“WORD IS AN EMBROIDERY FRAME, WORD IS A LINEN, WORD IS A TEXTILE”: HOW TO UNDERSTAND VELIMIR KHLEBNIKOV’S FORMULA

Khlebnikov’s formula “word is an embroidery frame, word is a linen, word is a textile” became popular in Victor Grigor’ev’s interpretation: it refers to the poetic transformation of the word. Recognizing the validity of that reading, we believe that the context of Khlebnikov’s notes may have different understanding, according to Khlebnikov’s practices of word and meaning production and his particular semantic theory. By “embroidery frame” Khlebnikov understood the consonant structure, and by “textile” — its modified resulting structure. This is confi rmed by Khlebnikov’s similar “formulas” according to which consonants are related to material objects, while vowels are associated with relations between them. Similar examples given by Khlebnikov demonstrate not word-creation, but an explication of some deep (“etymonic”) interpretation of existing words. The procedures proposed by him anticipate the method of minimal binary oppositions, but applied to selection of meta-semiological primary elements rather than phonological ones. Khlebnikov suggested considering a word as a process and result of meaning generating, this is possible through the semiotic heterogeneity of its phonetic components: vowels and consonants. One can preserve Khlebnikov’s scheme, but replacing terms and relations, and represent it as a context-free semiotics of the word: Word — as a substance (linen), it may be correlated with sign-vehicle, denotation; 2) Word — operation to conjugate the signified and the signifier (embroidery frame); 3) word as a unity of the signified and the signifier (textile).