The function of poetry is to point out that the sign is not identical to the referent.

The search for the symbolic value of phonemes, each taken as a whole, runs the risk of giving rise to ambiguous and trivial interpretations because phonemes are complex entities, bundles of different distinctive features.

Linguistic sounds, considered as external, physical phenomena have two aspects, the motor and the acoustic.

The poetic function is the set towards the message itself, focus on the message for its own sake which by promoting the palpability of signs, deepens the fundamental dichotomy of signs and objects.

It is once again the vexing problem of identity within variety; without a solution to this disturbing problem there can be no system, no classification.

Now the identification of individual sounds by phonetic observation is an artificial way of proceeding.

Acoustic phonetics, which is developing and increasing in richness very rapidly, already enables us to solve many of the mysteries of sound, mysteries which motor phonetics could not even begin to solve.