This article first outlines the principle of a cognitive semiotics,and in this framework presents a sign classification taking into consideration the crucial importance of time.It then offers a stratified interpretation of the Lotmanian concept of semiosphere,and continues with a study of the contradiction holding between cultural and socio-functional meanings.This leads to an analysis of ethnic passions and ethnic identity,and finally to a new analysis of homo metonymicus,and the two underlying cognitive structures based on the genitive and the dative schemas,that orient the human imaginary,for better or for worse.