Grammar
[v0.2]Polyphonic communication is the governed composition of performed relations.
The visual system governs how a thing looks. This governs what it does — to a reader, with what consequence, and under whose authority. Colour, serif, italic and orientation are affordances here, not semantic laws.
[v5] Meaning may remain open. Institutional consequence may not.
The performed relation
The fundamental unit is not the mark. It is what form does to an exact utterance, when the reader meets it, how it positions them, and with what consequence.
Register
Who is speaking?
Human, machine, formal, institutional, affective or spatial voice.
Operator
What is being done?
Tagging, routing, fragmenting, suspending, scaling, marginalising or revealing.
Score
When does it arrive?
Entry, reversal, reconstruction, delay, terminal recoding and aftermath.
Interface
What follows?
Action, default, refusal, consequence, record, appeal and remedy.
Licence follows consequence
The same composition cannot be equally ambiguous when opening a question, proving a claim and obtaining consent. A work may move between licences, but the transition must be legible. An element serving two licences inherits the stricter one.
01
Encounterprovocation
Create attention, tension and second reading
Controlled fracture, productive ambiguity, counterpoint, direct address and delayed recognition — when they deepen the question.
Permitted ambiguity
Generative and bounded
Required landing
Recoverable proposition; no hidden operative action
[obligation] Bounded readings + accessible recovery + no ambiguous operative consequence.
02
Explanationproof
Define, evidence, relate and test
Use the topology the question requires: a Concept Field for what a proposition contains; an Evidence Mantle for what bears on exact spans; a Reasoning Lineage for what follows from what.
Permitted ambiguity
Declared uncertainty only
Required landing
Traceable logic and ordinary-language gloss
[obligation] Keep semantic attachment, evidence, inference, mechanism and authority in separate relation jurisdictions.
03
Decisioninterface
Authorise, refuse, revise or commit
Authority, scope, default, refusal, reversibility, expiry, record, appeal and remedy must be legible before action.
Permitted ambiguity
None around consequence or rights
Required landing
Clear action, authority, refusal, expiry and remedy
[obligation] Equal clarity for acceptance, refusal and revision. No poetic ambiguity at the point of commitment.
Authoring sequence
Five steps, in order. Release tests consequence — not polish alone.
01
Licence
Declare the consequence class.
Encounter, Explanation or Decision. A mixed element inherits the strictest licence it serves.
02
Nucleus
State what must remain recoverable.
Name the canonical proposition, source utterance, evidence object or decision request.
03
Topology
Choose the form the question requires.
Attention score, Concept Field, Evidence Mantle, Reasoning Lineage or Decision surface.
04
Jurisdictions
Declare what each transformation and relation does.
Register, operator, operand, line grammar, colour role, reader path and prohibited reading.
05
Release
Test consequence — not polish alone.
Recoverability, semantic surplus, power, consent, evidence, responsiveness and accessibility must pass.
Six principles
01 / RELATION
Meaning is relational
A mark has affordances, not a universal meaning. Operator + operand + context generates the reading.
02 / ENACTMENT
Form may perform
Typography can model or enact capture, uncertainty, exclusion, recursion, authority or resistance.
03 / COUNTERPOINT
Voices may collide
Polyphony includes contamination, interruption and struggle — not only clean division of labour.
04 / CHOREOGRAPHY
The reader moves in time
Attraction, reversal, reconstruction and delayed revelation are authored parts of the argument.
05 / RECOVERY
Access without reduction
Essential meaning needs an accessible equivalent. The expressive surface may still carry defensible surplus.
06 / CONSEQUENCE
Power enters the grammar
Who addresses, represents, records, decides, refuses and remedies is constitutive — not a final checklist.