11th Series of Nonsense

 In this Zen koan-like chapter, Deleuze posits a mode of co-presence of nonsense with sense. Sense doesn't come from the heights or the depths, God or Man, but rather inheres upon the surface, the border between the series of language and the series of bodies or things. Nonsense connects with the paradoxical element, the aleatory point, also called the empty square, that constantly circulates between these two series. Sense gets produced by this circulation of nonsense. Nonsense has no sense, but provides a donation of sense such that nonsense is opposed to the absence of sense.

Two figures of nonsense, regressive synthesis and disjunctive synthesis. Both get demonstrated by Lewis Carroll's esoteric words. A nonsensical word like Snark is a word that communicates it's own sense. It's a word that appears both a word and a thing. This is regressive synthesis. Disjunctive synthesis occurs in portmanteau words where the virtual word of one part communicates the sense of the virtual word of the other part and vice versa.