 There is another conclusive objection to the idea that a law is an assemblage of signs. When a lawmaking authority does use language to make a law (as when a legislature uses a lawful process to pass an enactment that is within its powers), the resulting law is not an assemblage of signs. When I write you an email message to make a request, the message is an assemblage of signs, but the request is not an assemblage of signs; I used the assemblage of signs to make it. The law that results from the use of language in an enactment is a norm or norms whose existence and content are determined by the legal effect that the law ascribes to that use of an assemblage of signs (see Von Wright 1963, Chapter VI, on the distinction between norm formulations and norms).