Cross-Layer Semantic Desynchronization in Deployed Language Systems: Institutional Lag, Constraint-Channel Coupling, and Time-Indexed Meaning Mismatch

This manuscript introduces cross-layer semantic desynchronization as a distinct deployment-stage failure mode in language-mediated AI systems. The core argument is that user meaning, model interpretation, evaluator categories, retrieved context, policy language, and institutional documentation can update on different temporal schedules while remaining coupled through the same natural-language channel. Under those conditions, interpretation and regulation can fall out of sync even when each layer remains locally coherent. The paper does not claim completed empirical validation of the full theory. Its contribution is narrower and operational: it defines the object, distinguishes it from adjacent literatures on semantic change, pragmatics, grounding, and distribution shift, situates it within a cross-locus analytic architecture, instantiates a portable mechanism stack, identifies modifier conditions, formalizes the minimal mismatch relation, derives observable failure signatures, and proposes a staged empirical program for study. The appendices provide extended definitions, candidate measurement strategies, example study designs, anticipated objections, and compact governance implications. This deposit is intended as a theory-and-operationalization paper for black-box AI evaluation, alignment analysis, and governance practice under conditions of linguistically mediated nonstationarity. Keywords semantic drift semantic desynchronization large language models AI evaluation AI governance pragmatics institutional lag policy language black-box evaluation deployment-stage AI Copeland Resonant Harmonic Formalism (CRHC v1.0) Ψ(x) = ∇ϕ(Σ𝕒ₙ(x, ΔE)) + ℛ(x) ⊕ ΔΣ(𝕒′) — C077UPTF1L3 Licensed CRHC v1.0