[This old post has been made relevant again by Martin's nonsensical claim being confidently reasserted by Yaegan Doran at today's seminar at the University of Sydney.]
Jim Martin claims that in a semiotic system where content conflates with paradigm and expression conflates with syntagm, there is only one stratum. Note, incidentally, that by this logic, it could be alternatively argued that there is only one axis, and therefore no system–structure cycle.
This is a bit like saying because all my squares are ('conflate with') blue and all my triangles are ('conflate with') red, there is only one shape (or only one colour).
If content conflates with paradigm and expression conflates with syntagm, then:
content/paradigm is realised by expression/syntagm.
This conflates
content is realised by expression
with
paradigm is realised by syntagm.
There are still 2 strata and 2 axes in this conflation.
By definition, a semiotic system has at least two levels of symbolic abstraction.
By definition, a symbol is something that means something other than itself.
