How does objet petit a differ from the primordial Thing?

Perhaps the best way to distinguish them is via a reference to the philosophical distinction between ontological and ontic levels. The status of the ting is purely ontic, it stands for an irreducible excess of the ontic that eludes Lichtung, the ontological clearance within which entities appear: the Thing is a paradox of an ontic X in so far as it is not yet an 'inner-worldly' entity, appearing within the transcendental-ontological horizon. In contrast, the status of a is purely ontological--that is to say, a as the fantasy-object is an object that is an empty form, a frame that determines the status of positive entities. (this is how we are to interpret Lacan's statement according to which fantasy is the ultimate support of our 'sense of reality'.) Therein resides the enigma of the relationship between the Thing and a: how can the surplus of the ontic over ontological horizon convert into the surplus of the ontological; how can the plenitude of the Real convert into a pure lack, into an object that coincides with its own absence and, as such, keeps open the clearing within which ontic entities can emerge?

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¶ 11:38 AM