. Those parameters appear under the form of discursive values or effective meaning. Furthermore, the position of these values is organized by a double tension movement that ranges from the 3rd to the 1st person and passes through the plural 3rd person and the double persons. This movement represents the potential meaning of on in language, illustrated by a radical binary tensor.