Changes

{{Top}}[[absent]]|absence{{Bottom}}

<blockquote>"In [[the symbolic ]] [[order ]] nothing [[exists ]] except upon an assumed foundation of absence. Nothing exists except insofar as it does not [[exist]]."<ref>{{Ec}} p.392</ref></blockquote>

This is a basic [[difference ]] between the [[symbolic]] and the [[real]].

<blockquote>"There is no absence in [[The Real|the real]]. There is only absence if you [[suggest ]] that there may be a presence there where there isn't one."<ref>{{S2}} p.313</ref></blockquote>

As [[Roman Jakobson]] showed with his [[analysis ]] of [[phoneme]]s, all [[linguistic]] phenomena may be entirely characterized in [[terms ]] of the [[absence|presence]] or [[absence]] of certain distinctive features.

[[Lacan]] sees the [[game ]] of ''[[fort-da|fort!/da!]]'', which [[Freud]] describes in ''[[Beyond the Pleasure Principle]]'', as a [[primitive ]] phonemic opposition representing the child's entry into the [[symbolic order]]. The two sounds made by the [[development|child]], O/A, are "a pair of sounds modulated on presence and absence, and these sounds are related "to the presence and absence of persons and things."<ref>{{E}} p.65, 109, n.46</ref>

In the "[[fort-da]]" game, the [[child]] throws a cotton reel out of its cot in order to [[symbolic|symbolize]] the [[absence]] and [[presence]] of the [[mother]]. [[Symbolic|Symbolization begins when the [[child]] gets its first [[sense ]] that something could be [[missing]].

[[Lacan]] [[notes ]] that the [[word]] is "a [[absence|presence]] made of [[absence]]" because:

# [[signifiers]] only exist insofar as they are opposed to [[other ]] [[signifiers]].<ref>{{E}} p.65</ref>

<!-- There is [[loss ]] in the word. [[Language]] can operate only by designating an [[object]] in its ''[[absence]]''. [[Lacan]] argues that [[symbolization]] turns on the [[object]] as ''[[absence]]''. -->