bundle of relations

is, in structuralism, much like with a musical score, consisting of both treble and bass clefs, a harmony not of individual relations, but of sets of relations.

Saussure was interested in studying the relations between signs (or signifiers) in the structure of language, whereas Levi-Strauss concentrates on sets of relations, rather than individual relations-- or what he calls 'bundles of relations.' His example for this is a musical score, consisting of both treble and bass clefs. You can read the music diachronically, left to right, page by page, and you can read it synchronically, looking at the notes in the treble clef and their relation to the bass clef. The connection between the treble and bass clef notes-- the 'harmony' produced-- is what Levi-Strauss calls bundle of relations.' opposition between culture and nature, as the gross constituent units that are situated at a higher level than phonemes morphemes, and semanthemes. Each of these units is a relationship that is not an isolated relation but a bundle of relations, and 'it is only as bundles that these relations can be put to use and combined so as to produce a meanign'

bundle of relations, n.All

bundle of relations