Not-Words

Not-Words Priyadarshi Patnaik (bio) In communicating through a verbal or written language, I think, we have always overlooked a vital mechanism that contributes profoundly to the generation of meaning—not-words. 1 What are not-words? They are the stillness when words dissolve and become meaning. They are the space that surrounds words, the time that trembles among them. Where words finally stop, what fluidly stretch on and on are the not-words. I admit that this attempt at a definition is hazy and lacks clear edges. But I feel the concept is so rich, so elusive, that any attempt at greater clarity will only lead to the loss of a part of its meaning. How do words really function? They operate through a process of isolation and combination. Each word stands with a multiplicity of connotations and associations. For instance, the word rose. It might mean the flower, the color, the fragrance, the beauty, the garden, anything. The word is, hence, seething with the possibilities of a thousand meanings. Yet they are dormant. 2 But the moment I say rose colored, a specific association or implication of “rose” combines with a specific association of “colored” to generate a meaning. This again is modified if we say rose-colored building. A new meaning is generated. Then there are so many other factors beyond words that decide meaning—context, the total consciousness, the specific content of the brain that seethes at the moment, and so on. So what is the nature of meaning? Meaning is not an isolation, like word units, but a continuation through associations. It is fluid. And where does such a meaning generate itself? Not in words! For a word in isolation is pregnant but impotent. The meaning generates itself in the space between words, sentences, paragraphs, context, environment, consciousness, and so on. It is as if the words hold the edge of meaning that stretches and flows among all these factors. It is in this region of not-words that meaning bubbles and bursts and explodes and again seethes down. Though the structural movement of language is sequential, A—B—C—and so on, the generation of meaning is a much more composite process. It is as if words pour their potential content into a space one after the other and dissolve away, or stand at a distance, whereas the [End Page 455] various potential meaning contents combine variously with one another to make a meaning which moves fluidly among these words like water among boats. The space and time where they move are the not-words. Let us come back to words in isolation. Why this emphasis on the isolated units? Because units presuppose space among them where there are not-words. So in a written text words occupy space. Not-words occupy the space between words, between lines, before and after punctuation. This diagrammatic representation is only to illustrate a point. Now, if this space is removed, words stick together like a mass and become rigid, losing their capacity to slide back and forth among meanings. Hence, meaning can only be generated in the space. Connotations, indications, and suggestions must quiver back and forth, flow, and make meaning possible. In the process of communication—reading, conversation or listening—there is first the act of recognizing a unit of meaning in isolation, that is, recognizing the word. That moment is the moment of the word, a static, rigid moment when the word is held stiffly and then is dropped. The space between dropping one unit and picking up another is that of the not-word. But it is more—it is also the space and shimmer around the rigidly held word when it is being recognized. Returning to the boats and water analogy, it is the water that is here, there, everywhere, without form, shape or direction. It is neither complete nor incomplete, and it is here that meaning must explode. Coming to the psychological or mental side of the issue, when meaning is communicated, it is communicated through words but not in words. At a linear level not-words isolate words and other units from one another. But at a higher level, they seep

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