In Case You Care
A Case Study At the Limit of Liminality
In case you are unaware of the full semantic range present in any linguistic presentation (because you have fallen prey to the assumption that distinguishing among semantic possibilities of a given word precludes the presence of other possibilities in any given case--take the last word either to be a synonym for "instance" or a grammatical term to denote the nominative, for instance...) allow me to make my case:
A lawyer has three "cases." Try to surmount whatever mental image you just conjured up(was it 1) a [wo]man with three briefcases, 2) three cases of beer, or 3) a list of three legal cases [s]he is currently handling?). The first case is the one she has all the important documents in it, which she brings with her to court. It means "case" in the sense of a container used to transport and/or organize certain important contents. She takes out its contents and uses them to aid her in her second case--the one she is pleading on behalf of (or in accusation of) the defendant. This means "case" in the sense of a subjective argument that is presented in order to be persuasive. The context in which she pleads this second case is the third case. This is "case" in the sense of a court case, as in Roe v. Wade, or Brown v. Board of Education.
Is the meaning of "case" essentially different in each of these cases? Or is there a sense in which each case is a case of something (a case) being opened up in order for its ordered contents to proceed to be exhibited? In this sense there is only a literal case in the first case, and the other cases are meant somewhat metaphorically with respect to the first. Yet the metaphorical nature of that usage does not prevent its being understood quite literally. No one would really come away from reading my last paragraph with a profound sense of having encountered any metaphors, but does this mean that they have not?
Language is this case that is opened up to exhibition, but nevertheless orders, contains, and thereby limits its contents. And as merely a case it is always present in every presentation, and always being opened up to house new contents. There is no limit to what contents this case might hold, only a limit to how much it can hold at any given moment (or in any given case). And it also contains cases--of all the types discussed above, including the cases that contain its grammer--nominative, genitive, etc.--so it is an endless chain of cases containing and being contained within other cases; the process of which cannot be observed or described outside of case-studies that are nevertheless always, as cases, open to be studied themselves.
In any case, my hope is that you get my semantic drift, drifting off in the pneuma (wind and spirit; wind as spirit) of hermeneutical possibilities to form the slopes of your own interpretation and the performative presentation thereof, which may in [re]turn cause me, myself, to be "blown away."
