Stanley Cavell once remarked that the grammar of a word is its placement within the schematism of our concepts. And somewhat typical of his writing no explanation followed. I have been wondering how to make sense of this. Why a schematism? One interpretation I've considered is this:
Because the grammar of a word serves as foundation for our projection of a word into new contexts – just the Kantian schema projects the pure concepts of understanding unto intuition.
And we don't just project a word into, as it were, “numerically” new contexts, e.g. our ability to identify dogs as "dogs" in a strictly indefinite multitude of contexts, which are however similar in some respect, e.g. the presence of a dog.
We also project words into, as it were, more radically new contexts, e.g. we don't just talk about feeding the dog or feeding the baby (these are the contexts in which I learned the concept of “feeding”), we also talk about feeding Africa or of feeding the parking meter (with coins). And we project the concept into these new contexts with the greatest ease. The grammar of a word is the foundation of this ease. That is, the foundation of our spontaneity with regard to concepts.
Any other suggestions for an interpretation?
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