From Continuity to Rhythm

Abstract

This work departs from the opposition between continuity and discontinuity as formulated by semiotician Eric Landowski. I argue that the opposition is a complex that can be fruitfully analysed in terms of self-identity vs difference, unity vs diversity and determinism vs pure randomness. The study of these oppositions deploying Greimas’s square provides an insight into the notions of difference, boundary and cohesion. These will be key to the formulation of a semiotic concept of Harmony as the interplay between a unifying and a diversifying force. Harmony, I claim, is the first step for the study of rhythm as a semiotic concept.