Abstract
We apply the discrete multiscale expansion to the Lax pair and to the first few symmetries of the lattice potential Korteweg-de Vries equation. From these calculations we show that, like the lowest order secularity conditions give a nonlinear Schrödinger equation, the Lax pair gives at the same order the Zakharov and Shabat spectral problem and the symmetries the hierarchy of point and generalized symmetries of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation.