Language and Discourse 9783110816525, 9789027918543

Citation preview

JANUA

LINGUARUM

STUDIA MEMORIAE N I C O L A I VAN W I J K D E D I C A T A edenda curat C. H. V A N S C H O O N E V E L D Indiana University

Series

Minor,

119

LANGUAGE AND DISCOURSE

by

HERMAN

PARRET

Research Fellow of Belgian National Foundation of Scientific Research

1971

MOUTON THE H A G U E • P A R I S

© Copyright 1971 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers. This work was supported by a grant of the 'Universitaire Stichting' of Belgium.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 73-170002

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.

TABLE O F CONTENTS

Introduction

9

I. AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

1. Language and Sign 1.1. Linguistics, science of the linguistic sign 1.1.1. Saussure's definition of the linguistic sign . . 1.1.1.1. The extrinsic specification of the sign: system and sign 1.1.1.2. The intrinsic specification of the sign : the sign dichotomy 1.1.1.3. Reciprocity and systematicness . . 1.1.1.4. Language as sign 1.1.2. Hjelmslev's specification of Saussure's definition of the sign 1.1.2.1. Stratification of language 1.1.2.2. The glossematic definition of the sign 1.1.2.3. The parallelism of the levels of relata and the commutation test . . . . 1.1.3. The asymmetry of the linguistic sign or the problematization of the structural definition of the sign 1.1.3.1. The new foundation of commutation 1.1.3.2. The parallelism of participation and asymmetry of the levels of relata . .

15 17 21 22 25 31 40 47 48 52 57

64 64 67

6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.2. Elements for a structural definition of language . 1.2.1. Arbitrariness and motivation 1.2.2. Communicability as the basic category of the structural definition of language 1.2.3. Sign and linguistic sign, semiology and linguistics: 'form perfectness' as distinctive criterion 2. Language and Form 2.1. Systematicness and structurality 2.1.1. Language as system 2.1.1.1. From process to system 2.1.1.2. Saussure's notion of system . . . . 2.1.1.3. The linguistic procedure: deduction and 'empiricism' 2.1.2. Language as structure 2.2. Functionality 2.3. Linguistic form 2.3.1. The function of form and substance . . . . 2.3.1.1. The tripartite glossematic form theorem: form, substance and purport 2.3.1.1.1. From substance to form . 2.3.1.1.2. From substance to purport 2.3.1.2. The binary Saussurean form theorem: shapelessness and shaping 2.3.2. Language as form and as shaping . . . . 3. Language and Meaning 3.1. Sign, form and meaning 3.1.1. Symmetric and asymmetric participation of meaning in the sign 3.1.1.1. Symmetry of sign and dualism of signified and content substance . .

75 75 83

95 Ill Ill Ill 112 121 129 138 146 158 159

161 163 167 172 179 184 184 185 185

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3.1.1.2. Asymmetry of sign and openness of semantic structure 3.1.2. Value and meaning 3.2. Situational, contextual, systematic and semiotic meaning 4.

Conclusion 1 and 2 and 3 II.

7

192 200 212 222

LINGUISTICS AND TRANSLINGUISTICS

5. Language and Discourse 5.1. Linguistic and translinguistic units: syntagm, sentence, discourse 5.1.1. The units of the syntagmatic-discursive axis of language 5.1.2. The syntagmatic-discursive units and the meaning 5.2. Discursivity before linguistic axiomatics 5.2.1. The dichotomic axiomatic approach: discourse is speech 5.2.2. The reductive axiomatic approach : discourse is the manifestation of language 5.3. Discursivity and translinguistics 5.3.1. Discursive contextuality 5.3.2. Discursive phenomenality

227 228 230 240 244 245 261 270 272 276

Bibliography

280

Index of authors

290

INTRODUCTION

This study a i m s at elucidating h o w discursivity has t o be situated b e f o r e the a x i o m a t i c s of structural linguistics. Linguistic

analysis

as well as p h e n o m e n o l o g y of l a n g u a g e — f r o m Husserl to MerleauP o n t y — are e a c h in their o w n w a y c o n f r o n t e d with the discursive d i m e n s i o n of h u m a n speech. Structural linguistics o n the contrary m a k e s w a y f o r this c o n f r o n t a t i o n , b e c a u s e it c a n only d e v e l o p its operationality o n g r o u n d of the distinction b e t w e e n the a n d object

matter

of linguistics, already m a d e by F e r d i n a n d de Saussure

in the Cours de linguistique

générale.

W h e r e a s the entire linguistic

p h e n o m e n a l i t y , i.e. the w h o l e of all m a n i f e s t e d features of h u m a n speech, constitutes the matter of linguistic investigation,

language

as n o r m of the linguistic p h e n o m e n a l i t y is the object of linguistics. 1 1

F. de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale (further on indicated as Cours, with pagination of the Payot-edition 1968; English translation of W. Baskin, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1959). "Bien loin que l'objet précède le point de vue, on dirait que c'est )e point de vue qui crée l'objet, et d'ailleurs rien ne nous dit d'avance que l'une de ces manières de considérer le fait en question soit antérieur ou supérieur aux autres" {Cours, p. 23) ; when the choice of the point of view is made, language, as to Saussure, becomes "un tout en soi et un principe de classification" (p. 25). The term object is known to reappear in the last sentence of the Cours, probably added by the editors Bally and Sechehaye: "... l'idée fondamentale de ce cours: la linguistique a pour unique et véritable objet la langue envisagée en elle-même et pour elle-même" (p. 317). L. Hjelmslev in his doctrine about the immanence of linguistics links up with this use of the term object (cf. "La stratification du langage", in Essais linguistiques, 1959, p. 37). His conception of linguistics is clearly thematized in Roman Jakobson 's adage: Linguista sum: linguist ici nihil a me alienum puto, which hypostasizes the distinction between matter and object, framed by Saussure.

10

INTRODUCTION

Structural linguistics is only possible through this initial reduction of matter to object, of linguistic phenomenality to language. Hence we are philosophically concerned with the relation between language and discourse: for we want to examine how this opposition, brought about within the Saussurean tradition, can be questioned through some axiomatic statements of structural linguistics themselves. However, the reductive character of the structural conception of language is not unambiguously admitted, and has mainly to be read out of the mostly fragmentary notes of the Sources manuscrites2 of the Cours. The hesitations and contradictions, discovered by the reader in the Sources, testify of a linguistic conception richer and more versatile than the one met in the postSaussurean writings of structural linguistics. Hence, our study will probably appear as going back to the philosophical insights of Saussure, throughout the varied interpretations framed by European linguists ever since. The structural conception of language provided it is drafted with penetration and sense for nuances, does not appear to be discontinuous with some fundamental principles dominating classical philosophy of language. It is neither strange to the basic statements, leading the Chomskyan and 'post-structural' linguistics. The discursivity of linguistic phenomenality expelled from the object of linguistics, continues as 'translinguistic' dimension to obsess structural axiomatics. On the contrary, the problem of discursivity is known to be present openly and directly in the most recent development of linguistic analysis as questioning the linguistic enouncement; it is moreover present in the discussion about linguistic generation and creativity, in the generative-transformational theory. However, we do not work out these perspectives, since we want to keep to the axiomatic literature of the structural linguists Already the heading of the second Chapter of the Cours denotes that matter is at the same time aim (Matière et Tâche de la Linguistique). The transition from matter to object has undoubtedly been considered by Saussure as necessity and not as finality. 2 R. Godel, Les sources manuscrites du Cours de linguistique générale, ParisGenève, 1957 (further on indicated as R. Godel, SM).

INTRODUCTION

11

themselves. By 'structural linguistics' is meant the European school only, which notwithstanding its tensions and oppositions, refers in globo to Saussure's intuitions; most importance is attached to glossematics and phonology (of the Prague school as well as of Martinet and his disciples). Precisely because structural axiomatics formulates claims, overlooked by American structuralism (by distributionalism as well as by the Bloomfield tradition), we do not discuss this tendency. The problem of the relation between language and discourse, between linguistics and translinguistics, has necessarily to be introduced throughout the exhaustive outline of the axiomatic presuppositions, inspiring Saussure's philosophical view on language and its interpretations. These presuppositions can be described within three theorematic spheres, containing all definition elements of structural linguistics, namely language as sign, language as form and language as meaning. The arrangement of these theoremata is arbitrary since they imply each other and are circular within structural axiomatics. No abstraction can be made of one of these theorematic spheres without mutilating the structural linguistic conception itself: for language is defined as a system of signs of a special order, in which meaning is reached. Moreover, sign, form (system) and meaning will appear to be these intralinguistic theoremata, to which we have to tie directly, so as to draw the relation between language and discourse. Thus the plane of our study has been delineated: the basic question about the position of discursivity with respect to language, arises from the axiomatic statements concerning linguistic sign, form and meaning as definition components of the structural conception of language. Some remarks can be added about the explanatory level of this investigation. It belongs to the theory of human sciences, in casu of linguistics, and it testifies of its concern with the epistemological tensions, marking linguistics as science: the lines of force are elucidated, the apparatus of concepts is ordered and the axiomatic infrastructure is framed. However, our essay neither provides the results of a description, nor the insights leading towards an adequate linguistic strategy. Besides the continental ontology and

12

INTRODUCTION

phenomenology of language and the linguistic analysis, a third possibility of contemporary philosophy of language is broached, namely the theory of linguistics. Language is only indirectly object of this philosophy of language; for philosophical reflection on language is mediatized through the treatment of language by linguistics. A suchlike approach of language offers a twofold advantage: it is not only propaedeutic for the orientation of an accountable ontology and phenomenology of language, but it is also 'philosophy of linguistics' (or metalinguistics). As 'philosophy of linguistics' it pays attention to the structure itself of the linguistic theory of language-, hence its extremely abstract and epistemological appearance. Language is thought categorical through linguistics since the internal coherency of linguistic axiomatics 3 and the value of the categories used in it, are examined. However this categorical investigation can hardly give undivided satisfaction to both philosophers and linguists. It only offers philosophers the epistemological framework, within which a justified reflection on language can be effectuated with diminished risks. It provides linguists only with a non-operative and metalinguistic standpoint, problematizing internally the ambitions of descriptive linguistics. This study has to prove its value on this uncomfortable level.

3

It has to be noticed that the term 'axiomatics', 'theorem' and 'topic' are in the course of this essay not used in a technic-logical meaning, but they only have a 'practical' bearing. Hence 'axiomatics of structural linguistics' is the whole of implicit and presupposed definition components, operative in structural linguistics; 'theorem' is a clearly delimited problem area within these axiomatics; 'topic' is a categorial term, having explanatory capacity within the theorem.

I AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

1 LANGUAGE AND SIGN

It is well-known that, in the hierarchy of the sciences, linguistics, according to Saussure, is subordinate to semiology or the general science of signs, which in its turn is a subpart of 'social psychology'.1 This theorem from the Cours does not imply, however, that language should become the immediate object of psychology, since the latter merely examines the process of linguistic signifying in the individual, without focusing on one of the essential characteristics of language, viz. its conventionality and normativity. On the other hand linguistics cannot be considered as a purely social science, because an overemphasis of its conventional-institutional aspect does not necessarily take into account the specific systematicness of semiological systems in general and of language in particular. These summary indications, which seem apodictic because of their vagueness and superficialness, offer nonetheless the strategic frame within which to develop the problem area related to language and sign. In spite of] the aforementioned hierarchization, language cannot be considered an epiphenomenon of socio-psychological reality; nor can a logico-psychological definition of the sign be applied to factual data displaying an own autonomy: though 'psychology' hierarchically comes first, linguistics nonetheless 1

F. de Saussure, Cours, p. 33-4. The fact that social psychology is considered as a branch of general psychology raises a second problem in connection with the status of linguistics. This hypostasis of psychology in Saussure's work is freed from its intuitive character in the most recent stand by Noam Chomsky: the latter radically questions the autonomy of linguistics with respect to the area of logico-psychology.

16

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

possesses a principled and methodological autonomy as the study of speech reduced to language. Linguistics acquires this autonomy on account of the specific semiological viewpoint within the broad area of socio-psychological sciences on the one hand and on account of the specific linguistic viewpoint within general semiology on the other hand. Saussure's semiological fascination makes him define language as a system of signs with its own linguistic characteristics; an axiomatics of structural linguistics, consequently, should deal with this semiological dream, which has appeared in any scientific thought about language, since Saussure, as an immoderate attempt and ambition.2 Our first theorem, accordingly, will deal with the sign and the linguistic sign as they are explained in the chief axiomatic writings of linguistic structuralism, especially in those of Saussure and Hjelmslev (1.1. "Linguistics, science of the linguistic sign"). Next we shall examine which are the basic elements of a definition of language stemming from the semiological position of structural linguistics, and which reductions are carried through with regard to the entire linguistic phenomenon (1.2. "Elements for a structural definition of language").3 2

"Car le signe échappe toujours en une certaine mesure à la volonté individuelle et sociale, c'est là son caractère essentiel... Ainsi ce caractère n'apparaît bien que dans la langue... Pour nous (...) le problème linguistique est avant tout sémiologique et tous nos développements empruntent leurs significations à ce fait important" (Cours, p. 34-5). Linguistics here should not be considered as a field of application of semiology. But if it wants to safeguard its scientific character — and that is only possible by considering its object as a system — it should incorporate as the basic datum of its axiomatics the following identity: linguistic system = system of the linguistic signs. 3 Obviously our attempt permits us to make abstraction of all non-linguistic theories of the sign; those are chiefly of a twofold nature and are precisely to be situated on Saussure's all-inclusive level of psychology and logic. On the one hand there are the psychological theories of the sign (among which chiefly C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, London, 1923 and Ch. Morris, Signs, Language and Behaviour, New York, 1946) and on the other hand the sign theory of logical positivism (or the study of the sign character of the 'ideal languages' : R. Carnap, Logische Syntax der Sprache, Wien, 1934 and Introduction to Semantics, Cambridge, 1942). In its relation to linguistics, this logico-psychological area corresponds to what Saussure naively called 'general psychology' (Cours, p. 33). We have already mentioned, however, that

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

17

1.1. LINGUISTICS, SCIENCE OF THE LINGUISTIC SIGN Without going into the characterization of the floating and rich notional field within which the concept of sign is related to that of signal, symbol, allegory, symptom and other categories, we may draft an extremely formal definition of sign: sign is the relation between two relata. This relation can be given some substance, so as to delimit the concept of sign from opposite terms. One may notice meanwhile that, whenever a typology of the relations between the relata can be constructed, the terms themselves continually change places within the entire notional field. A s a result terminological confusion is rather great but appears to be of little importance. It is more rewarding, by examining viewpoints and authors comparatively, to find out which stable type of relation is realized by the employed terminology. Without aiming at logical exhaustiveness, one may outline the following paradigm of relation types: 1. the relation implies the analogy of the relata or not; 2. the relation is causal or arbitrary; 3. the relata cover each other or one relatum exceeds the other; 4. the relation implies the use of the sign or not; 5. one relatum is the representation of the other

what hierarchically comes first, strategically comes last. If, like psychologists and logicians, one wants to equalize hierarchy and strategy, one is led to reductions that cannot be accepted by the linguist or the language philosopher: for the psychologically turned theories of the sign the linguistic sign system lacks consistency and autonomy, and for logical positivists natural language is reduced to a desincarnated 'ideal' language. This is far from denying that in this way no coherent results can be obtained ; there is even sufficient evidence that those results are not necessarily at variance with the ultimate data of stiuctural linguistics: psychologists, like Karl Biihler (Sprachtheorie, 1934), gifted with a genuine linguistic intuition, can hardly be left out the discussion. One should not forget that linguistic strategy is based on an axiomatics, making any passage from language to other areas of reality impossible: "Mais, pour le poser convenablement, il faudrait étudier la langue en elle-même: or, jusqu'ici, on l'a presque toujours abordée en fonction d'autre chose, à d'autres points de vue" {Cours, p. 34). That the comparatism is of little use in this respect is shown by H. Spang-Hanssen's essay, Recent theories on the Nature of the Language Signs, TCLC 9, Kobenhavn, 1954, in which Carnap, Ogden and Richards, Russell, Morris, Saussure, Weisgerber, Biihler, Buyssens, Bloomfield and Hjelmslev form a rather heterogeneous and eclectic company.

18

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

or not. 4 The point is to determine within the opposing pairs just outlined, which poles are postulated by structural linguistics to define the linguistic sign. It cannot be denied that pre-Saussurean linguistics too can be considered as a science of the linguistic sign.5 Language here was held to be sign, representation, manifestation, revelation or expression of thought: thanks to and through language the order of thought can reveal itself. Linguistic system and logical order here are relata of the same extent: it is common knowledge that, for the Port-Royal grammarians, the linear order of words in a sentence reflects the natural order of ideas in the mind. Here, however, there is no reciprocity of the relata but radical primacy of the object of representation; nor is there any arbitrariness, but rather rational motivation at manipulating the term of expression. The transition from the linguistic axioms of the Cartesians to the philosophical intuitions of the Humboldtians is characterized by an important shifting within the complex of relations, giving substance to the formal definition of sign: yet the reciprocity of the relata is still not guaranteed, but the arbitrariness of the representing term already recognized. That means that Humboldt — and with him the entire idealistic philosophy of language — does not depart indeed from the traditional Cartesian conception that language is the mirror of thought (by which we then regard the 'representing language' and thought or the activity of the mind as the relata of the sign) but it also means that he accepts that the representing term, in this case language, possesses a systematic and autonomous regularity which is not motivated by a parallel order that would be the object of transparent representation: the mind does not express itself here in a universal linguistic mirror 4

This typology of the relations between the relata was suggested to us by R. Barthes, Elements de sémiologie, Communications 4, 1964, p. 103. It could be completed by the following opposition, described by Charles Bally, in "Qu'est-ce qu'un signe?" in: JPS, 36 (1939), p. 161-174: the relation between the relata is the result of an intention (acte) or is an 'event — process — phenomenon', by which opposition he distinguishes sign from 'indication'. 5 A subtle outline of the basis intuitions of that linguistics can be found in O. Ducrot, "Le structuralisme en linguistique", in: Qu'est-ce que le structuralisme?, Paris, 1968, especially p. 16-34.

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

19

construction but in a specific linguistic arrangement. In Humboldt's conception, language maintains its function to represent, but it acquires at the same time the autonomy of an own organization and hence the characteristic of arbitrariness. The sign in the Humboldtian philosophy of language, accordingly, should be defined in a way different from the 17th century rationalists: in Humboldt the relation of relata is characterized by absence of analogy, by arbitrariness, by a greater extent of the underlying relatum (the mind) with respect ot the relatum of expression (the linguistic organization), by the lack of the 'third term' (the relation does not imply the use of the sign) and by the representing character of the relatum of expression. This transition from Port-Royal grammatical universalism to the autonomous specificness of language in German idealism also means a step in the direction of the modern era in linguistics. What many have called the Saussurean revolution, in connection with the linguistic sign, could better be labeled a new evolution in the relation pattern of both sign relata. The importance of the new sign characteristic can hardly be overrated since it forms the cornerstone of the axiomatics and is supposed to justify farreaching ambitions and claims of modern linguistics. Whereas the basic contribution of Humboldtian idealism was the arbitrariness of the relation between the relata, structural linguistics also claims the radical reciprocity of the relata of the linguistic sign. None of the relation poles is primary or apt to serve as a source or basis for the other; nor can either of the terms be considered as the essential substance, which is inserted in the transparency of the other term. Whereas Humboldt had assigned linguistic arrangement its own autonomy — though still, as a whole, it was regarded as the term in which the mind manifested itself — in structuralism the primacy of the underlying relatum is given up. The linguistic sign is no longer sign of: the external relation of the pre-Saussurian sign is becoming an immanent relation of 'aspects' or 'psychic' — which, in Saussure's terminology, means abstract — entities. This will prove to be a decisive step which, from Saussure to Chomsky, will determine all subsequent subtheorems of the axiomatics.

20

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

M o r e o v e r language can finally be defined as a close universe, which is the necessary consequence of the reciprocity within the linguistic sign. 6 T h e basic position of structural linguistics, accordingly, is b e c o m ing clear f r o m the definition of the sign: just as o n e term can n o longer be defined by means of the other, but only by means of the system,

in the same w a y o n e relatum can only be defined from

the

value of the sign. T h e origin of the relatum is n o longer a hierarchically

primary

and

substantial

imoKeinevov,

represented

and

revealed by that relatum, but the sign itself or the relation preceding the 'aspects': "c'est d u tout qu'il faut partir p o u r obtenir par analyse les éléments qu'il

renferme". 7 T h a t this swing-over as

t o the characterization of the sign has n o t always been a n apodictic acquisition, n o t even f o r Saussure, can be gathered f r o m his hesitating attitude a n d his telling slips of the pen w h e n h e resorts t o the n o t i o n of sign. 8 Our critical purpose necessitates, after presen6 It is not clear at first sight how this reciprocity, characteristic of the new theory of the sign, leads to a linguistic theory, in which the linguistic phenomenon can only be defined as a system of communication. This then will be the object of the second paragraph of this chapter (1.2.). 7 Cours, p. 157. 8 Saussure admits that "ce fait (est) en quelque sorte mystérieux" (Cours, p. 156). In R. Godel, SM, p. 190 ff., one can read that this hesitation has led to terminological confusion. Certain formulae among which some can even be found in the 3rd edition of the Cours, remind of the 'pre-Saussurean' definition of the sign: "relation d'une idée et d'un signe", "association du signe et de l'idée", "lien entre signe et idée", in which sign has not yet been defined as an internal relation but as a relatum characterized by an external relation with another independent relatum. When Saussure is searching for a term denoting the abstract 'aspects' of the sign, he hesitates between "signe vocal et idée" (or "sens"), "image verbal et concept verbal" "image acoustique et concept", "signifiant et signifié", which render the internal character of the sign relation in the clearest way. He remains aware, however, that: "n'importe quel terme on choisira: signe, terme, mot etc., il glissera à côté et sera en danger de ne désigner qu'une partie" (D 211, quoted by R. Godel, SM, p. 192). Obviously, this deviating tendency points to a pre-Saussurean phase in Saussure's writings. Accordingly, R.S. Wells' statement in his important article "De Saussure's System of Linguistics", in Word, 3 (1947), p. 7-8 : "But a definition that conforms better to de Saussure's regular usage in practice is that a sign is neither a relation nor a combination of signifiant and of signifié, but the signifiant itself qua signifiant", is based rather on texts reminding of the pre-structural past of the diacronic linguist Saussure than on the last Cours.

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

21

tation, a subtle shading of the characteristic of reciprocity of the sign relata. We propose the following line of discussion. 1.1.1. When presenting Saussure's definition of the linguistic sign and related subproblems, we shall pay attention to the tension between the reciprocity and the systematicness of the linguistic sign. 1.1.2. We shall describe Hjelmslev's specification of the Saussurean definition of sign and formulate the problem of parallelism of the sign relata in terms of the theory of linguistic stratification. 1.1.3. Because of difliculties, in Hjelmslev's writings, concerning the commutation, the glossematic definition of sign should be reformulated and likewise should the theorem stating the asymmetry of the sign be brought to the front. The outline of the double level of linguistic articulation, as put forward by A. Martinet, seems to us the most adequate transition to the second paragraph of this chapter, in which we shall deal with the structural definition of language. 1.1.1. Saussure's definition of the linguistic sign In the Cours, elements of a definition can be found approaching the linguistic sign extrinsically as well as intrinsically.9 The extrinsic approach defines the sign in a centrifugal way: this tendency of defining could be called the semiological approach of the linguistic sign, because it describes sign as necessarily linked with the systematic character and hence with the semiological aspects of language. The intrinsic approach forwards those elements of a definition that appear from the dichotomic nature of the sign.10 Our analysis 9 Arbitrariness is the 'first principle' of the Saussurean definition of the linguistic sign: the term displays a priviliged capacity of elucidation because it is the cornerstone of both the extrinsic and the intrinsic approach to the linguistic sign (cf. 1.2.1.). 10 In the second Cours the definition of the sign is of a rather semiological nature: it appears there as an external attempt ("une tentative externe", R 30) to relate the sign to general semiology, the object of which are the sign system; Saussure calls this approach the synthetic way of describing language (cf Cows, II, n. 52, 53, 54 and 55 in R. Godel, SM, p. 66-7). In the Bally-Sechehaye edition this synthetic point of view is most clearly realized in Chapter II:

22

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

will proceed as follows: 1.1.1.1. on the extrinsic approach sign is defined by the system and so acquires the property of immutability and mutability; 1.1.1.2. the intrinsic approach performs the dichotomy within the sign; because of the reciprocity of signifier and signified, this dichotomy leads to the immanence of the linguistic sign; 1.1.1.3. the extrinsic and intrinsic approaches can to be reconciled when reciprocity under the heavy impact of systematicness, is regarded as merely formal; 1.1.1.4. in Saussure's writings the co-extensivity of unit, term and sign offers the possibility of characterizing language in its entire systematicness as sign. 1.1.1.1. The extrinsic specification of the sign: system and sign The extrinsic approach to the sign is methodologically prior to the analysis of the intrinsic sign dichotomy. This assertion rests on Saussure's basic principle which has made linguistic structuralism possible: the term presupposes the whole. Only the whole is concrete, the terms are merely 'aspects' or abstractions. Saussure's use of the topics signifier and signified11 clearly reveals that both 'aspects' of the sign must be specified on the basis of the sign itself; each sign, however, can also be considered as a term which can only be defined with respect to the sign system. From the outset linguistic investigation acknowledges configuration and order, and its progression consists in complicating and branching that order by procedures of segmentation and identification. Linguistic analysis cannot mean the determination of entities and their categorial arrangement, since language is not the nomenclature of entities corresponding to the series of things: 12 "... Ce serait "Immutabilité et mutabilité du signe" (p. 104-13, see R. Godei, SM, n. 125-9, p. 85-6). 11 The translation of the Saussurian terminology must gradually be justified. Following terms are taken from M. Pei, Glossary of linguistic Terminology, New York and London, 1966: la langue: language; la parole: speech; le signe: sign; le signifiant: the signifier; le signifié: the signified, la signification: the meaning; la valeur: the value; le discours: discourse. is "Pour certaines personnes la langue, ramenée à son principe essentiel, est une nomenclature, c'est-à-dire une liste des termes correspondant à autant

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

23

croire qu'on peut commencer par les termes et construire le système en en faisant la somme; alors qu'au contraire c'est du tout solidaire qu'il faut partir pour obtenir par analyse les éléments qu'il renferme". 13 The sign is never given in advance as a fixed substance with an invariable nucleus but is always the result of description; only linguistic organization is concrete and linguistic analysis abstracts the sign entity as term within that organization. Although the most radical extrinsic specification of the sign can be found in Hjelmslev's works, one notices nonetheless that, in the Cours, such an extreme importance is attached to the presupposition of the system within the term, that it dominates all other subproblems. It should be stressed that systematicness of language is always present in the sign itself. In this way it becomes clear that arbitrariness, as the main intrinsic characteristic of the sign, necessarily goes back to the extrinsic arbitrariness of the system of language itself. For that reason, besides, one is entitled to look for the foundation of the sign character of language in its conventionality or its absolute arbitrariness as a semiological system. It is precisely on the level of that foundation — which will lead to an axiomatic definition of language as communication14 — that the influence of Whitney's and Durkheim's sociologism on Saussure can be felt most clearly. The extrinsic specification of the sign, besides, resorts to the argument of conventionality to elucidate the double and seemingly paradoxical characteristics of immutability and mutability of the sign.15 de choses" is the first sentence of the chapter on the nature of the linguistic sign in the Cours (p. 97). The way this conception of language as a nomenclature is violently attacked by structuralism, can be found in L. Hjelmslev, Prolegomena, p. 49-53 and in A. Martinet, Eléments de linguistique générale, p. 11: "Cette notion de langue-répertoire se fonde sur l'idée simpliste que le monde tout entier s'ordonne, antérieurement à la vision qu'en ont les hommes, en catégories d'objets parfaitement distinctes, chacune recevant nécessairement une désignation dans chaque langue". 13 Cours, p. 157. 14 Cf. 1.2.2. 15 These extrinsic characteristics of the sign evidently go back to a fact of general semiology: "ce sera un fait de sémiologie générale: continuité dans le temps liée à l'altération dans le temps" (D 222, in R. Godel, SM, p. 202 and p. I l l of the Cours).

24

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Immutability always makes language appear as a 'carte forcée' or as a heritage without origin.16 The 'life' of the sign system — "la vie normale et régulière d'un idiome déjà constitué", object of linguistic investigation — is thus not regulated by a contract among individuals,17 but is preserved in its immutability because of important axiomatic claims like the arbitrariness and systematicness. 18 For our purpose it is important to see that even the characteristic of immutability of the sign ultimately goes back to the systematic quality of language according to the basic adage of Saussure's thought that the term presupposes the whole. The introduction of time as a factor of antinomy, entailing both the immutability (a convention is established in and because of time) and the mutability (in time there is a 'fatal evolution'), 19 posits indeed the problem of diachrony, but by no means endangers arbitrariness and systematicness as the foundation of this double sign characteristic. The Saussurian definition of language as a socio-historical whole does not affect the extrinsic specification of the sign, but presupposes it, since the evolution of language is described as a

16

"Ce fait... pouvait être appelé familièrement 'la carte forcée'" {Cours, p. 104); "c'est pourquoi la question de l'origine du langage n'a pas l'importance qu'on lui attribue généralement" (Cours, p. 105). 17 Nevertheless Saussure writes on p. 33 of the Cours : "La langue est la partie sociale du langage... elle n'existe qu'en vertu d'une sorte de contrat passé entre les membres de la communauté", a statement that had to be shaded on p. 104: individuals have no contractual right of say in the matter of the life of language. 18 The combination of arbitrariness and systematicness, which we postulated throughout the whole of this extrinsic specification of the sign, is seemingly contradicted by one of Saussure's remarks: "Une langue constitue un système. Si, comme nous le verrons, c'est le côté par lequel elle n'est pas complètement arbitraire et où il règne une raison relative ..." (Cours, p. 107). This is a typical instance of Saussure's confused terminology in which the words have a varying meaning. The interpretation of this dangerous statement is obviously, that the system as a whole, just like the sign, is arbitrary, but that the elements (the signs), as terms of relations within the system, are subject to the priority of the whole (or the system). 19 "... que la langue s'altère, ou plutôt évolue, sous l'influence de tous les agents qui peuvent atteindre soit les sons soit les sens. Cette évolution est fatale: il n'y a pas d'exemple qui résiste" (Cours, p. 111).

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"déplacement du rapport entre le signifié et le signifiant".20 Change, accordingly, is always a shifting of terms within the system and not an extension or a narrowing of a nomenclature. In this way one may understand why the paradox of mutability and immutability of the sign is only a paradox in appearance : both indeed express the same extrinsic relation of the sign with the system of language. 1.1.1.2.

The intrinsic specification of the sign: the sign dichotomy

The 'simplistic idea', 21 that the sign would denote the relation of the name and a thing can only spring from a conception of language viewed as a nomenclature: in this case the relation type of the sign would neither be characterized by reciprocity nor by immanence. "Le signe linguistique unit non une chose et un nom, mais un concept et une image accoustique".22 This fascinating formula, which caused a revolution in linguistic thought, calls forth a lot of problems. Even the editors of the Cours did not fully understand Saussure's intention since they define "image acoustique" in a footnote as a virtual linguistic fact preceding its realization in speech. Let us risk an attempt to interpret the hesitating Saussurean terminology more adequately. Saussure opposes image acoustique to son matériel: image acoustique is the 'psychic imprint of that sound' or the internal image, in its degree of abstraction equivalent to the other term of the 'association', the concept. The 'internal' character of both relata makes Saussure conclude that "le signe linguistique est donc une entité psychique à deux faces". 23 In order to see what the author means by this definition of the 20 Cours, p. 100, or elsewhere: "Une langue est radicalement indifférente à se défendre contre les facteurs qui déplacent d'instant en instant le rapport du signifié et du signifiant. C'est une des conséquences de Y arbitraire du signe" (p. 100). Mutability of the sign, far from ruling out arbitrariness and systematicness, is rather the consequence of them. 21 Cours, p. 97, where Saussure is speaking of the "operation toute simple" and "cette vue simpliste" in connection with the idea of nomenclature of language. 22 Cours, p. 98. 23 Cours, p. 93.

26

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

'nature of linguistic sign', one is bound to analyse some frequently occurring interpretive elements in the Cours: représentation!image, psychique and abstract,24 Representation, image, imprint (impression and empreinte), figure, which alternatively indicate the signifier, can hardly be given anything else than a unified epistemological status: to indicate the essential distinction from the physicophysiological reality of the sound, Saussure defines the signifier as a 'psychic' fact. In this way he acquires the isomorphism of image and concept, which will be necessary to put forward the reciprocity of the sign: "il est en effet capital de remarquer que l'image verbale ne se confond pas avec le son lui-même et qu'elle est psychique au même titre que le concept qui lui est associé".25 Even the concept, sometimes called idée and later signifié, is characterized as a 'psychic' fact. When, moreover, Saussure defines sign itself as a 'psychic' entity, we shall have to concentrate on the connection between the denotation 'psychic' and the characterization 'abstract/concrete'. The wellknown pages reconstructing the 'speech circuit' 26 offer us a few elements, that may be of some use to interpret the problem at issue. In a simple, psychologically turned terminology, Saussure states that in the speaker concepts (which he describes as "faits de conscience" "dans le cerveau") are associated with representations or acoustic images serving to express those concepts. This association is a 'psychic' phenomenon which is followed by a physiological process, viz. the transmission of an impulse corresponding with that image to the organs of speech; the physical moment of the speech circuit is situated between the physiological process in the speaker and the listener; here the same but reverse 24

The specification acoustique is hardly any use here because of the contradictory use of it in the Cours. The ambiguity will only be fully eliminated later in the phonology of e.g. Jakobson and Malmberg. Acoustique is sometimes used in connection with perception of a sound (and is then opposed to articulatoire or phonatoire) whereas elsewhere in the Cours, acoustique is used in connection with the psychic image of the sound and not with the physicophysiological sound itself. 25 Cours, p. 29. 26 Cours, p. 274.

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27

way is covered towards the concept. The psychic part of the speech circuit thus consists of a performative and active aspect (the association of the image with the concept of the speaker) and a receptive or passive aspect (the association of the concept with the image of the listener). The fact that this psychological simplism is supported by and directly based on considerations about the social character of language, seems paradigmatic for the theorizing attempts of Saussurean axiomatics. Speaking in Saussure's terms, for a 'social crystallization' to be possible, "une sorte de moyenne" or a 'common treasure', 'imprinting' itself in the individual, must be constituted. Saussure's 'impressionism', which is responsible for the characterization of the sign as a psychic fact, makes one understand that the intrinsic specification of the sign within the axiomatics as a whole, depends on and is supported by the extrinsic specification in which the systematicness of the sign is precisely explained by its conventionality. This solves an old point of discussion: Saussure's so-called psychologism goes back to his sociologism and not vice versa,27 so that one is entitled to say that the basic Saussurean principle — as Hjelmslev always clearly stated 28 — is the primacy of language as a system or as conventionality with respect to speech. 'Psychic' here, must be opposed explicitly to 'psychological': a linguistic sign acquires identity when it is abstracted from its physical and psychological aspect. Neither the 'acoustic image' nor the 'concept' are motivated by their physico-physiological, respectively logico-psychological use; within the entire phenomenon of speech "abstract" schemes which then realize themselves effectively or "concretely" in individual linguistic behaviour, can indeed be delimited. It might be noticed how Saussure hesitatingly resorts to the characterization abstract/concrete (probably due to Kant's 27

Statements like "cette partie sociale est purement mentale, psychique" and "la langue a pour siège le cerveau seul" can now be interpreted in a single sense : the 'psychic' character of language goes back to its social character and not vice versa. 28 "Cette doctrine, ramenée à son essence absolue, est la distinction opérée entre langue et parole", in: L. Hjelmslev, Essais linguistiques, TCLC, 1959, p. 69.

28

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and Hegel's depreciatory use of the term 'abstract') : unlike in the above formula of the 'abstract' scheme (denoting the sign as psychic fact or the 'imprinted' relatum), 'abstract' is mostly used for defining the phonic or psychological substance.29 Sign, on the contrary, is mostly labeled as concrete, and this terminological shifting is not without interest. One may consequently state that the psychic character of the sign relata makes the sign a concrete unit. A description of the term 'concreteness' may, accordingly, give substance to the definition of sign as well as that of unit. In the second Cours the following definition can be found: "Critère pour distinguer l'abstrait du concret: la conscience des sujets parlants. Le concret, c'est ce qui est ressenti, c'est-à-dire ce qui est significatif a un degré quelconque et qui se traduit par une différenciation d'unités".30 Again this note should not be interpreted psychologically: "le concret, c'est ce qui est significatif" directly refers to the intrinsic specification of the sign itself. Only the sign is significative (carries meaning) and not the isolated sign relata. 31 The third Cours elucidated indeed this psychologistic reference to the dichotomic character of the sign and turns the latter into the first principle of a definition of concrete entity; 32 the concrete status of the sign goes back to the reciprocity of both relata. To this however a second principle or a supplementary condition is added: the sign is only concrete in as far as it is a unit, i.e. in as far as it is delimited within the linear chain of speech.33 29

At the outset of the Cours, Saussure already questioned: "Quel est l'objet à la fois intégral et concret de la linguistique ?". Cf. : "La langue ... est un objet de nature concrète ... Les signes linguistiques, pour être essentiellement psychiques, ne sont pas des abstractions; les associations ratifiées par le consentement collectif, et dont l'ensemble constitue la langue, sont des réalités qui ont leur siège dans le cerveau" (Cours, p. 32). 30 R. Godel, SM, Fragment 61, p. 68. 31 'Psychic' can thus be used in connection with sign and sign relata ; 'concrete' only in connection with sign. 32 Cours, p. 144. "L'entité linguistique n'existe que par l'association du signifiant et du signifié; dès qu'on ne retient qu'un de ces éléments, elle s'évanouit; au lieu d'un object concret, on n'a plus devant soi qu'une pure abstraction". 33 "L'entité linguistique n'est complètement déterminée que lorsqu'elle est délimitée, séparée de tout ce qui l'entoure sur la chaîne phonique. Ce sont ces

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

29

This second principle, apparently, is but the inverse of the first, since one has to resort to the relation of reciprocity between the relata, to fragment the 'amorphous ribbon' of the phonic chain. This leads Saussure to the following important definition of the unit and, accordingly, of the concrete character of the sign : "(L'unité) est une tranche de sonorité qui est, à l'exclusion de ce qui précède et de ce qui suit dans la chaîne parlée, le signifiant d'un certain concept".34 One must not forget that the delimitation (and the subsequent identification) or the 'concretization from sign into unit' leads us back to the most fundamental axiom of Saussureanism, namely the presupposition of the system within the term. For that reason it is rewarding to ascribe the characteristic 'concrete' to the sign: 'concrete' refers indeed to both the centrifugal or extrinsic specification of the sign (the relation between sign and system) and its intrinsic specification (the radical reciprocity of the relata). So far we have revealed two characteristics of the sign: it is a psychic fact and in as far it is a unit, it is concrete. Time and again the interpretation of both characteristics obliged us to state the dependency on the systematicness of language: 'psychic' is not psychological-individual, but rather conventional-social and 'concrete'. The sign dichotomy and hence the sign only exists in function of the linguistic system. The sign as dichotomic relation is an articulus of language and language is always articulated language. "On pourrait appeler la langue le domaine des articulations: chaque terme linguistique est un petit nombre, un articulus où une idée se fixe dans un son et où un son entités délimitées ou unités qui s'opposent dans le mécanisme de la langue" (Cours, p. 145). 34 Cours, p. 146, Also in R. Godel, SM, p. 211 : "Concret, ici, signifie que l'idée a son unité dans le support sonore" ( D 198-199). We do not see, however, why Godel considers the two definitions of 'concrete' as irreconcilable. Godel apparently clings to the expression "la conscience des sujets parlants" as a criterion for the distinction concrete/abstract in the second Cours. This incautious formulation is only used, in our opinion, in function of the significative character of the sign, which amounts to the first principle of the definition of concrete unit (Cours, p. 144).

30

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

devient le signe d'une idée".35 Language as articulated language — or gegliederte Sprache, as Saussure himself called it 36 — is the formulation combining the sign with the system in the most evocative way. It is also a rich notion which might lead to philosophical speculations: "On pourrait dire que ce n'est pas le langage parlé qui est naturel à l'homme; mais la faculté de constituer une langue, c'est-à-dire un système de signes distincts correspondant à des idées distinctes".37 This characterization of language as articulated seems privileged because it combines the intrinsic and the extrinsic specification of the linguistic sign. On the one hand the significative chain is neither the succession of concepts (in this connection sometimes called 'ideas') nor the succession of sound images. The essential condition then is the continous and double course of both levels of relata: when abstraction is made of the sound image, the idea will become an amorphous mass, "une nébuleuse où rien n'est nécessairement délimité", "un royaume flottant", 38 and sound image will only become significant when its plasticity marries thought. On the other hand this interpretation of articulation specifies in an extrinsic way that, within this double course, delimitation generates the units which are to become linguistic entities: sound and thought can only be associated within these units. Saussure too held this to be the secret of language: "Le rôle charactéristique de la langue vis-à-vis de la pensée n'est pas de créer un moyen phonique matériel pour l'expression des idées, mais de servir d'intermédiaire entre la pensée et le son, dans des conditions telles que leur union aboutit nécessairement à des délimitations réciproques d'unités. La pensée, chaotique de sa nature, est forcée de se préciser en se décomposant. Il n'y a donc 35

Cours, p. 156, Notice that, in this text, Saussure inaccurately uses sign instead of signifiant or image. When on p. 26 he regards the role of articulation as "la subdivision de la chaîne parlée en syllabes...", he again contradicts himself, since he clearly says elsewhere that the syllable is a 'phonological' (that means phonetic) and not a linguistic unit; obviously he means image acoustique instead of syllabe (Cf R. Godel, SM, p. 213). 36 Cours, p. 26. 37 Cours, p. 26. Here too, signe is used instead of signifiant. 38 Cours, p. 155.

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ni matérialisation des pensées, ni spiritualisation des sons, mais il s'agit de ce fait en quelque sorte mystérieux, que le 'pensée-son' implique des divisions et que la langue élabore ses unités en se constituant entre deux masses amorphes". 39 It becomes clear now that it is illusory to deal only with the intrinsic dichotomic specification of the sign as the union of a sound image and a concept; it is required, however, according to the basic axiom that the term presupposes the system, that the sign unit is "constructed" by means of delimitation and not by means of classification: "c'est du tout qu'il faut partir pour obtenir par analyse les éléments qu'il renferme". 40 The characterization of sign as an articulus then, apparently possesses a propaedeutic power, in which all elements of the definition converge. Such a qualification equally indicates what Saussure, at the very outset of his Cours, had called the object of linguistics: "Le terrain de la linguistique est le terrain, qu'on pourrait appeler dans un sens très large le terrain commun des articulations, c'est-à-dire des articuli, des petits membres dans lesquels la pensée prend valeur par un son. Hors de ces articulations, de ces unités, ou bien on fait de la psychologie pure (pensée) ou bien de la phonologie (son)". 41 1.1.1.3. Reciprocity and systematicness The famous metaphor according to which language is compared to a sheet of paper (with the idea as the front and the sound as the back), the front of which cannot be cut without the back, can equally be situated within this context of argumentation. 42 39

Cours, p. 156. Cours, p. 157. This basic data will be dealt with at length in the description of the Saussurean notion of system (2.1.1.2.) and value (3.1.2.). 41 This very important text is note II R 38, quoted by R. Godel, SM, p. 214. 42 This image occurs already in the second Cours (n. 55 in R. Godel, SM, p. 67); afterwards Saussure still uses another metaphor: "On a souvent comparé cette unité à deux faces avec l'unité de la personne humaine, composée du corps et de l'âme. Le rapprochement est peu satisfaisant. On pourrait penser plus justement à un composé chimique, l'eau par exemple; c'est une combinaison d'hydrogène et d'oxygène; pris à part, chacun de ces éléments n'a aucune des propriétés de l'eau" (Cours, p. 145). The image of the sheet of paper is

40

32

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

This image also suggests in which direction the definition of the sign is to be completed. We started indeed with the specification of the sign as a psychic fact and as a concrete entity, the analysis of the Saussurean notion of articulation pointed to both the dichotomic and systematic nature of the sign. We had to make explicit then our basic problem of reciprocity and going with that, of immanency of the linguistic sign. The conception of reciprocity, referring to the parallelism of both sign relata, characterizes indeed the innovation that Saussure brought about in linguistics as to the definition of sign. The relation type of both relata is called associative in the Cours.43 This qualification does not seem very useful since it refers directly to the associative relation, which constitutes the selective axis of language and unites terms in absentia into a mnemonic and virtual series;44 the characteristics of the associative series presented here, viz. indefinite order and infinite number, 45 make the concept of association useless for the indication of the relation type of dichotomy discussed here. The virtual aspect of the association probably indicates the psychic character of the sign relation; in this way the use of 'association' might shed here a new light on the specification of the sign acquired so far. More important is how Saussure motivates the procedure leading him to introduce the topics of signifié and signifiant instead of concept and image acoustique. In order to counter the everyday meaning of the term 'sign' — merely indicating the acoustic image — Saussure uses three terms evoking each other in their opposition : "Nous propopreceded in the Cours by an evocative representation of the water surface in contact with atmospheric pressure engendering waves (Cours, p. 156). 43 This term occurs in the Cours, p. 28-9, p. 98-100, p. 144 and p. 171-174. In the same context Saussure speaks, on p. 99, about combinaison instead of association. The use of combinaison is particulary unclear since, in most texts, this rather indicates the characteristic of syntagmatic relation. About this relation type within the sign, cf. G. Derossi, Segno e struttura linguistici nel pensiero di Ferdinand de Saussure, Del Bianco, 1965, especially p. 51-55, who rather amply exposes the vagueness of Saussurean terminology. 44 Cours, p. 171. 45 Cours, p. 174.

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sons de conserver le mot signe pour désigner le total, et de remplacer concept et image acoustique respectivement p a r signifié et signifiant;

ces derniers termes ont l'avantage de marquer l'opposition qui les sépare soit entre eux, soit du total dont ils font partie". 46 This new terminology, which the author does not yet consider as perfect, is meant to indicate the very immanence of the relation between the relata and to emphasize their reciprocity.47 The origin of this triadic complex of topics is the stoic theory of signs, in which armeîov was defined as the relation between a crri(.ievov aio0r)TÔv and a CT||ieïov VOT^TOV,48 between a signifier perceptible by the senses and an intelligible signified. There too this relation seemingly possesses immanence, since the Tuy%avov or the reference is defined as a éKTÔç OitÔKevuevoi) situated outside the sphere of the act of signifying. The intention of Borgeaud, Brocker and Lohmann 49 is to attack the Saussurean position by way of the stoic notions. This criticism is particularly instructive because it shows that the hypostasis on the intrinsic specification of the sign cannot possibly lead to put forward immanence and reciprocity. Even Saussure will agree with the definition of signifié as the ÀEKTÔV, the sayable, which is àaconaxôv having an ideal existence; the opposition between XEKTOV and xoyxavov is radical indeed. Disagreement rises, however, when it comes to defining 46

Cours, p. 99. This is the opinion of both R. Godel, SM, p. 182-193 and T. de Mauro, Corso, p. 404: "(Questi termini) sono il sigillo, sul piano terminologico, della piena consapevalezza dell'autonomia della langue, come sistema formale". The divergence of opinion that might subsist is due to additions to the manuscripts by the editors Bally and Sechehaye. 48 This was pointed out by R. Jakobson, "A la recherche de l'essence du langage", in Diogène, 51 (1965), p. 22. The latter also mentions that this stoic scheme can also be found in Augustine, in the middle ages (a.o. in Ockham) and was probably suggested to Saussure by his reading of H. Gomperz's Noôlogie. T. De Mauro, Corso, p. 347-8 agrees with that and points out that the triad used here also occurs in Aristotle: xa crnnaivovToc as opposed to àarina, Poet. 1457, or to aîutaivojiEvov, Rhet. 1405 b 8. 49 W. Borgeaud, W. Brocker and J. Lohmann, "De la nature du signe", in AL, 3-4 (1942-3), p. 24-30 (in the German translation: W. Brocker and J. Lohmann, "Vom Wesen des sprachlichen Zeichens", in Lexis, 1 (1948), p. 24-33). 47

34

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

the relation type of the sign relata: for Saussure, meaning is the relation within the sign itself, whereas for Borgeaud and others the sign is provided with a significative function which originates in the subjective act and is regulated by the collective consciousness. Their misunderstanding is complete when they wrongly observe that Saussure would mix up 'concept' with both the subjective act of one who makes use of the sign, and with the reference. We known that, in Saussure's work, the use of the sign belongs to the area of parole, and that the reference, as in the stoic triad, is explicitly excluded from the sign relation. The hypostasis of the intrinsic specification of sign as dichotomy, as elaborated in the analysis of the stoic CTr|(isîov,may indeed lead to a conception like that of Borgeaud and others, in which the sign is deprived of its significative function (Bedeutung,fonction significative), the latter being assigned, in fact, to an extra-linguistic principle which guarantees the consistency of the sign relation and establishes meaning.50 What we call instructive in the course of the adventure outlined above, is that the dichotomic or intrinsic specification of the sign, as it was constructed by the stoics and reassumed by Saussure, is by no means a warrant for reciprocity and immanence. "C'est une grande illusion de considérer un terme simplement comme l'union d'un certain son avec un certain concept". 51 This warning has been overlooked by many, partly because the second part of the Cours, Synchronic Linguistics, in which mainly the notions of linguistic reality, identity and value, and the doctrine of the mechanism of language are developed, is put in a less favourable light by the editors than the passages dealing with the nature 50 This leads Borgeaud and others to the following speculations : "le phonème et la chose signifiée sont des phénomènes de l'esprit humain instituant ses délimitations dans la matière. Les phonèmes instituent les limites dans le continu amorphe du son .... D e même les signifiés marquent les limites de la pensée dans la masse amorphe des impressions qui nous est offerte par nos sens. C'est ainsi que le Phonème et la Chose signifiée, ensemble, délimitent l'empire incorporel de l'Esprit, qui se constitue entre le domaine naturel du Son et le domaine naturel de l'Objet sensible", in: W. Borgeaud a.o., "De la nature du signe", p. 30. 51 Cours, p. 157.

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of linguistic sign, in which Saussure outlines the dichotomy. 52 The reduction of the sign to a psychic fact, by which the sound image as well as the concept are deprived of their material aspect, must be followed by a second reduction, emptying the signifier and the signified of all 'psychic' substance in consequence of the extrinsic systematicness of the sign. The identity of the sign is not established when one and the same signifier covers one and the same signified: this substantial reciprocity by no means avoids a conception of language as nomenclature (of 'psychic' facts, to be true). "Si les mots étaient chargés de représenter des concepts donnés d'avance, ils auraient chacun, d'une langue à l'autre, les correspondants exacts pour le sens: or il n'en est pas ainsi". 53 When Saussure states that the junction of both levels of relata produces a form and not a substance,54 he shows the way consequent systemic thought should follow: only a formal reciprocity, the one precisely which reveals itself in the new terminology signifiantIsignifié (in the second part of the Cours), does the systematicness of the sign justice. We think, therefore, that the reduction, which characterizes the Saussurean definition of the sign is carried through in two stages: material reciprocity (of phonic chain and 'amorphous thought') is purged into substantial reciprocity (of acoustic image and concept; on the level of the intrinsic specification of the sign) ; this substantial reciprocity is turned into formal reciprocity (of signifier and signified; on the level of the extrinsic specification of the sign), by virtue of which the sign finally acquires immanence.55 52

The difficult problem of the relation between value, meaning and signified will be dealt with at length in connection with Saussure 's theorem of meaning (3.1.2.). 53 Cours, p. 161. Or: "Quand j'affirme simplement qu'un mot signifie quelque chose, quand je m'en tiens à l'association de l'image acoustique avec un concept, je fais une opération qui peut dans une certaine manière être exacte et donner une idée de la réalité; mais en aucun cas je n'exprime le fait linguistique dans son essence et dans son ampleur" (p. 162). 54 Cours, p. 157. 55 One understands that S. Ullmann, who considers himself an orthodox Saussurean, is said to belong "à l'ère présaussurienne" by H. Frei (in his review of the Principles of Semantics, in: Cah. F. de Saussure, 13 (1955), p. 51).

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H o w the tension of reciprocity and systematicness of the sign is to be understood, has always remained a mysterious difficulty for Saussure. A t the end of the third Cours56 he reconsiders the dichotomic sign scheme and, in connection with the linguistic value,57 he states the problem in an explicit way: "La signification est la contrepartie de l'image auditive: le m o t est pris c o m m e un ensemble isolé et absolu. Mais en même temps, elle apparaît c o m m e la contrepartie des termes coexistants dans la langue. La valeur du mot, ne résultant que de la coexistence des différents termes, se confond-elle avec la contrepartie de l'image auditive? Les deux rapports sont très difficiles à distinguer". 5 8 Since the

Although Ullmann rejects the semantic triangle of Ogden and Richards (symbol — thought or reference — referent), yet his lexicological viewpoint leads him to manipulate implicitly the principle of substantial reciprocity. One should notice in this respect, Ullmann's elaborate distinction between lexical and functional or syntactic meaning, his indication of the category of synsemantica as pseudo-words and his definition of meaning on exclusively dichotomic grounds: "Meaning is a reciprocal relation between name and sense, which enables them to call up one another" (p. 70). Cf. S. Ullmann, Principles of Semantics, Oxford, 1951, p. 69-78. 86 From n. 148 to 155 in R. Godel, SM, p. 90-92. 57 One might wonder why, at this reconsidering of the dichotomic sign scheme in the chapter Synchronic Linguistics, the arrow only points in one direction: One sometimes deduces from this that Saussure, at the end of the third Cours, would have rejected the fundamental reciprocity of signifier and signified, as clearly indicated on p. 99 of the Cours (in the chapter The Nature of the linguistic Sign) by the double direction of the arrow: Nothing is less true. In these very important texts, Saussure only stresses the linguistic value which, according to R. Godel, is the linguistic sign described from the 'conceptual' relatum (the signified). To restore the balance and to avoid misunderstandings that might spring from a superficial reading, the editors Bally and Sechehaye not only added the contradictory title §3 : La valeur linguistique considérée dans son aspect matériel (p. 163 of the Cours) but, by way of repetition, they reconsidered even twice the dichotomic sign scheme with the double direction of the arrow (Cours, p. 158 and p. 162). In this way, however, they raised one of the most difficult questions of Saussurean exegesis, namely the problem about the linguistic value. 58 R. Godel, SM, n. 149, p. 90-91.

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37

system is the linguistic reality and since terms and values are derived from the system, the signified can only be identical with the value derived from the system. 59 The three arguments advanced at this crucial moment of the construction of a structural sign theory, are: 1. the analogy of linguistic value and value in general (sign as a coin having a relation with both a thing of another species, which can be exchanged with it, and with things of the same species, which can be compared with it); 2. the necessity of a delimitation of units (articuli, on the level of the phonic chain, and values, on the level of 'amorphous thought') within the two fields of relata, the reciprocity of which is arbitrary, add to it that arbitrariness, which makes delimitation within the system feasible, is correlative with the formal reciprocity of the sign relata; 3. the overall principle that in language there are but differences: "dans la langue il n'y a que des différences sans termes positifs". 60 That "la langue supporte ni des idées ni des sons qui préexisteraient au système linguistique, mais seulement des différences conceptuelles et des différences phoniques issues de ce système" 61 informs us that the primacy of systematicness deprives the relation of reciprocity of its substantial aspect: the arbitrariness between those two orders of differences is the arbitrariness of the two sign relata (in their dichotomic autonomy within the sign) so that from the existence of a difference in the signifier, one may infer the existence of a difference in the order of the signified and vice versa, but nothing about the substantial nature of this difference. "Ce qu'il y a d'idée ou de matière phonique dans un signe importe moins que ce qu'il y a autour de lui dans les autres signes". 62 This insight into the primacy of the system made us conjecture the exact range of the intrinsic specification of the sign. The outline of the transition from material via substantial to formal reciprocity led — always keeping in sight the systematicness of language — to 59 60

Cf. 3.1.2.

In the Cours, p. 166 and in the note D 282 (R. Godel, SM, p. 244) : "Il n'y a que des différences, qui sont de deux ordres et se conditionnent les unes les autres". 61 Cours, p. 166. 62 Cours, p. 166.

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AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

a refinement of the n o t i o n of 'reciprocity' with the help of the topic of arbitrariness. Arbitrariness ticness and reciprocity63

is indeed the intersection

of

systema-

and as such it acquires a privileged capacity

of explanation, of w h i c h w e shall have t o m a k e use w h e n further elaborating the structural definition of language. F o r the present w e prefer to consider this basic insight as acquired and w e point o u t a seeming contradiction in Saussure's text with the a i m of highlighting the exact nature of the primacy, outlined

above,

of the extrinsic qualification of the sign over the intrinsic one. T h e c o m p l e x of relations between the relatum a n d other terms of the linguistic system is reducible t o the t w o extrinsic systematic relation types, namely the associative 6 4 a n d syntagmatic relations, and the intrinsic relation type namely the d i c h o t o m i c relation with the other relatum of the sign. A l t h o u g h Saussure never separates the associative axis of the system f r o m the syntagmatic o n e , 6 5 yet the syntagmatic seems a n a posteriori, limitative a n d merely determinative f u n c t i o n with respect t o the term established in the 63

Even for Saussure this was not clear from the outset since, at the beginning of the Cours, he introduced arbitrariness as the first principle emanating from the dichotomic nature of the sign (Cours, p. 100). Besides, nearly all commentators have clung to the concept of arbitrariness outlined there and have overlooked the distinction, to be found in the chapter Mécanisme de la Langue, between absolute and relative arbitrariness, and which is based on a more consequent systematic thought. Here too it is our intention to preach the revaluation of the difficult second part of the Cours, La Linguistique synchronique, even though this might thwart the will of the editors. 64 The designation 'associative relations' is open to criticism; it seems psychologically tuned ("elle évoque la comparaison mentale", Saussure says himself on p. 171), but finally it is not, not any more than 'psychic'. Later this designation will be replaced by 'systematic' (which is equally confusing since the syntagmatic relations of solidarity as well as the associative relations of selection are part of the linguistic system) or by 'paradigmatic'. It was Hjelmslev, mainly, who infused clarity in these terminological difficulties. 65 "Les rapports et les différences entre termes linguistiques se déroulent dans deux sphères distinctes dont chacune est génératrice d'une certaine idée de valeurs.... Us correspondent à deux formes de notre activité mentale, toutes deux indispensables à la vie de la langue" (Cours, p. 170). Note D 273 clearly indicates the necessary accompaniment of both axes: "La valeur d'un mot ne sera jamais déterminée que par le concours des termes coexistants qui le limitent ou ... ce qui est autour de lui, associativement ou syntagmatiquement" (R. Godel, SM, p. 244).

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

39

associative field. This priority of the relation of the terms in absentia to that of the terms in praesentia is only implied by Saussure and, for the time being, is of less importance for our purpose. What must needs be settled is the hierarchic position of the dichotomic relation with respect to both relations of systematicness. Here indeed the seeming contradiction that must be solved, is to be found. Two texts from the manuscript sources seem to contradict our hypothesis explicitly66 and urge us to specify our conception of the primacy of the system in the following sense. The transformation of phonic chain and 'amorphous thought' into sound image and concept can only be effectuated by delimitation, which at the same time implies a coupling with the opposite relatum ("l'accouplement de la pensée avec la matière phonique"). 67 But linguistic reality, called "réalité synchronique" by Saussure, is not the creation of linguistic signs by means of 'coupling', but the scheme of differences in the 'material' order of articuli, and in the 'conceptual' order of values. With respect to linguistic reality, consequently, dichotomy is not initial (elsewhere Saussure states : "elle ne contient que le résumé de la valeur" or "(elle est un) produit secondaire de la valeur"). 68 If, however, one proceeds to the constitutive analysis of language, one is bound to start, indeed, from the sign dichotomy and not from the system. In the area of linguistic reality the isolated sign is not primary; in the area of linguistic strategy, the linguistic 66 The first text is a passage from the first Cours ( N 20 in R. Godei) : "Comme premier élément, nous devons poser: l'association primordiale entre forme et idée et groupe d'idées; puis une autre association sans laquelle la première ne pouvait pas exister: l'association de forme à forme, des formes entre elles", in which forme stands for signifier the first time and the second time for term. In the third Cours (N 122 in R. Godei, not included in the Bally-Sechehaye edition) : "En apparence, il semble qu'il n'y ait rien de commun entre la relation interne et la relation externe. Or cette relation de terme à terme n'existe pas un seul moment autrement qu'en vertu des deux relations internes" (which means : the relation signifier-signified and vice versa): "la relation du concept avec l'image peut exister sans relation avec un terme extérieur. Mais la relation entre deux termes ne peut exister sans réciproque intervention des deux relations internes... Nous ne pouvons jamais concevoir une relation interne qui, en chacun d'eux, unit le concept avec l'image auditive" ( D 206-207). 67 Cours, p. 156. 88 R. Godei, SM, n. 152.

40

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

system can only be approached through the sign.69 In this way can we remove the contradiction we suggested: in 'reality' the relations of systematicness are prior to the relation of reciprocity, but, strategically, reciprocity precedes systematicness. It is only Hjelmslev's radicalization of the form theorem that will be able to establish the identity of the analytic-strategic with the 'real' primacy of systematicness. 1.1.1.4. Language as sign "Mais dire que tout est négatif dans la langue, cela n'est vrai que du signifié et signifiant pris séparément: dès que l'on considère le signe dans sa totalité, on se trouve en présence d'une chose positive dans son ordre ... Bien que le signifié et le signifiant soient, chacun pris à part, purement différentiels et négatifs, leur combinaison est un fait positif ; c'est même la seule espèce de faits que comporte la langue, puisque le propos de l'institution linguistique est justement de maintenir le parallélisme entre ces deux ordres de différences".70 This paragraph from Synchronic Linguistics characterizes the sign by factualness and positivity, opposed to the qualities of the relata. More clearly still: "dès que l'on compare entre eux les signes — termes positifs — on ne peut plus parler de différence-, ... deux signes (...) sont seulement distincts. Entre eux il n'y a qu'opposition. Tout le mécanisme du langage...repose sur des oppositions de ce genre" . 7 1 Opposition is added here to factualness and positivity; opposition and difference are antinomic categories. These subtle distinctions, which may be of the utmost axiomatic importance, can only be investigated by a comparative study of three Saussurean topics, related to one another in a specific way, namely unit (unité), sign and term (terme). 69

This partly justifies our arrangement of the theorems within this axiomatics of linguistics: it is only after a study of the nature of linguistic sign that one can pass on to the study of the topics of system and structure. 70 Cours, p. 166-167 (from "c'est même..." is, according to R. Engler, an addition of the editors). 71 Cours, p. 167.

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

41

Unit is the topic with the most uncertain range: the phoneme as well as the word, the syllable, the associative group, the syntagm and even the sentence are alternately, and from the first Cours onwards, called units. If this entity is to be assigned capacity of elucidation, a unifying principle should be found within these vague terminological indications. An axiomatically justified tendency tries to reserve this topic to the order of succession of word, syntagm and possibly sentence.72 Let us therefore stick to Saussure's most insightful definition of unit: "une tranche de sonorité qui est, à l'exclusion de ce qui précède et de ce qui suit dans la chaîne parlée, le signifiant d'un certain concept". 73 The critérium of articulation by means of delimitation suggested here, and accordingly, this syntagmatic definition, brings the unit into a co-extensive position with the sign. Therefore we can map out the following relation type of sign and unit. Both entities have the same range, but different qualities; whereas sign indicates the semiological dichotomic aspect of the linguistic entity, unit rather emphasizes the articulation of the syntagmatic succession and hence the linearity of the signifier.74 Important is, not so much which linguistic categories 72

In connection with the assignment of the unit characteristic to the sentence (e.g. Cours, p. 148), it should be settled first whether the sentence belongs to language or to speech. We shall have to analyse Saussure's doubts concerning this problem as part of our translinguistic investigation (5.1.1.). The phoneme and the syllable are described as sous-unités in the third Cours (Cours, p. 149, 176, 178, 253, 258); the famous analysis of The man I have seen, in connection with the distinction between concrete and abstract entity (Cours, p. 191), illustrates the syntagmatic direction of the definition of unit, in the second part of the Cours. 73 Cours, p. 146. 74 The theorem, mainly occurring in the second Cours, that the word would be the central unit, is clearly contradicted in the chapter Synchronic Linguistics in the third Cours: "... on voit que ce qu'on entend par là (le mot) est incompatible avec notre notion d'unité concrète.... Il faut chercher l'unité concrète ailleurs que dans le mot... Il est extrêmement difficile de débrouiller dans une chaîne phonique le jeu des unités qui s'y rencontrent et de dire sur quels éléments concrets une langue opère. Sans doute ce qui est significatif à un degré quelconque leur apparaît comme un élément concret, et ils le distinguent infaillement (sic) dans le discours. Mais autre chose est de sentir ce jeu rapide et délicat des unités, autre chose d'en rendre compte par une analyse méthodique" (Cours, p. 147-148). For pragmatical reasons, however, Saussure uses the word as the central unit and, consequently, as the prototype of the sign : "Ne pouvant

42

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

are identified with the topic of unit, as the whole articulative and syntagmatic emphasis falling on the definition of this topic. The topic term, mathematical in origin, 75 naturally calls forth the relation with the system. Although this topic is not put in the forefront in the Bally-Sechehaye edition — it does not even occur in the index there —, it carries the basic axiomatic intuition of linguistic structuralism: in the term the system is presupposed. The obsessive difficulty with which Saussure is wrestling, is the circular situation, according to which the term can only be deduced from the systemic relations, the latter, being only describable, at first sight, after the term has been specified. We have seen that, in the order of linguistic 'reality' (in the specifically Saussurean sense), the terms are derived from the system,76 strategically, however, one has to resort to the complementary notion of unit, since here the criterion of the delimitation of the chain of signifiers can be worked with. Ultimately, term and unit must necessarily coincide, otherwise the identity of the system will suffer. The fact that the linguistic strategy offers the possibility to identify as terms the units of the syntagmatic axis of the system, cannot ensure the overall solution to cross the circular situation mentioned above, since the associative axis does not imply any articuli and, accordingly, escapes from the procedure of delimitation: associative solidarity is purely differential, and beyond the oppositional relasaisir directement les entités concrètes ou unités de la langue, nous opérerons sur les mots. Ceux-ci, sans recouvrir exactement la définition de l'unité linguistique, en donnant du moins une idée approximative qui a l'avantage d'être concrète..." (Cours, p. 158). 75 N 10, p. 9 of the Notes pour un article sur Whitney (quoted by R. Godel, SM, p. 44): "Mais il faudra bien voir une fois que les quantités du langage et leurs rapports sont régulièrement exprimables, dans leur nature fondamentale, par des formules mathématiques" and N 13a (p. 49 in R. Godel): "Il n'y a pas, il ne peut y avoir d'expressions simples pour les notions linguistiques. L'expression simple sera algébrique ou elle ne sera pas". 76 "Dès que nous disons: terme, au lieu de mot, l'idée de système est évoquée. Mais, de plus, ne pas commencer par le mot ou le terme pour en déduire le système. Ce serait croire que les termes ont d'avance une valeur absolue; au contraire, c'est du système qu'il faut partir, du tout solidaire. Ce dernier se décompose entre certains termes qui ne sont pas si faciles à dégager qu'il peut sembler" (D 268-269, n. 147, in R. Godel, SM, p. 90).

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

43

tions between linguistic entities there is neither delimitation nor identification of units. 7 7 However impure the solutions to this circular situation may be, it is clear, nonetheless, that the topics of term and unit have an own capacity of elucidation and that the Saussurean terminology is not redundant. Of equal importance is the distinction between term and sign. We have seen, indeed, that the specification of the sign dichotomy as a 'psychic fact' does not shrink from the danger of the conception of language as a nomenclature. The topic term now effectuates the transition from a doctrine of language as nomenclature to the structural theory of language as a 'grammatical' (in the Saussurean sense) organism or system. It is in so far as sign can be indicated as term that the system displays solidarity and that an extrinsic specification of the sign becomes possible. When, at the outset of this paragraph, the topics positivity, factualness and negativityjoppositeness were introduced as new characteristics of the sign, they could not be analysed but within the outline of the relation of sign with unit and term. Factualness and positivity belong to the sign as a unit (as a concrete entity) and negativity to the sign as a term. It does require some comment that these characteristics cannot be assigned to the relata, but only to the sign. The linguistic reality of articuli and values becomes a factualness (a 'positive' reality) when the sign comes into being as a unit, i.e. when a sound image becomes signifier of a concept, in the order of the syntagmatic succession. The Saussurean distinction between difference or negativity and opposition, on the contrary is particularly fluctuating and complicated. W e know that the relatum, in its relation to the other relata, is characterized by its difference or negativity, whereas the sign, in its linear-syntagmatic concreteness, is oppositional:78 "Dans un état de la langue, il n'y It is quite typical, moreover, how little attention Saussure pays to the associative relations : they are theoretically present in the definition of the sign and the term (not of the unit), but there is no linguistic strategy to deal with their systematicness. Does Saussure admit that associative systematicness can only be investigated indirectly through the syntagmatic axis of the system, when he preaches the coincidence of lexicology and grammar? 78 We are not taking into account the subtle and sometimes contradictory 77

44

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

a que des différences. Mais, chose paradoxale, des différences sans termes positifs, soit dans les signifiés, soit dans les signifiants. Quand on arrivera aux termes eux-mêmes, résultant du rapport entre signifié et signifiant, on pourra parler d'opposition". 79 The relatum has no 'positive quantity' or it is a 'negative co-status', whereas the sign is only relatively negative (or relatively differential). 80 As a result, opposition implies difference and connection at the same time : when there is a connection between two entities, they become units of one and the same systematicness, and difference changes into opposition ("on pourra alors parler d'opposition, à cause de cet élément positif de la combinaison").81 Within the mechanism of language, absolute difference can only be an abstraction, namely the characteristic of the isolated levels of relata. The sign itself is relatively differential because it stands in opposition to the other signs of the syntagmatic whole. 82 This distinction between difference and opposition will come up for discussion again when we deal with the structural form theorem; both notions, besides, belong to the most difficult but also most important findings of the Cours. Syntagmatic oppositeness and systemic solidarity use that is made of these concepts throughout the three Cours (cf. R. Godel, SM, p. 196 ff). For our purpose it is only interesting to offer the most coherent explanation for one important passage from the third Cours (R. Godel, SM, N 153, almost literally restated in the Bally-Sechehaye edition, p. 167, and quoted at the beginning of 1.1.1.4.). 79 N 153 of the third Cours (R. Godel, SM, p. 92). Other indications of différence described in a similar way: "tout signe (here in the sense of 'linguistic entity') repose purement sur un co-status négatif" (N 12): "c'est un trait de la langue... qu'il ne puisse pas y avoir de différence chez elle entre ce qui distingue une chose et ce qui la constitue" (N 19): "Il n'y a que des différences et pas de quantité positive" (N 80, from the second Cours, restated in N 153 of the third Cours). 80 A "valeur oppositive" is a non-absolute value, "valeur relative" (R 3.71), "valeur réciproque" (II R 25), "valeur d'opposition entre pièces" (D 58), "valeur de positions réciproques" (D 244). 81 N 153 (R. Godel, SM, p. 92). 82 It should be noticed too that, when Saussure speaks of différence, he mostly has the signifier in mind (e.g. différences acoustiques) and to a lesser extent the signified. It is well-known that Saussure, to approach the study of difference in signifiers, usually begins with examples f r o m the scripture (Latin and Russian alphabet), the latter always being the prototype of the signifier.

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

45

are complementary aspects of the sign definition; together with factualness or positivity,83 which belong to the sign as unit, they constitute what we have called the extrinsic specification of the sign. In this way it becomes clear how sign is tributary to unit and term; the latter two, besides, are co-extensive with the former. The dependency of the sign on the linearity and systematicness of language has definite consequences, also for the so-called intrinsic sign specification. Dichotomic reciprocity, indeed, changes into formal reciprocity under the impact of these extrinsic characteristics; within this key-notion the intrinsic and extrinsic specification of the sign converge. Remains the problem about the parallelism of the levels of linguistic relata, or: do the two levels of relata participate in the systematicness of language in a parallel way? A clear-cut answer cannot be found in Saussure: Hjelmslev's specifications about the stratification of language, however, do offer an elaborated structural viewpoint on the problem. We wish, besides, to develop our inquiries about the structural sign theorem by means of the question concerning the parallelism of the levels of relata. Let us retain from the Saussurean intuitions the following suggestions: 1. The dichotomic outline of the sign urges us to postulate that within language there is no signified without signifier and vice versa.84 We concluded our study of Saussure's definition of sign 83

Here positivity constitutes the characteristic of the sign as a unit; it must not be confused with a possible substantial positivity, which we rejected for the relata as well as for the sign. 84 Relevant for this statement is the question whether the phoneme is a sign. The procedure with which F. Kolmar-Kulleschitz, "1st das Phonem ein Zeichen ? (Stratifizierung der Bedeutung)", in Phonetica, 5 (1960), p. 65-75, tries to justify her positive answer cannot escape from this statement since the author postulates that a phoneme has a signified (contrary to Bloomfield's, Hjelmslev's but also Saussure's opinion). Jakobson is known to take up a wavering position with respect to the problem; he also speaks of the 'load' of phonemes, which is only analysable, however, in the transition from phoneme to morpheme. We do not want to go into this problem since Martinet, in our opinion, has formulated an adequate answer to it in his theory of double articulation. We are only interested in the procedure here: a phoneme can only be called sign, besides, when a dichotomic relation can be distinguished in it.

46

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

with the question about the sign value of language as such. Since the definition of the sign does not imply the indivisibility of the signifier for Saussure, 85 units of a higher or more complex order can rightly be called signs. 86 The ultimate problem is then, which units of discourse belong to the linguistic system; in this connection the syntagm did not constitute a problem for Saussure, but the sentence already did, and so did at any rate the larger units of discourse. N o doubt the units of the linguistic system irrevocably incarnate the sign value, but whether linguistic phenomena as e.g. the sentence, equally possess this sign value is an important question with translinguistic dimensions. 8 7 2. The principled position with respect to formal reciprocity is checked by structurallinguistic strategy, whose criterion of delimitation and identification precisely calls on the parallelism of both levels of relata: the dichotomy is acknowledged, accordingly, from the moment that the sign appears as a unit (with its characteristics of concreteness, positivity and factualness). 8 8 For linguistic analysis the reciprocity 85 Here we entirely follow the opinion of R. Godei, SM, p. 210, and of H. Frei, in his discussion with E. Buyssens about the complex linguistic unit. Cf. H. Frei, "L'unité linguistique complexe" in Lingua, 11 (1962), p. 128-140, with Buyssens' answer in Lingua, 12 (1963), p. 66-68; H. Frei, "Le signe de Saussure et le signe de Buyssens", in Lingua, 12 (1963), p. 423-428. We especially want to remain outside the following terminological discussion: whereas for Saussure signe can be a complex unit as well as the smallest significative segment, Buyssens reserves unité for the complex units and signe for the smallest segment, whereas for Frei signe stands for the complex unit and monème for the smallest segment. Buyssens, in particular, does not take one of our axiomatic results into account, namely the co-extensivity of unit and sign. 86 Frei's contribution of 1962, mentioned in ( 85 ), presents a convincing technical elaboration of the problem of parallelism for the syntagm. The syntagm, being a sign itself, should be considered at the same time as a combination of signs ("on peut établir qu'une combinaison de signes est elle-même un signe", p. 129). Since "la valeur du terme total n'est jamais égale à la somme des valeurs des parties" (Cours, p. 182), the sign value of the combination itself can be called le caténe : the syntactic relation is then le caténé and the syntactic procedure le caténant. The complex sign, or syntagm, is a pertinent linguistic element. In our opinion, this construction of Frei never bespeaks Saussure's intuition: the question is whether it can be extended to higher units than the syntagm. 87 Cf. 5.1.1. 88 Whether this parallelism is to be found in the operations of the speaker or

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

47

of the levels of relata is an indispensable presupposition. 3. The question to which Saussure does not propose an answer — the latter having to give absolute certainty as to the parallelism of the levels of relata — is whether the dichotomy of the sign is a necessity inherent to the system itself. Is it possible to advance, within this axiomatics, a deductive argument according to which the system appears so coercively primary that the arrangement of both articuli and values should identically participate in this universal systematicness ? Hjelmslev's constructivism and the manipulation of a refined concept of structure possibly offer the elements enabling us to reconcile system (or language) and sign dichotomy in an all-inclusive and definitive way. 1.1.2. Hjehnslev,s

specification

of Saussure's

definition of the sign

We shall deal with Hjelmslev's specifications and additions to the Saussurean intuitions about the linguistic sign, as follows: 1.1.2.1. Hjelmslev's stratification of language refines Saussure's definition of the two levels of the sign relata; 89 1.1.2.2. this leads to a new the listener is again related to the field of parole. R. Godel, "De la théorie du signe aux termes du système" in Cah. F. de Saussure, 22 (1966), p. 59, remarks: "Mais pour la description de la langue elle-même, il serait utile de savoir quels assemblages de signes sont toujours pensés globalement, lesquels se laissent construire et interpréter de façon progressive... L'analyse, en tout cas, est libre de progresser de segment en segment, et puisqu'elle ne vise qu'à délimiter des unités, le résultat peut être figuré par deux chaînes parallèles". 89 It is in a work published in 1869 by Max Miiller that Hjelmslev meets the terms 'stratification' and 'stratum'; he intends with these terms to create categories, which are on the one hand differentiated from the Saussurean terminology of both planes or levels within the sign, and which on the other make it possible to describe the four 'strata' as different and analogous (Essais, p. 39). Hjelmslev's works cited in our analysis are: Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, translated by F. Whitfield, Wisconsin U.P., 1961 (a translation of Hjelmslev's main work, published in 1943: Omkring sprogteoriens grundlaegse); in agreement with most commentators we quote the pagination from the original Danish text, which is also cited by Whitfield. As is usual, we cite this work as OSG. Further: Essais linguistiques, TCLC 12, Kobenhavn, 1959 (quoted as Essais...), a collection of very important essays (from 1937 to 1957), among which the following come up for discussion: "La stratification du langage" (1954), "Langue et parole" (1943), "Note sur les oppositions suppri-

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AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

definition of sign in which the claim of immanence is becoming central; 1.1.2.3. problems equally arise as to the type of reciprocity since new elements are advanced in connection with the parallelism of the two dichotomic levels', the propaedeutic function of the commutation test shows that here Hjelmslev's most original contribution to the structural sign theorem has to be situated. 1.1.2.1. Stratification of language The problem about the nature of the sign was resolved by Saussure once he was able to characterize the reciprocity of the sign relata as formal. We consider this characterization of reciprocity as a tendency expanded by ourselves rather than an explicit acquisition of the Cours. The problem arises again, in fact, in Hjelmslev's work, when the relata themselves of the relation of reciprocity have to be pointed out. For the time being, we merely note that there is a continuity between the Saussurean tendency, quoted here, and Hjelmslev's approach. The sign is described by Hjelmslev as a sign function but there is no call to determine whether an internal or external function is involved: a function is a 'dependence' which satisfies the conditions of an analysis.90 This formal definition introduces the expression and the content (the signifier and the signified) as the functives91 of the sign function. There is a mables" (1939), "Pour une sémantique structurale" (1957), "La structure morphologique" (1939). A third work of Hjelmslev is: Le langage, une introduction, Paris, 1966 (translation of Sproget, Kobenhavn, 1963). In connection with the exegesis of Hjelmslevean general linguistics, cf. B. Siertsema, N. Ege, H. Spang-Hanssen, A. Martinet and A. Nehring (cf. Bibliography). In B.W. Christensen, "Glossématique, linguistique fonctionnelle, grammaire générative et stratification du langage", in Word, 23 (1967), p. 57-73, Martinet's theory of the double articulation of language, the Chomskyan grammar with its syntactic, phonological and semantic components, and the glossematic theory of the four strata are compared. A revised glossematic model of the stratification is proposed as "grille générale" (p. 58), in which the transformational theory as well as the functional phonology is moved. This is again a proof that the comparison of very diverging points of views concerning language, only can lead to artificial results. 90 Definition 8 in OSG, explained more fully in § 11. 91 Definition 9: "Functive: object that has function to other objects".

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

49

solidarity between function and functives; 92 both the function and the functives imply the other term of the relation of solidarity.93 This relation is moreover duplicated by the mutual solidarity between the functives; the latter ultimately goes back to what we called formal reciprocity, in the discussion of the Saussurean doctrine.94 The fact that both relations can be considered as the axiomatic requirement for linguistic analysis — analysis being the description of the object as intersection of relations and correlations 95 — shows that we are still within the area of the Saussurean definition of the sign. Hjelmslev notes, of course, that the Cours described the contiguity of both amorphous masses, namely the 'thought' and the phonic chain, as "(une) combinaison (qui) produit une forme, non une substance". 96 He affirms explicitly that what he terms the Saussurean "pedagogical Gedankenexperiment" leads directly to the conclusion that neither sound nor 'thought' substances precede language hierarchically, but that the substance has no existence independent of its linguistic form. It is however possible to oppose the purport as principle to the substance contained in the form. 97 The purport is then the entity which has a perfect 92 Definition 37: "Solidarity: interdependence between terms in a process"; definition 14: "Interdependence: function between two constants"; definition 12:" Constant : functive whose presence is a necessary condition for the presence of the functive to which it has function". 93 "There will never be a sign function without the simultaneous presence of both these functives; and an expression and its content, or a content and its expression, will never appear together without the sign function also being present between them" (OSG, p. 45). 94 "if w e think without speaking, the thought is not a linguistic content and not a functive for a sign function. If we speak without thinking... such a speech is an abacadabra, not a linguistic expression and not a functive for a sign function" (OSG, p. 45). However, absence of content should not be confused with absence of signification; a content may be senseless. Consequently, the formal reduction in Hjelmslev's work goes further than in the Cours: what we have defined in the Saussurean doctrine as 'signified' becomes now 'content'. 95 Definition 1 : " Analysis : description of an object by the uniform dependences of c'her objects on it and on each other". 98 Cours, p. 157. 97 In OSG, 'purport', translated as 'matière' in Essais, p. 50.

50

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

external function with the structural principle of language, an amorphous and unanalysable factor which is qua principle common to all specific linguistic substances. The same purport is in fact shaped into various substances or it has only one possibility of 'existence', namely as the substance of a form. In the spheres of the process and of the system, 98 and on both the content and the expression levels, the form is independent of the purport with which it has an external relation of arbitrariness; the middle term, in both spheres and levels, is the substance which manifests (in the Hjelmslevean sense) the form." From these short introductory notes, we may retain now that in Hjelmslev's work the sign will be considered as the function of the form of expression and content and not as a substance.100 This form of expression and content achieves the substance of expression and content through the projection of the form on the purport, "just as an open net casts its shadow down on a undivided surface".101 That completes the categories which make the stratification of language and every semiotic system possible. The four linguistic strata are consequently the form of the expression, the substance of the expression, the form of the content and the substance of the content. The main task of linguistic theory is, according to Hjelmslev, to make the differences and analogies between the strata explicit. On the one hand the distinction between expression and content takes precedent, in analysis, over the distinction between form and substance, and on the other, three classes of strata between which function (i.e. dependence) exists can be drawn up: between the planes of expression and content, between the form and the substance of expression, between the form and the substance of content. 102 98

The syntagm "I do not know", put in different languages, is the example cited by Hjelmslev on the level of content in connection with the process; and the paradigm of the color lexicon, in connection with the system. 99 Hjelmslev stresses, in OSG, p. 51, the fact that an expression-purport, which is shaped into a specific expression-substance, may be upheld. Hence, parallelism is also guaranteed. 100 Cours, p. 157. 101 OSG, p. 52. 102 Essais, p. 44.

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

51

The relation between both planes or the semiotic function is a solidarity as has been mentioned above and both terms are equivalent in their reciprocity, whereas the function of form and substance is a selection 1 0 3 because the substance manifests the form. This subtilization, which concerns the function type between the strata, has as important result that the relation between both levels can be reduced to the reciprocity of the form of expression and content. 1 0 4 The priority of the function of solidarity of expression and content over the function of selection of form and substance points at the same time to the specific nature of both functions: the function between the relata levels is operative as to the semiotic reality and, moreover, constitutes in itself the intrinsic or dichotomic specification of the sign, while the function between form and substance is peculiar to any scientific object. The form comprises all the constitutive traits revealed by analysis, whereas the substance is the residue which is relegated to another hierarchy. 105 Form

103

Definition 39: "Selection: determination between terms in a process"; definition 15: Determination: function between a content and a variable"; definition 12: "Content: functive whose presence is a necessary condition for the presence of the functive to which it has function" ; definition 13:" Variable : functive whose presence is not a necessary condition for the presence of the functive to which it has function". B. Siertsema, in A Study of Glossematics, The Hague, 1955, p. 128-131, levels strong criticism at the thesis that the function of form and substance should be a selection. In this work the mutual presupposition of form and substance is called a solidarity, just like the function of expression and content: "it will appear... that there is selection only between the form and the 'kind' of substance; whereas between the form and substance as substance, there is always reciprocity". 104 Since selection is defined as a determination, i.e. a function consisting of one constant and one variable functive, and since the substance as manifestation of the form, incorporates the variable, the relation between the two levels is in fact concentrated into the relation between the two forms. 105 "La forme... se définit comme l'ensemble total, mais exclusif, des marques qui, selon l'axiomatique choisie, sont constitutives des définitions. Tout ce qui n'est pas compris dans une telle forme, mais qui de toute évidence appartiendrait à une description exhaustive de l'objet étudié, est relégué à une autre hiérarchie qui par rapport à la forme joue le rôle de substance" (Essais, p. 47); "... la distinction entre forme et substance paraît être d'une application beaucoup plus générale: il semble s'agir tout simplement de l'abstraction, qui est la rançon de toute analyse scientifique" (Essais, p. 48).

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AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

and substance are moreover always strategic or relative since their characteristics change according to established axiomatics,106 whereas expression and content are absolute and equivalent terms of relation beyond which no semiotic reality exists. In opposition to this difference of the function types within the stratification of language and consequently of the status of the strata, it is the analogy between the form of the expression and the content which achieves the sign. This analogy between the relata of the sign dichotomy will have to be stated in the subjoined outline concerning the glossematic doctrine of the sign. 1.1.2.2. The glossematic definition of the sign Hjelmslev is in line with Saussurean orthodoxy in stressing the primacy of the systematicness of the sign over its dichotomic reciprocity: there is no sign beyond the explicit linguistic 'context'. New, however, and more problematic is the opinion of this author that language cannot only be described as a sign system. Since language is able to create new signs continually and in an unlimited number, a restricted number of non-signs, called figurae, is required to compose these signs.107 The figurae are also structured to a system but without the dichotomic parallelism with the opposed relatum level, which results from the fact that they are non-signs and hence not constituted by sign relata. Consequently language presents a double and heterogeneous system: in this respect, the figurae represent the internal structure whereas the signs the external

106

It should be noted that this in no way detracts from the feature which differentiates the linguistic substance from other semiotic substances; in respect of the linguistic sign the 'variability' of substance does not necessary mean 'multiplicity' as is the case in other semiotics. The linguistic system is a "semiotique passe-partout, destinée à former n'importe quelle matière, n'importe quel sens, donc une sémiotique à laquelle toute autre sémiotique peut être traduite sans que l'inverse soit vrai" (Essais, p. 61). 107 In connection with the Hjelmslevean problem of the figurae, cf. H.C. Sôrensen, "The problem of linguistic basic elements", in Acta linguistica hafniensa, 11 (1968), p. 67-80.

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LANGUAGE AND SIGN

structure of the linguistic system. 1 0 8 The problem concerning the status of the figurae and more especially of the characteristics of 'analogy' of the expression and content figurae is discussed later. Central to our argumentation is that the Hjelmslevean specification

of the sign again raises the problem of immanence

and

reciprocity. H o w is the proposition that the sign system concerns the external functions of language, to be justified? W h a t is the meaning of the following attempt at reconciliation: "While, according to the first view, the sign is an expression that points to a content outside the sign itself, according to the second view (which is put forth in particular by Saussure) the sign is an entity generated by the connexion between an expression and a Hjelmslev's

stratification

of

language

creates

content"109?

the

possibility

of amending the Saussurean sign theorem as follows. T h e sign is defined as the function of the f o r m of expression and content (dichotomic and internal specification), but it is right too to state that this function is also the sign of (external specification) the substance of expression and content. 1 1 0 A t the same time, the sign is both the function of solidarity or reciprocity of content and expression and the f o r m of a semiotic substance. It can thus be noted how the principle

of immanence is specified here. It is the

valuable topic of substance as shaped purport, which makes this double signmark possible; when discussing the relation between substance and p u r p o r t , 1 1 1 we will try to determine the status that should in fact be ascribed to the intra-linguistic substance as shaped purport and the non-linguistic purport itself. Hjelmslev explicitly affirms in the Prolegomena

that 'external' means the relation with

"the non-linguistic factors that surround i t " 1 1 2 or with the designatum ("the word sign will always, by reason of its nature, be joined to the idea of a designatum" 1 1 3 ) and not a relation between form

108 109 110 111

112 113

OSG, p. 43. OSG, p. 44. OSG, p. 53. Cf. 2.3.1.1.2. OSG, p. 43. OSG, p. 53.

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AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

and substance. Similar contradictions will have to be noted, since they, notwithstanding the terminological refinement of the Hjelmslevean doctrine, show some doubt in connection with the primary axiom of linguistic structuralism, namely the closed nature of the linguistic universe. The renewed definition of the sign in which the sign is "the name for the unit consisting of content-form and expression-form and established by the solidarity that we have called the sign function", 114 enables us to realize wherein the 'analogy' between entities with external function, both sign relata, consists. Moreover the analogy between the relata is so complete that they can be defined, on both levels, as glossemes;115 it is plain that this analogy provides the basic elements for Hjelmslev's sign definition. Four similar analogies are cited in the extensive essay on stratification of language, viz. : the glossemes (i.e. the relata crystallized to form and which consequently show an absolute reciprocity) are in principle always variants, they are arbitrary, belong to 'usage' and can be dissolved in the entities of the internal structure or figurae. The glossemes are variants 116 because they appear in a syntagmatic chain and can be reduced to invariant functives; 117 this reduction is necessary in order to bring about the commutation. Connected with the 'variability' particular to the glossemes is the fact that the strata relation between the form of expression and content is effected in 'usage' or in the syntagmatic chain and not in the paradigmatic scheme.118 Arbitrariness, cornerstone of the 114

OSG, p. 53. Essais, p. 62. 116 Definition 64: "Variants: correlates with mutual substitution"; definition 26: "Correlation: either-or function"; definition 62: "Substitution: absence of mutation between the members of a paradigm". Against this, definition 63 : "Invariants: correlates with mutual commutation"; definition 59: "Commutation: mutation between the members of a paradigm". 117 "... to reduce two entities to one, or, as it is often put, to identify two entities with each other... We shall always be able to observe that in many places in the text we have 'one and the same' sentence, 'one and the same' clause... The specimens we shall call variants, and the entities of which they are specimens, invariants" (OSG, p. 56). u s "L'usage se définit comme l'ensemble des connections interstratiques effectivement exécutées" (Essais, p. 67). 115

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

55

Saussurean doctrine of the sign,119 is reaffirmed by Hjelmslev. More peculiar to his conception however is the fourth characteristic of 'analogy' which asserts that the glossemes can be resolved into figurae or entities of the internal structure. In connection with our problem of parallelism between the relata levels, a new aspect is here brought into discussion. Though the form of both the expression and the content can be resolved into figurae, the analysis cannot yet make use of the factualness of the sign; it can only relate to the internal structure of one stratum. Consequently, analogy lies in the fact that there are figurae of expression as well as of content but they are subject to the systematicness of the particular stratum of the expression-form and the content-form. This confirms Hjelmslev's original but dangerous contribution mentioned above: language is a double system of signs and figurae which further divides into an internal structure of expression figurae and of content figurae. It may be noted, in this respect, that these four 'analogous' characteristics are not realized only within the interstrata relation of the glossemes, called the semiotic function, but are also characteristic of the two other strata relations possible, namely between the form and substance of expression, and between the form and substance of content. Although the function of these relations is not defined as a solidarity but as a selection, it is possible to ascribe the 'variability', the arbitrariness and the capacity of manifestation in 'usage' to the form-substance relation of both levels of the sign. In connection with the figurae analysis, the existence of two different criteria of systematicness can of course no longer be maintained because the substance manifests the form, and so the 'analogy' as to this fourth characteristic, is no longer formal but complete: when a particular structure of figurae can be constructed for the levels of expression and content (crystallized in their respective form), this structure cannot be split up within both levels of the sign into form-figurae and substance-figurae.120 119

Cf. 1.2.1. Cf. A. Martinet, "Au sujet des fondements de la théorie linguistique de L. Hjelmslev", in Bull. Soc. Ling, 42 (1946), p. 27-31.

120

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AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

Let us summarize the extent to which the glossematic sign definition specifies the Saussurean doctrine. Hjelmslev himself regards Saussure as his main source of inspiration; this being so the Saussurean value concept means the recognition of a content form, and the opinion concerning the 'bilateral nature' of the sign leads directly towards the specification of the sign as function of the form of expression and content. It can even be maintained — contrary to the opinion of some enthusiastic writers on glossematics121 — that the elaboration of the functional analysis of the relata levels necessarily results from the insight into the primacy of systematicness over reciprocity. It has moreover to be noted that the problem of the immanence of the sign is at least formulated by Hjelmslev in a more rewarding manner than by Saussure.Though the formal reciprocity of the relata is guaranteed, the sign function extends itself, because it has an extrinsic relation with the substance of both relata levels. Whereas in Saussure's conception the substance is rejected from language (because language is defined as form), Hjelmslev takes up this substance in its selective relation with the form and opposes it to the purport. Saussure's simplism is thus strikingly corrected, but this correction raises the new question about the interaction between form, substance and purport. Hjelmslev himself puts the problem: "it is rather a question of whether or not the content-purport 122 need be involved in the sign-theory itself. Since the content-purport proves to be dispensable in the definition and description of a semiotic schema, a formal formulation and a nominalistic attitude are necessary and sufficient".123 This explicit answer that the purport should exist 121 E.g. N. Ege, "Le signe linguistique est arbitraire", in TCLC, 5 (1949), p. 11-29. "Nous sommes d'avis que le signe linguistique de Saussure est à reviser parce que même lui implique dans une trop grande mesure des données non-linguistiques... Saussure n'a pas réussi à se débarrasser pleinement de la préoccupation de la substance" (p. 20-21). However, we have demonstrated there is a possible interpretation of Saussure, where the relata do not have to be considered as substantial, because the impact of systematicness urges to a formal reciprocity. 122 The problem is necessarily identical with regard to the expression-purport. 123 OSG, p. 98.

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

57

beyond the sign scheme, does not set aside the problem concerning the function type occurring between the sign and this purport. Hjelmslev displays most subtle accuracy as to the characterization of the relations, but leaves us rather in obscurity for the item. The fact that the purport, as common factor of the distinct shaped substances, is abstracted or 'projected' 1 2 4 so that only the substance appears as a Zwischenwelt analysable in linguistics, is responsible for the epistemological questions which will be specified in the light of our study of the Hjelmslevean form theorem. 1 2 5 The contributions of Hjelmslev to the linguistic sign theory are varied. Besides emphasizing the character of functionality and systematicness of the sign, and specifying the immanence of the sign, besides the elaboration of the doctrine concerning the distinction between sign and figura — which reappears and is condemned in Martinet's theory of "the double level of linguistic articulation" — Hjelmslev's specification of the sign also offers an explicit framework of concepts 126 (form, substance, purport) by which the epistemological treatment of the axiomatics can be measured. 1.1.2.3. The parallelism of the levels of relata and the test

commutation

Since a renewed definition of the sign resulting from the Hjelms124 "Diese 'gemeinsame Faktor' darf man wohl nicht als interlinguale Klassenbedeutungen der einzelsprachigen Inhaltsformen auffassen; dass würde nämlich bedeuten, dass der 'Gedanke selbst' ärmer (dünner) an Inhalt ist als die einzelsprachigen Inhaltsformen. In Wirklichkeit ist er ... an Inhalt weder arm noch reich: er ist ungegliedert, amorph, er hat überhaupt keine selbständige Existenz... In diesem Hjelmslevs Sinne scheint das aussersprachliche Korrelatum als Projektion des sprachlichen Zeichens zu existieren: der 'purport' wird aus den einzelsprachlichen Ausprägungen, die allein als gegeben an zu sehen sind, abstrahiert. Diese (interlinguale) Abstraktion hat nur insofern Existenz als sie ... von Inhaltsformen zu Inhaltssubstanz geprägt wird" (F. Kolmar-Kulleschitz, "Einige Bemerkungen zum de Saussureschen Zeichenschema", in Phonetica, 6 (1961), p. 158-159). 125 Cf. 2.3.1.1. 126 A frame of concepts which we already introduced, when dealing with Saussure's reciprocity of the sign. There we suggested the reduction of the material reciprocity into a substantial and further into a formal one. This reduction clearly prefigures the Hjelmslevean conception.

58

AXiOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

levian stratification of language, is obtained, we have again to take up the relation between the relata levels. In this respect we no longer have in view the 'analogies' between the strata (because abstraction is made of the form-substance opposition), but the status of the parallelism between the relata of expression and content. Though, within the sign area, the relation between the form of expression and content, i.e. the semiotic function, can be called a solidarity, a new inquiry has however to be set up into the relation type of both planes of language as such. It will hence be made evident that there the parallelism is not absolute — in Hjelmslev's terminology, non con-formal — but structural. It is, consequently, demonstrated again how great the impact of the systematicness upon any relatum plane may be in order to modulate a true structural linguistic reality. The function of expression and content is a relation of presupposition, which is not unilateral, but characterized by reciprocity.127 From this mutual presupposition of both language planes results that every categorial change within one plane introduces alternation into the other. The commutation test consists herein: it has to be found out whether the substitution of one element by another of the same category on one of the relata planes brings about categorial modifications on the other. This procedure, which we will analyse more exhaustively further on, has for structural linguistics an absolute propaedeutic value because it consecrates, as the main strategical principle of analysis, the dichotomic conception of language; it moreover leads towards the identification of the linguistic entity. 128 Hence, a first but too general definition of language is: "la langue est une structure où les éléments 127

"Une relation de présupposition est réciproque lorsque chacune des deux grandeurs est la condition de l'autre. Elle est unilatérale lorsqu'une grandeur est la condition de l'autre, et que le contraire n'est pas vrai" (Le langage, p. 131). 128 Hjelmslev considers the commutation test as his original contribution to linguistic methodology. Obviously the preamble of this procedure is already met in Saussure, and also the Prague school used a similar strategy for the identification of the phoneme. In Hjelmslev's work commutation is justified theoretically.

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

59

de chaque catégorie commutent les uns avec les autres". 129 In order to distinguish natural language from other semiological systems, in which this general principle is also operative because there too a content is expressed, one has to make a decisive restriction: in natural language it cannot be stated that one element of the expression has a relation to one element of the content. This restriction points out a second and more adequate definition of language: "pour qu'une structure puisse être comme une langue, il faut que la relation de présupposition réciproque entre le contenu et l'expression ne s'accompagne pas d'une relation identique entre chaque élément d'un plan et un élément de l'autre". 130 Consequently, the parallelism between the relata planes is not atomic but structural and language as a system of signs has to be defined as the implication of independent structures, namely of expression and content. On elucidating more sharply the seeming opposition between the autonomy of the levels and their parallelism, by means of the glossematic apparatus of concepts, it is perceived that this Hjelmslevean acquisition is not void of problems. When dealing with the characteristics of 'analogy' of the functives of the sign function, we already affirmed that the 'variability' of the glossemes is absorbed when identifying the invariants as distinctive and pertinent traits by the commutation ; the 'analogy' of both planes of language is consequently not only dependent on the hierarchical types of the categorial relations but also on the nature and the number of invariants of each category. The commutation, moreover, introduces the scientific (or formal) approach of the factualness of language, for the formal reciprocity of both planes of language compels linguistic strategy to aside from empirical and a priori constructions in which purport is involved and to recognize the interdependence by a continual control of commutation. 131 It 129

Le langage, p. 135. Le langage, p. 138-139. 131 "The important thing is that, whether at the moment we are interested especially in the expression or especially in the content, we understand nothing of the structure of a language if we do not constantly take into first consideration the interplay between two planes" ( OSG, p. 68). Hjelmslev treats commutation 130

60

AXIOMATICS OF STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

has to be noted when commutation is defined as a procedure — called the 'practical' definition of commutation by Hjelmslev132 — it goes back to the semiotic sign function and causes the sign dichotomy to be considered as differentia specifica of language within the broad area of semiological systems.133 The 'theoretical' definition of commutation, now, causes the tension which questions the parallelism of the relata planes. Theoretically, commutation is a mutation, i.e. a function between the components of one and the same class; commutation then is a function within the paradigm (or system), whereas permutation is a similar one within the syntagmatic chain (or process).134 These 'theoretical' specifications place the commutation in the whole of possible function types and explicitly refer to the structural capacity of language. As far as commutation is a dependence type within the paradigm, it means the consecration of the impact of the system on the semiotic function which is the sign. For this reason Hjelmslev continually warns against the isolation of the semiotic function from the system.135 Hence, commutation is merely possible between the components of one and the same functional category. Throughout the commutation the constitution of the sign stays consequently subjected to the structurality of language. Now it is obvious how this opposition between the 'practical' specification of commutation as procedure and the 'theoretical' specification of the commutation as an

in various contexts : cf. also in OSG, p. 65; in Essais, p. 46, 71,103,106,116-117, 121 ; in Le Langage, p. 135. 132 "A correlation in one plane, which in this way has relation to a correlation in the other plane of the language" (OSG, p. 66). 133 Essais, p. 116. 134 Definition 60: "Commutation: mutation between the members of a paradigm"; definition 61: "Permutation: mutation between the parts of a chain"; definition 44: "Mutation: function existing between derivates of one and the same class". 135 "Mais la fonction sémiologique n'est pas la seule qui compte dans le système d'une langue, et il y a d'autres fonctions dont il faut tenir compte en même temps ..." (Essais, p. 117): "ce qui est caractéristique de la méthode apriorique, c'est qu'on néglige la fonction qui constitue le signe et les fonctions qui s'opèrent entre les signes; en d'autres termes on néglige la structure de la langue, et par conséquent la langue même" (Essais, p. 120).

LANGUAGE AND SIGN

61

axiomatic function, represents a new episode of the tension between reciprocity and systematicness, dealt with in our discussion of sign theorem. This episode has extreme and decisive consequences upon the parallelism of the relata levels. "The prerequisite for the necessity of operating with two planes must be that the two planes ...cannot be shown to have the same structure throughout, with a one-to-one relation between the functives of the one plane and the functives to the other. We shall express this by saying that the two planes must not be conformal",136 Conformal or isomorphic functives are indeed identified by the derivation test (hence, opposed to the commutation test), which leads to the constitution of symbols but not of linguistic signs. The 'agrammatical' character of the symbol and the isomorphism of the symbolical functive and its interpretation point out that the 'system' of symbols137 is opposed to the linguistic system in the same way as isomorphism to structurality. We consequently note that the parallelism between the linguistic relata levels is defined by Hjelmslev as nonisomorphic. This conception concerning nonisomorphic parallelism which for the time being solves our problem, will be definitely submitted, when we question again the structural definition of the sign by postulating its asymmetry. Finally, we have to examine how Hjelmslev formulates the con136

OSG, p. 99. This clear quotation is partially opposed to the following text: "... it shows that expression plane and content plane can be described exhaustively and consistently as being structured in quite analogous fashions, so that quite identically defined categories are foreseen in the two planes. This means a further essential confirmation of the correctness of conceiving expression and content as coordinate and equal entities in every respect" ( OSG, p. 54-55). Similar contradictions prove Hjelmslev's hesitation concerning the parallelism, the uncheckability of vaiious linguistic axioms and the illusion of glossematic coherence. 137 This term is, according to Hjelmslev, contradictory because the symbol incorporates only one function, namely a perfect parallelism between expression and content. This conception concerning the principled agrammaticalness of the symbol is most probably untenable whereas a 'syntax' of symbols may be proposed. The applicability of metonymy and metaphor, which as R. Jakobson maintained rightly, coincide with the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis of language and consequently with its structurality, fit in this opinion. However, Hjelmslev's term of symbol has to be considered as a deductive topic.

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ception developed above in connection with the figurae. It is considered a 'logical consequence' by Hjelmslev to recognize figurae on the plane of both content and expression.138 The only difference between sign and figura is, when commutating, that in the sign one and the same difference of content is always achieved by one and the same difference of expression, and in the figura, very diverging changes of the entities of content can result from one and the same difference of expression. An exhaustive study about the plane of language content can only be carried through, if the unlimited number of sign contents is reduced to a limited number of figura contents, as done on the plane of expression (in phonology). That this has not been realized yet accounts, according Hjelmslev, for the poverty and Sisiphus labour of semantics. "But the method of procedure will be exactly same for the content plane as for the expression plane". 139 The 'text' will be analyzed into the smallest number of minima-figurae in accordance with the principle of simplicity and generalization; at the same time, the figurae contents are also identified by commutation: "here, as in the expression plane, the critérium is the exchange test, by which a relation is found between correlations in each of the two planes". 140 The limited inventory resulting from this procedure has to be relationally definable; the resulting entities are in fact categories which constitute the system of content of the minima elements. In 1946 already, A. Martinet observed that this radical parallelism of procedure was unacceptable and he corrected it in his doctrine of the double articulation of language.141 He states that figurae of content do not exist — in opposition to the figurae of expression or phonemes — because every minimal unit of content is a signified and hence a sign relatum. It is precisely because the figurae of expression do not correspond to anything on the content level that a second linguistic 'articulation' is required. Because a factual 138

OSG, p. 59. Still p. 60-61. OSG, p. 61. OSG, p. 63. 141 A. Martinet, "Au sujet des fondements de la théorie linguistique de L. Hjelmslev", in Bull. Soc. Ling. 42 (1946), p. 39-40. As to A. Martinet, the minima-figurae still remain signs with two relata levels. 139

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parallelism (isomorphic or nonisomorphic) of the figurae is impossible on account of the absence of figurae on the level of content, a parallelism of procedure would be senseless also. Indeed, the content relatum of the sign is not composed in the same way as the expression relatum. 142 It is moreover not perceived how to state the analysis of the signified into minima-figurae exhaustively, or how to achieve a limited categorial inventory, which is required by the principle of simplicity of analytic investigation. To conclude, it has to be granted that glossematics has refined and radicalized the Saussurean definition of the linguistic sign in a rather remarkable way. The glossematic statements usually refer to orthodox Saussurean intuitions; 143 yet some completions, especially the doctrine of the figurae, appear to be problematic. Hjelmslev, on account of his concern with both coherence and deductive constructivism, usually postulates adequate formulations, especially in connection with the stratification of language and the definition of the sign as function. Hence, he needs to deal with the fundamental problem of the structural sign theorem, namely the tension between reciprocity and systematicness (or structurally). By defining sign as function of the form of expression and content, functionality is realized in the sign dichotomy. Glossematics rather considers commutation 144 as the axiomatic junction, 142

B. Siertsema gives a detailed criticism of the parallelism of procedure, in A Study of Glossematics, The Hague, 1955, p. 156-163. J. Kurylowicz's "La notion d'isomorphisme", in TCLC, 5 (1949), p. 48-60, is an illustrative lack of comprehension of Hjelmslev's modified attitude towards parallelism and isomorphism. Kurylowicz does not make the distinction between both categories and he moreover proposes a study of the so-called isomorphic structure of both syllable and proposition! 143 This is not agreed upon by all commentators. As to A. Nehring, "Die Glossematik", in Die Sprache, 5 (1959), p. 121, Hjelmslev did not understand Saussure. According to Nehring Hjelmslev isolates in the Cours the doctrine of linguistic value and stresses the relational aspect within the system. Nehring states that there is no similarity between Saussure's syntagmatic and associative axis of language and Hjelmslev's linguistic conjunction (coexistence) and disjunction (alternation). Moreover, Hjelmslevean hypertrophy of functionality results, according to Nehring, from "das beinahe fanatische Ubertheoretisieren"! 144 It has to be taken into account that glossematics focuses upon commutation: commutation is not only the main linguistic procedure with universal operational qualities, but also the most important 'theoretical* relation type.

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confirming the primacy of the categorial or paradigmatical on the syntagmatical, as well as the radical parallelism — though a nonisomorphic parallelism — between the relata levels. Radicalizing this parallelism and the impact of the systematicness constitutes, compared to the Saussurean doctrine, the glossematic originality. 1.1.3. The asymmetry of the linguistic sign or the problematization of the structural definition of the sign 1.1.3.1. The new foundation

of

commutation

Luis J. Prieto also observes 1 4 5 that in Hjelmslev the notion of commutation is characterized by a double use, on the one hand as the theoretical function type (commutation as a specific function type within the paradigmatic area) and on the other as an opera145 For the problematization of the structural definition of the sign, we are indebted to Prieto's works. In connection with commutation: "D'une asymmétrie entre le plan d'expression et le plan du contenu de la langue", in Bull. Soc. Ling., 53 (1957-1958), p. 86-95, where the asymmetry of expression and content is discussed on the level of the sentence. Cf. also "A propos de la Commutation", in Cah. Ferd. de Saussure, 17 (1960), p. 55-63. We are at one with the argumentation of O. Ducrot's "La commutation en glcssématique et en phonologie", in Word, 23 (1967), p. 101-121. The specificness of the phonological (Troubetzkoy, Martinet) and glossematic (Hjelmslev) commutation is distinctly rendered here. Especially the tension between the 'theoretical' and 'practical' commutation in glossematics (commutation as test and commutation as relation type or semiotic function) is elucidated: "Si la commutation formelle n'a pas à enregistrer passivement, à recopier de façon littérale, la commutation empirique, elle a en revanche la tâche d'en rendre compte. La commutation empirique est ainsi un indice, qui signale, sans en préjuger la nature, l'existence d'une commutation formelle. Certes le descripteur à la liberté de choisir la représentation qui lui semble la plus simple... Mais sa liberté n'est pas illimitée: il est tenu de poser assez de commutations formelles pour qu'il y en ait toujours qui correspondent à chaque commutation empirique" (p. 113). Very informing is the relation upheld by Ducrot, between the definition of commutation and the interpretation of language as extrinsic functionality (language as communication or as transfer of information) in Martinet's works (p. 114-116). On the contrary the linguistic conception at the origin of the Hjelmslevean commutation is intrinsic; language is no longer perceived in its finality but rather as a formal paradigm, and commutation becomes the 'structural' relation between both linguistic relata levels.

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tional procedure (through which the entities of content and expression are identified).146 In both cases, the nonisomorphic parallelism between the entities of expression and content is supposed. Since the commutating terms constitute invariants, which are exclusive with respect to the other terms of the paradigm, commutation appears to be impossible when an exclusive correlation is to be perceived on the level of expression only, and hence not on the level of content 147 ; here commutation as function type of the paradigm is void of any explicative capacity. The procedure of commutation now meets with the same difficulty. Indeed, it introduces the determination of the pertinent traits, which confer linguistic identity to the concrete phone (sound chain) and the concrete 'sense' 148 ; when phone and sense are presumed to be symmetric, the procedure of commutation cannot be carried through. The asymmetry, postulated by L. Prieto as necessary for the procedure but also for a more coherent theory concerning the function of commutation, presupposes the interdependence of the sign relata with phone and sense. "...Ce n'est pas au sens, mais au signifié, c'est-à-dire à l'ensemble des traits pertinents du sens, qu'on doit se rapporter pour déterminer les traits pertinents de la phonie"; 149 hence, the asymmetry consists of commutating with the signified and not with the sense, in order to define the pertinent traits of phone and consequently to constitute the signifier.150 Thus, the function of commutation can be formulated again 146

OSG, p. 66. Prieto mentions the example Regarde le chien/Regarde le chat, where commutation exists, whereas in Regarde le chien!Regarde le mien, this is not the case, since 'le mien' and 'le chien' may refer to one and the same content, and are hence not exclusive. 148 'Sense' = le sens, implying the contextual meaning opposed to 'signification' (la signification) as relation between the sign relata, and to 'signified' (le signifié) as underlying sign relatum. When we take up 'sense', it is always as 'contextual meaning' which becomes a basic category in Prieto's work. 149 L. Prieto, "A propos de la commutation", p. 58. 150 A first consequence resulting from this new formulation is a possibility of commutation, even if both signified are not exclusive, i.e. realizable within one and the same sense. Though a new definition of the commutation function is upheld, the impression that commutation as procedure remains unapplicable is justified. "... Que pour analyser du point de vue linguistique, au moyen de la 147

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as the relation between the correlation of phones and the correlation of signified but also as the relation between the correlation of signifiers and the correlation of senses; the latter relation is however only theoretical and not operational. This new definition of the function of commutation breaks the paradigmatic symmetry of phone and sense, as well as of signifier and signified. This, in fact, merely goes back to the Saussurean statement that linguistic entities are created when phone and sense, which constitute the linguistic factualness, are brought together. Hjelmslevean approach overlooks the interdependence of the concrete and abstract linguistic entities, precisely because there a specification of the dependence of sign and purport lacks. The function as well as the procedure of commutation, as framed by Hjelmslev, cannot lead towards either theoretical accuracy or operational results since the Saussurean intuition about the constitution of the sign has not been taken into account. The glossematic sign is achieved as the function of the form of expression and content, because the substances manifested through the semiotic function, organize into a structure independent of the form of both relata; commutation, la réalité concrète que constitue la phonie, il faut auparavant avoir soumis à une analyse l'autre entité concrète de l'acte de parole, le sens. Puisque l'analyse linguistique du sens, c'est-à-dire la détermination de ses traits pertinents se fait également au moyen de la commutation, si les conditions d'application de ce procédé au sens et à la phonie étaient les mêmes on se trouverait évidemment devant un cercle vicieux..." ("A propos de la commutation", p. 60). Theoretically, the determination of the pertinent traits of phone and sense is similar, hence procedurally, one may suppose that two signifiers with exclusive pertinent traits can never be realized by one and the same phone, in opposition with two signified with exclusive pertinent traits, which can be realized by one and the same sense. Consequently, one may appeal to phone instead of signifier to determine the pertinent traits of the sense. The linguistic analysis will develop as follows: 1. the pertinent traits of the sense, i.e. the signified, are drawn up by a first commutation by means of the phone, 2. whereas the pertinent traits of the phone, i.e. the signifier, are drawn up by a second commutation by means of the signified. According to L. Prieto, from this order results that the analysis of the phone supposes the analysis of the sense. This is a radical argument against American distributionalism and Prague phonology, where the commutation test rests on an illusion because it only appeals to the intuitive features of content in order to demonstrate the distinctivity of the phonemes.

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the problem of the function type of substance and extra-linguistic purport still remains. On account of the difficulties in connection with the commutation, we have to formulate the sign definition in a 'postglossematic' way. This new episode seems to be a return to and a subtilization of the Saussurean point of view on the linguistic sign. 1.1.3.2. The parallelism of participation and the asymmetry of the levels of relata151 Already in 1929, S. Karcevsky published a short essay Du dualisme asymmétrique du signe linguistique,152 Though the factualness of language can be integrated into the linguistic structure as a schematic item, yet, according to Karcevsky, an indefinite residue continues resisting to the objectivating constitution of the sign system ; for the sign reciprocity is attacked by both homonymy (on the expression plane) and synonymy (on the content plane). The asymmetry of the sign which is accountable for the new definition of commutation (not mentioned in Karcevsky), consists of "le signe et la signification (used for signifiant and signifié) glissant continuellement sur la pente de la réalité. Chacun 'déborde' les cadres assignés pour lui par son partenaire: le signe cherche à avoir d'autres fonctions que sa fonction propre, la signification cherche à s'exprimer par d'autres moyens que son signe. Ils sont asymmétriques: accouplés, ils se trouvent dans un état d'équilibre instable: ...la position 'adéquate' du signe se déplaçant conti151 We use the term asymmetry in the radical meaning, as used by L. Prieto. In the essay mentioned above as well as in "D'une asymmétrie entre le plan de l'expression et le plan du contenu de la langue", in Bull. Soc. Ling., 53 (1958), p. 86-95, L. Prieto means by asymmetry that the planes of content and expression have other structural qualities : the relation types on the level of content are identity, opposition and contrast, whereas the relation types of expression are only identity and opposition. These and other qualities of both planes, can be led back to the non-exclusivity of the signified in the realized sense and to the priority of the signified when commutating. 152

S. Karcevsky, "Du dualisme asymmétrique du signe linguistique", in TCLP, 1 (1929), p. 88-93.

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nuellement par suite d'adaptation aux exigences de la situation concrète". 153 These assertions are antecedent to L. Prieto's attempts of making the sign dependent on the concrete linguistic factualness; this new theory does not only subscribe the previous aim of Karcevsky of formulating again the problem concerning the immanence of the linguistic sign, but delivers moreover an accountable solution to our problem of the parallelism of the relata levels. For parallel is the participation of the substance of expression and content in the constitution of the sign (which, in the Hjelmslevean sense, can still be defined as the function of the form of expression and content). Let us trace summarily which are the premises of this new turn in the definition of the sign. In Prieto's terminology, linguistic entities of whatever extent, belonging to the paradigmatic or to the syntagmatic sphere, are not concrete facts, but classes of concrete facts, i.e. abstract entities. "Pour se servir d'une langue, le sujet parlant doit classer les faits concrets d'après le système de classement que forment les entités composant cette langue" : 154 usage of language is abstracting and classifying. The phone and the sense are concrete facts, which in usage are converted into classes and which are in the process of communication transferred by linguistic signs. The continua, which are the phone and the sense, can be clearly delimited as minimal and independent cuts, "qui servent à établir un et un seul rapport social".155 It is obvious that the delimitation into communicative cuts is based upon the phonic and 'sense'-ful 'context', in which 153

S. Karcevsky, "art. cit.", p. 93. L. Prieto, Principes de noôlogie, The Hague, 1964, p. 11. G. de Poerck expresses in "Quelques réflexions sur les oppositions saussuriennes", in: Cah. F. de Saussure, 22 (1966), p. 29-33, a similar idea, however intuitively: he appeals to the concrete linguistic behaviour in order to declare the Saussurean langue as an inventaire formel-, the signifier and the signified are restructurations de l'esprit. The signified is "dégagé par une opération mentale de comparaison, de classification et d'abstraction; c'est le résidu mental, porté à son plus haut degré d'abstraction, des convergences et regroupements, sur une forme donnée, d'emplois concrets donnés. Dans cette optique le sens (which means signifié) lésulterait d'une activité psychologique secondaire et un peu marginal" (p. 30)! 155 L. Prieto, Principes de noôlogie, p. 17. The question whether the minimal cut is a word, a sentence or an other entity may be overlooked in our problem. 154

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69

the linguistic sign is used. Moreover, contextual 'sense' can only be 'classified' by means of the phone. It is due to the Saussurean principle of reciprocity that each material or concrete relatum is in communication achieved through and by means of the opposite relatum. 156 Prieto's courageous reaction against phonologism in linguistics has to be understood as follows. The system of phonologic oppositions is usually applied directly to define the systematicness of language, 1 5 7 whereas the proper organization of the content plane is not mentioned. According to Prieto, however, the sign function has to be distinguished from the organization of the substances of content and expression: phone and sense organize in an autonomous way so that the sign may be constituted. 1 5 8 It is only in Prieto's work that the autonomy of the dichotomic relata is restored so emphatically: it is precisely in their autonomy that both relata levels are parallel. The use of commutation when analyzing both relata, detracts 156 This process, which takes place in linguistic usage, is 'imitated' by the linguist in the commutation test. 157 As e.g. in J. Cantineau, "Les oppositions significatives", in Cah. Ferd. de Saussure, 10 (1952), p. 11-40; cf. Principes de noôlogie, p. 26-32: "Cantineau appelle 'significative' les oppositions dont il s'occupe, qu'il définit comme celles que forment deux signes de la langue dont les signifiants sont différents" (p. 26). Prieto however demonstrates that this theoretical point of view proves to be unreliable in practice. It is by means of a signified that an effective phonological opposition is framed: this commutation affirms the reciprocity between the sign relata, but not the reciprocity between signifier and sign. It is in this respect that Prieto proposes a particularly operative distinction, namely the phonematic and phonological opposition. Only the phonological opposition is effective, whereas the phonematic opposition is an opposition between phones within the linguistic sound system (i.e. the phonematic system) without being affirmed by commutation. Moreover, each phonological opposition is always phonematic, the opposite is not true. The Prague phonology uses the phonematic distinctivity; Prieto uses the phonological distinctivity, in which, in opposition to Cantineau, the reciprocity of the relata and not the 'oppositional analogy' of sign and signifier is affirmed. 158 "Les deux substances sont, quant à leur nature, indépendantes de la relation de signification qui les unit, et se présentent l'une vis-à-vis de l'autre comme deux continua. Par conséquent, qu'une telle relation puisse s'établir, il est nécessaire que les deux substances qui en sont les termes soient soumises à une organisation préalable" ("Signe articulé et signe proportionnel", in Bull. Soc. Ling., p. 134).

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nothing from the autonomy of each relatum organization, taken separately, since the commutation recuperates the specific substances of both levels.159 The asymmetry of the relata is directly connected with the proper type of parallelism within the sign, which we called the parallelism of participation. For the signifier and the signified are classes of the phone and the sense: 'class' does not mean an absolute entity — this is opposed to the Hjelmslevean outline of the sign function as a relation between two static relata, caught in a net of functions of all sorts — but a relative entity, "qui n'est ce qu'elle est que par rapport à un 'univers de discours', c'est-à-dire à un ensemble de faits qui sont pris initialement en considération et à l'intérieur duquel on détermine la classe en question". 160 It is by means of the 'relativity' of signifier and signified on the one hand, and their involvement with the specificness of phone and sense on the other, that the asymmetry of the linguistic sign is achieved.161 Since the relata of the sign function are classes of the specific substances of expression and content, they cannot be symmetrical in their reciprocity. These various elements of definition can be resumed as follows : the participation of the relata in the constitution of the linguistic sign, in 159

Hence, Prieto's definition of noology: "... de poser les fondements de la théorie fonctionnelle du signifié, c'est-à-dire de la théorie qui part du fait concret qu'est le sens et l'étudié du point de vue de la contribution de la phonie à son établissement" (Principes de noôlogie, p. 34). 160 principes de noôlogie, p. 43; cf. also Messages et signaux, p. 19-20, for a logical definition of 'universe of discourse'. 161 The following scheme, occurring in Principes de noôlogie, p. 100, illustrates this asymmetry: classe de fait concret faits concrets fait concret contenu

SIGNIFIE

SENS \

\

\ expression SIGNIFIANT PHONIE We have introduced arrows that point out the terms of the procedure of commutation; a similar scheme — but worked out for a broad semiological perspective, which is constituted by the subject of this book — is found on p. 50 of Messages et signaux, Paris, 1966. \

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which the signifier and the signified are related in asymmetrical reciprocity, is parallel. The parallelism, which we, in connection with Hjelmslev, described as nonisomorph, acquires a still more formal qualification: not only the isomorphism of the relata levels is denied, as Hjelmslev did, but also the static mutual relationship between the two forms of the relata levels within the sign. In our view, parallelism of participation means that the capacity of organization of each relatum level is used to constitute the linguistic sign. Hence, only both 'aspects' of the sign are abstract, but not the factual entities of the relata levels. Prieto postulates, on the one hand, that the relatum level of content is the universe of discourse, which is built up by both the class of the signified and the sense as 'complement', and on the other that the relatum level of expression is the universe of discourse, which is built up by both the class of the signifier and the phone as 'complement'. 162 The concrete quality of the relatum, i.e. the factualness of phone and sense, which is organized in se, hence testifying a virtual abstraction, is reduced to a linguistic class on both relata levels, i.e. to an 'aspect' of the sign, in order to bring about the latter. This conception coincides with Saussure's doctrine about the formal reciprocity of the sign. New however in the sign reciprocity as upheld here is its explicit asymmetrical character: the sign is constituted through the dynamism emerging from the autonomous specificness of the relata levels. The Saussurean dichotomy becomes asymmetrical; this includes the claim for reciprocity of the sign relata. It now can be conceived that the commutation, whose propaedeutic value is still strengthened within this new theoretical frame, becomes an adequate procedure deriving profit from the asymmetry as well as the reciprocity of the linguistic sign. It is obvious that this conception remains within the Saussurean orthodoxy: the linguistic sign is still subjected to the radical impact of systematicness and it moreover does not lose its feature of immanence. Both, the renewed definition of commutation and the refusal to accept any other parallelism between the relata levels 162

The logical definition of 'universe of discourse' is the definition of the addition of the class with its complement. Cf. Messages et signaux, p. 20.

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than the parallelism of participation, mean an assault upon the radicalism and the immanentism of Hjelmslev's sign theorem. The mutual relationship of the relata levels only exists in function of the constitution of the sign. Whether immanence is realized within both autonomous areas of expression and content, is a question with its own perspectives : it requires among others specifications concerning the linguistic usage and the universe of discourse and it has to be connected with the glossematic topics of manifestation and purport. The qualification of sign asymmetry and of parallelism of participation between the relata levels has a fundamental explicative force, because it stresses each sign as sign constitution and hence its history, which alludes to the autonomy of the planes of expression and content. In constituted language, the sign is imposed systematicness in such a way that its reciprocity itself becomes merely formal, such as in the constitution of language the sign itself appears to be subjected to the factualness and the autonomy of the two relata levels. In this twofold perspective, one may attribute other modalities of application to Hjelmslev's stratification of language: when, in the light of Saussure's formal reciprocity, the strata of form of content and expression break off all dependence with the strata of substance and become 'aspects' of the semiotic function, it is possible to define the strata of substance, put in a functional relation to the purport, as an autonomous and constitutive sphere of language. This point of view subtilizes the Hjelmslevean radicalism, taking up at the same time the intuition of the Cours. It moreover aims at describing immanence as basic feature to the constituted sign, dependent on the systematicness of language, transcendence as distinctive mark to the constituting sign, dependent on the autonomy of the planes of expression and content. We think it proper to recall A. Martinet's theory about the double level of linguistic articulation163 in order to conclude these considerations about the structural sign theorem. As to Martinet, language 163

Cf. especially A. Martinet, La linguistique synchronique, Paris, 1958: Chapter I: "La double articulation du langage", p. 1-35. Also the numbers 1-8, 1-11 en 2-10 of Eléments de linguistique générale, Paris, 1967.

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is not only a system of significative units or monemes (the first articulation) but also a system of distinctive units or phonemes (the second articulation). The sign notion is looked at as ineffectual because the relatum of expression is composed by purely distinctive entities with their proper systematicness, as well as by significative entities which have a relation of reciprocity with the relatum of content. This distinction aims at exceeding definitively the 'naive' glossematic doctrine of the figurae-parallelism and it attacks the Hjelmslevean stratification of language; no type of parallelism can a priori be put between the distinctive and significative articulation of language. Only the feature of articulation of this twofold systematicness goes back to a general quality of language, which — at least in the light of the Saussurean linearity of the signifier and its characterization as articulus — can be defined as 'articulated' Form. For this reason, according to Martinet, the delimitation, which is applicable to both linguistic articulations is a more embracing linguistic procedure than the commutation, which is only operative within the first articulation. Consequently an important linguistic phenomenon is by the thesis of double articulation withdrawn from the sign theorem. Concerning the first articulation, Martinet objects to the isomorphic and nonisomorphic parallelism and also to any stratification, whose strata are tributary to one and the same systematicness. Whereas the functionality of the sign is by no means denied, 164 Martinet goes back to the Saussurean dichotomy with its guarantee, the arbitrariness, without taking into account the glossematic parallelism: the sign is the junction of both relata, which are independent of it. This conception offers the possibility of a linguistics, which establishes the autonomy of the relata levels into the specificness of the substance of expression and content, hence postulating the asymmetry of the linguistic sign. We already known that asymmetry, as to Luis Prieto, Marti164

"Les avantages didactiques de la conception de la langue comme caractérisée par une double articulation... comportent ... une hiérarchie des faits de langue qui n'est pas sans rapport avec celle qu'on aurait pu probablement dégager des exposés saussuriens relatifs à l'arbitraire du signe si l'on s'était attaché plus aux faits fonctionnels et moins aux aspects psychologiques du problème" (La linguistique synchronique, p. 27).

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net's disciple, supposes a privileged chain which is ultimately the one of the communication itself, namely phone — signifier — signified — sense. In this respect, meant as a criticism on Hjelmslev's stratification, Martinet writes: "On lui reproche volontiers de méconnaître la finalité de la langue : on parle pour être compris, et l'expression est au service du contenu: il y a solidarité certes, mais solidarité dans un sens déterminé. Les analogies qu'on constate dans l'organisation des deux plans, ne changent rien à ce rapport de subordination des sons au sens qui semble incompatible avec le parallélisme que postule la théorie". 165 This important thesis goes back — over the glossematics — to an implicit opinion yet operative in Saussure's doctrine, and it has made possible Prieto's asymmetrical specification of the sign. The functioning of the sign, i.e. the constitution of signification, is, according to Martinet and Prieto, a process, which goes throughout the expression to the content; this process is a posteriori to, and dependent on the proper shaping of both specific substances of the relata levels. A rewarding introduction to the structural definition of language is found in Martinet's doctrine of the double level of linguistic articulation. It indeed delivers the following elements of such-like definition. Communication or transfer of the sense by means of sounds is the linguistic finality: "on signifie quelque chose qui n'est pas manifeste au moyen de quelque chose qui l'est". 166 Linguistic communication is only possible, if the signification is caught into an articulated, linearly arranged discourse. The first articulation already testifies of an economy, which becomes more pregnant in the second articulation, where these significative units or monemes are built up by a small number of distinctive units or phonemes, which do not have any relation with the signification whose transfer is accomplished. Yet it is the second articulation which enables the communication, because it prevents from the complete parallelism between expression and content. Because the articulation in distinctive units eliminates all dependence of the phone on the sense, continual instability, which necessarily would be the fate of 165 166

La linguistique synchronique, p. 22. La linguistique synchronique, p. 26.

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each expression coinciding in absolute parallelism with the particular signification, is avoided. The double articulation offers, thus, the guarantee for the arbitrariness of the sign. 1 6 7 Moreover by means of the double articulation, linguistic communication is distinguished from all other communicative acts (as the cry, the beast-'language', and all non-linguistic semiological systems): "...un acte de communication est proprement linguistique si le message à transmettre s'article en une chaîne de signes dont chacun est réalisé au moyen de la succession de phonèmes ... Il n'est pas d'acte de communication proprement linguistique qui ne comporte la double articulation". 168 This opinion suggests three lines of force, implied in the structural definition of language. Consequentcommunicability ly, we will treat the following topics : arbitrariness, and 'form perfectness' of language.

1.2. ELEMENTS FOR A STRUCTURAL DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE 1.2.1. Arbitrariness

and

motivation

We leave aside the intricate discussion, started in 1939 by E. Benveniste, 1 6 9 about the insertion of the 'third term' or the extra167

"... (si) l'expression deviendrait... adéquate à la notion exprimée, l'arbitraire du signe serait... vite immolé sur l'autel de l'expressivité. Ce qui empêche ces glissements des signifiants et assure leur autonomie vis-à-vis des signifiés est le fait que, dans les langues réelles, ils sont composés de phonèmes, unités à face unique, sur lesquels le sens du mot n'a pas de prise parce que chaque réalisation d'un phonème donné, dans un mot particulier, reste solidaire des autres réalisations du même phonème dans tout autre mot" (La linguistique synchronique, p. 28). 168 La linguistique synchronique, p. 30. 169 E. Benveniste, "Nature du signe linguistique", in AL, 1 (1939), p. 23-29 (inserted in Problèmes de linguistique générale, Paris, 1966, p. 49-55). According to Benveniste the relation between signifier and signified is necessary, i.e. the consubstantiality of the sign relata makes the relata themselves identical for consciousness, whereas the link between sign and reality is arbitrary (so, that the objection of the onomatopoeias is put within this relation). This conception was taken over by E. Lerch, in "Vom Wesen des sprachlichen Zeichens. Zeichen oder Symbol?", in AL 1 (1939), p. 145-161 ; the latter however questions

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linguistic reality as pole of the relation with the signifier, which is alternately characterized as arbitrary, necessary or motivated. Saussure states that only the onymic names, "c'est-à-dire ce qu'il y a de plus grossier dans la sémiologie" 170 try to escape the law of immanence of the sign and introduce 'the third term' within consciousness. 171 A. Nehring's 172 interesting hypotheses only the arbitrariness of the second relation and as a follower of the Lautsymbolik and an admirer of the Herder-Humboldt tradition, considers the word corpus as well as the Gegenstand as representations of consciousness; hence, the Saussurean distinction between sign (arbitrariness) and symbol (in Hegelean sense: "Ein Etwas (dass) mit dieser Wirklichkeit irgentwelche 'attache' hat" — Ästhetik I, p. 392) may not become radical. Ch. Bally, "L'arbitraire du signe. Valeur et signification" in Le Français moderne, 8 (1940), p. 193-206, demonstrates that Benveniste's opinion concerning the necessity of the link between signifier and signified does not contradict the Saussurean doctrine: there is indeed a socio-psychological constraint which keeps both relata together. Arbitrariness only means : "que le signifiant n'a rien, dans sa structure phonique, qui rappelle ni la valeur ni la signification du signe; ce caractère du signifiant a pour conséquence que le lien qui le rattache au signifié n'est pas fondé en nature, mais est purement conventionnel" (p. 202). After E. Pichon, "Sur le signe linguistique", in AL, 2 (1940-1941), p. 51-52, agreed with Benveniste's point of view, E. Buyssens, "La nature du signe linguistique", in AL, 2 (19401941), p. 83-86, criticizes the Benveniste-Lerch's opinion and defends the arbitrariness, which distinguishes linguistic signs from the other sign systems, but he commits the error to consider arbitraire as immotivé; he places himself beyond the Saussurean orthodoxy, by retracting the expressivity of sign from linguistics, declaring it a psychological fact. The first episode of the discussion is closed by A. Sechehaye, Ch. Bally and H. Frei, "Pour l'arbitraire du signe", in AL, 2 (1940-1941), p. 165-169: "Les unités de la langue, soit les signes, sont des produits contingents de la vie collective. Elles ne reposent sur aucune relation naturelle entre un ensemble phonique et une idée ou un objet, mais seulement sur la convention qui se trouve établie à un moment donné dans un certain milieu social". The Genevan authors affirm, in connection with the sign function, that arbitrariness and necessity are coextensive, but they refuse to enter in the epistemological problem of the relation between language and reality. 170 N 15 of Saussure, in R. Godel, SM, p. 50, quoted by R. Engter, "Théorie et critique d'un principe saussurien", p. 59. 171 Moreover it is only in the perspective of the relation between sign and reality that we can place the problem of onomatopoeia and sound symbolism. In I. Fonagy, "Uber die Eigenart des sprachlichen Zeichens", in Lingua, 6 (1956-1957), p. 67-88, a reconciliating point of view is expressed. It is very confusing whether the conventionality and so-called 'naturalness' of the prosodie elements as well as of tone and rhythm, are considered as characteristics

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treat some peripheral Saussurean care, namely the epistemological status of sign and symbol as to their relation with reality. It is in this context, that we can agree that at the same time each sign is a symbol, i.e. that the linguistic entity, in the Platonic sense of the Kratylos, is a conceptual image of the denominated object. This relation of representation between object and conceptual image is non-arbitrary; as far as the original symbolic relation is perverted into a sign relation, the moment of arbitrariness appears. Any linguistic element is (puaei, as to its connectedness with the category of the Ttpc&Ta 6vo|aaxa(or symbols), but also Osoei, as to its connectedness with the grammar of signs. A hierarchical order can — provided the Platonic idea of a growing perversion is kept in the background — be drawn up. One has to distinguish between: signs as conceptual symbols, with a necessary relation between the 'represented' concept and the denominated object; sound symbolic signs, with a necessary relation between the linguistic 'form' and the object; signs with an onomatopoeic character, where the symbolic relation changes into an imitative, and purely arbitrary signs, without any symbolic or imitative relation with the object. These valuable views do not belong directly to the structural approach of language. A. Nehring undoubtedly goes beyond the Saussurean point of view, when he is convinced that the problem of 'the third term' has indeed to be treated within the linguistic sphere. The discussion about the relation type between sign and reality, which has been carried through for a long time, and moreover was based upon misapprehension and even wrong interpretation of Saussure's work, 173 seems now to be exhausted and closed by of the sign function itself or rather of the relation between sign and reality. "In die Rede lebt die archaische, vorsprachliche, natürliche (symtomatische, symbolische) Form der Mitteillung mit dem beliebigen Zeichensystemzusammen, das allein geeignet ist, unsere Gedanken mitzuteilen, und die vielschichtigen Bedürfnisse unseres gesellschaftlichen Lebens zu befriedigen. Das beliebige Zeichensystem kan jedoch die spontanen, unmittelbaren Formen der Mitteilung heute nicht entbehren..." (p. 86). 172 A. Nehring, "The problem of linguistic sign", in AL, 6 (1950), p. 1-16. 173 An example of this misapprehension is A.H. Gardiner, "De Saussure's analysis of the signe linguistique", in AL, 4 (1944), p. 107-110, where it is upheld

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the critical studies of T. de Mauro and G. Lepschy, and especially by R. Godel and R. Engler. 174 In connection with the relation, inherent to the sign, we, at one with A. Nehring, note that the necessity of the sign relation, as stated by Benveniste, does not express a psychological, but rather a linguistic relation type. The necessary function of the relata is not required by consciousness, but goes back to the factual modus of coexistence between form and 'concept' of the word. 175 Moreover, necessity and arbitrariness are not contradictory: arbitrariness means that the relata do not show a 'natural' similarity. Necessity and conventionality or lack of 'natural' similarity are even complementary in function of linguistic finality, which is communication. They, moreover, fit in the sketch which we provided about the Saussurean sign dichotomy, because they suppose the formal reciprocity of sign relata. The problem of the 'third term' and the psychological necessity of the relationship between the relata are situated on the periphery of structural interest. But the principle of arbitrariness is characterized by another tension, which develops already in Saussure's work into a new figure of dialectic opposition between reciprocity and systematicness, which supports the whole structural sign theorem. In the Cours, we also reveal these tension poles in connection with the arbitrariness and call them the semiotic and linguistic

that: "A concept not derived from past experience of reality is not a concept of all". R. Engler demonstrates in "CLG and SM; eine kritische Aufgabe des Cours de linguistique générale" in Kratylos, 4 (1959), p. 119-132, that the text from the Cours, referred to by Benveniste, namely: "Nous voulons dire qu'il (le signe) est immotivé, c'est-à-dire arbitraire par rapport au signifié, avec lequel il n'a aucune attache naturelle dans la réalité" (p. 101 of the Cours), is completely absent in the sources and appears to have been added by Bally and Sechehaye. 174 T. de Mauro, Corso, n. 262 ff; G.C. Lepschy "Ancora sull' arbitraire du signe", in Annali di Sc. Normale Sup. di Pisa, 31 (1962), p. 65-102; R. Godel, SM, especially p. 195-197 and p. 242-244; we consider the study of R. Engler: "Theorie et critique d'un principe saussurien: l'arbitraire du signe "in Cah. Ferd. de Saussure, 19 (1962), p. 5-65, with "Compléments à l'arbitraire", 21 (1964), p. 25-32 (with a bibliography about the arbitrariness, containing more than 70 titles), to be definite. 175 R. Engler, "art. cit.", p. 54-58.

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arbitrariness. 176 "Le lien unissant le signifiant et le signifié est arbitraire" or "Le signe linguistique est arbitraire" 177 is the 'first principle' which goes back to the nature of linguistic sign. The arbitrariness is moreover the semiotic principle pre-eminently and enables the sign in its dichotomy. More, the semiotic arbitrariness is the foundation of the synchronic as well as the diachronic viewpoint (as phonic change and activity of analogy). The semiotic arbitrariness, as to Saussure, testifies to his sociological attitude toward language: 178 arbitrary and conventional are synonyms that define the sign in opposition to the symbol, which contains a "rudiment de lien naturel entre le signifiant et le signifié".179 The fact that the conventionality of the sign makes possible its mutability as well as its immutability, is the utterance of antipsychologism, which supports the whole structural sign theorem. One difficulty of interpretation has to be stated and resolved: whether the semiotic arbitrariness is a quality of the sign or of the signifier. This problem is implicated in the characterization of the type of reciprocity within the sign. However, the texts, in which Saussure postulates the arbitrariness of the signifier, may be maintained to be a simplification of the statement of the arbitrariness of the entire sign. The substantification of the signified against an arbitrary signifier would destroy the radical reciprocity within the sign. Saussure objects to Whitney's conception, in which the 176 We make abstraction of the third line of force, which is in fact less important as to our general problem, namely the arbitrariness as possibility of diachrony (cf. Cours, p. 208, 221 and 228 ff.). Both notions of arbitrariness dealt with — though not distinguished by the editors, hence resulting in all kinds of interpolations a.o. the immotivé of the semiotic arbitrariness (p. 101 of the Cours) —, are implied respectively in the first and the second part of the Cours : the arbitrariness as the first semiotic principle (p. 100,104,106,110,112, 116) and, in the Synchronic Linguistics, the linguistic arbitrariness (in connection with the value: p. 157, 163; in connection with the mechanism of language: p. 180 ff.). 177 Cours, p. 100. 178 This thesis of arbitrariness (from the first part of the Cours) is due to W.D. Whitney, Language and the Study of Language, London, 1870 and especially The Life and Growth of Language, London, 1875. This author is at the origin of Saussure 's linguistic activity. 179 Cours, p. 101.

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signifier represents the signified, and his scruples against the signifier as "image acoustique", point to the arbitrariness of the sign.180 Only Saussure's didactic attitude privileges the arbitrariness of the signifier. However, principially, the arbitrariness of the signified does not appear to be of another nature or gradation. The arbitrariness of the sign is total and consequently no motive is to be found here either to repeal the reciprocity or to define the linguistic sign in some 'phenomenological' way. The linguistic arbitrariness no longer happens within the cpúcrei — Secret (naturalness-conventionality) opposition, but within the tension between motivation and immotivation. The isolated sign (in its semiotic arbitrariness) is not motivated; the systematicness which shapes the signifier into articulus, and the signified into value, motivates the sign, whereas the systematicness of language founds the gradation of absolute to relative arbitrariness. Hence, two moments have to be distinguished in this conception of the complementary arbitrariness: "La chose étonnera peut-être; mais où serait en vérité la possibilité du contraire? Puisqu'il n'y a point d'image vocale qui réponde plus qu'une autre à ce qu'elle est chargée de dire, il est évident, même a priori, que jamais un fragment de langue ne pourra être fondé en dernière analyse, sur autre chose que sur la noncoincidence avec le reste. Arbitraire et différentiel sont deux qualités corrélatives". 181 This statement contains an admirable logic. Both the relata relation of the isolated sign and the relation between the linguistic planes of content and expression ("non seulement les deux domaines réunis par le fait linguistique sont confus et amorphes, mais le choix du lien entre les deux, le mariage entre les deux, est parfaitement arbitraire") 182 , as well as the term of the system — the articulus or the value as difference — are arbitrary. But within the system, the term is only idealiter arbitrary, or, to quote Saussure 180

This is also the opinion of R. Godel, SM, p. 195 and of R. Engler, "art. cit.", p. 52. 181 Cours, p. 163. Cf. also n. 53 (second Cours) and n. 154 (third Cours) : "On revient au principe fondamental de l'arbitraire du signe. Si le signe n'était pas arbitraire, on ne pouvait pas dire qu'il n'y a dans la langue que des différences", in SM. 183 R. Godel, SM, p. 242-243 ( D 276-277).

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'relative'183 because the term as difference is absolutely indebted to the linguistic system. Consequently, whereas the term is motivated by the systematicness, a restriction is imposed to the linguistic arbitrariness. Saussure demonstrates this motivation in connection with the syntagm, but in fact, each sign unit is exposed to it. Within the syntagmatic as well as the associative area, the systematicness imposes this ordering and regulating restriction to language as a whole, which consequently is not reduced to a chaos governed by the "irrational principle of the semiotic arbitrariness" 184 . In this connection L. Prieto opposes the articulated to the arbitrary sign as the motivated to the immotivated and he mentions linguistic economy when arbitrariness is restricted.185 Hence the explicitation of the tension between motivation and arbitrariness can, when analyzing the Saussurean system topic, 186 expand in a very adequate way. Both poles, the semiotic and linguistic arbitrariness, coincide obviously with the already known lines of force of reciprocity and systematicness within the sign theorem. It is right to state that structural linguistics has taken the Saussurean doctrine of arbitrariness, though merely as semiotic arbitrar183 "s; c e n'était pas le cas, la notion de valeur perdrait quelque chose de son caractère, puisqu'elle contiendrait un élément imposé du dehors. Mais en fait les valeurs restent entièrement relatives" (Cours, p. 157). 184 "En effet tout le système de la langue repose sur le principe irrationnel de l'arbitraire du signe qui, appliqué sans restriction, aboutirait à la complication suprême; mais l'esprit réussit à introduire un principe d'ordre et de régularité dans certaines parties de la masse des signes, et c'est là le rôle du relativement motivé" (Cours, p. 182). 185 "Seuls les signes minima sont arbitraires. Le signe articulé est relativement motivé. On comprend alors le rôle fondamental que joue l'articulation du signe dans l'économie de la langue. Une langue sera d'autant plus économique que l'arbitraire y sera plus restreint, c'est-à-dire que ses signes y seront plus articulés" (L. Prieto, "Signe articulé et signe proportionnel", in Bull. Soc. Ling., 50 (1956), p. 141). 'Articulation' precisely means the impact of the system on the sign. 186 xhe tension between motivation and immotivation creates also the possibility of a typology of languages already announced by Saussure: the lexicological languages are less motivated (e.g. Chinese), whereas the grammatical languages are highly motivated (e.g. Sanskrit and Indo-European).

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iness, as basic axiom. 187 Glossematics especially has noted and recuperated both aspects of the arbitrariness: "le signe glossématique est 'arbitraire' au sens de Saussure, parce que sa seule raison d'être est la fonction sémiologique. Vu du dehors, le signe est présupposé par tous les autres signes de la langue qu'il présuppose lui-même; c'est d'un tel point de vue qu'on pourra être autorisé, en changeant le sens du terme, de dire que le signe linguistique est non-arbitraire. Mais, vu du dedans, le rapport entre une expression et un contenu est immotivée ou arbitraire. On a souvent manqué de remarquer que le fait que le signe d'un état linguistique donné existe comme un fait accompli, n'empêche nullement l'arbitraire du signe". 188 The idea of arbitrariness also occurs with the Prague phonologists and even in the distributionalism, where the signifier is made so autonomous by arbitrariness that the sign dichotomy itself disappears. The following note, from J. Katz and P. Postal, enables us to mention arbitrariness even in the context of transformational generative grammar: "There are no theoretically significant relations between the semantic and phonological components, since these components perform independent operations on quite different features of the structure generated by the syntactic component. This characteristic of linguistic description is the formal analogue of Saussure 's dictum that the connection between form and meaning is arbitrary." 1 8 9 But the mutual 187 Cf. for the scruples of R. Jakobson, "A la recherche de l'essence du langage", in Diogène, 51 (1965), p. 22-39. 188 N. Ege, "Le signe linguistique est arbitraire", in TCLC, 5 (1949), p. 26. It has to be remarked that the recuperation of both aspects of arbitrariness presents itself as very confused : first, the impact of the system never annihilates completely the linguistic arbitrariness, and next, within the semiotic arbitrariness no mention can be made of either motivation or immotivation. It is consequently, as usually, advisable to test the statements of glossematic radicalism to the Saussurean formulation. 189 J. Katz and P. Postal, An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Description, M.I.T. Press, 1964, p. 2; or also p. 161, where it is repeated that arbitrariness has to be considered as the independence of both interpretative components. The phonological component operates on the derived and final aspect of the syntactic structure, whereas the semantic component operates on the underlying and most abstract aspect of this structure : "these components operate independently of each other because they operate on quite distinct aspects of

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independence between the phonological and semantic components can only be identified with arbitrariness in a well-defined sense, since the reciprocity and consequently the sign function is repealed: arbitrariness as explained in the generative perspective results from the fact that both semantic and phonological components imply independent and interpretative operations on the syntactical output, which itself escapes from and precedes each dichotomy. For this reason the analogy between the generative and Saussurean arbitrariness is merely formal. 1.2.2. Communicability as the basic category of the structural definition of language Putting forward arbitrariness in both its forms — the semiotic and linguistic arbitrariness — as well as the recognition of the sign character of language as such, needs involved with it, brings us finally to the definition of language as medium of communication. Both, the semiotic arbitrariness, which points at the linguistic conventionality and which consequently characterizes language as a phenomenon of social exchange and the linguistic arbitrariness, which incorporates the 'order' introduced by the linguistic systematicness, assume this structural definition of language as means of communication. A. Martinet did stress rather emphatically the communicative and instrumental aspect of language. 190 The question has to be put how to reduce Martinet's unambiguous utterances to their Saussurean origin. "II faut se convaincre que la the output of the syntactic component; ... therefore, there is necessary a resultant lack of correlation between the outputs of the two interpretative components, and this lack of correlation between phonetic and semantic properties explains Saussure 's dictum". Cf. also N. Ruwet, Introduction à la grammaire générative, Paris, 1967, p. 321 and F. Wahl, "Philosophie et structuralisme", in Qu'est-ce que le structuralisme? Paris, 1968, p. 332. 190 A. Martinet, Eléments de linguistique générale, Paris, 1967, n. 1-3, 1-6, 6-5, 6-7 ff., and La Linguistique synchronique, Paris, 1968, p. 3-9. "On est tenté ... de placer le langage parmi les institutions humaines, et cette manière de voir présente des avantages incontestables : les institutions humaines résultent de la vie en société; c'est bien le cas du langage qui se conçoit essentiellement comme un instrument de communication" (n. 1-3 of the Eléments, p. 8-9).

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fonction fondamentale du langage humain est de permettre à chaque homme de communiquer à ses semblables son expérience personnelle" 191 . The linguistic reality precisely consists of the transition from a homogeneous and not analyzed experience to its articulation-, of course, language is neither a mirror of reality, nor a nomenclature, but it rather modulates or analyzes in some specific way human experience; "la façon dont s'analyse l'expérience diffère d'une langue à une autre: en face d'un fait d'expérience à communiquer, ce faisceau d'habitudes que nous appelons une langue va nous amener à analyser l'expérience en un certain nombre d'éléments pour lesquels la langue se trouve offrir des équivalents". 192 Hence, language is on the one hand, instrumental, because of its capacity of articulating and analyzing the given experimental field, and on the other, communicative because of its possibility to communicate this articulated and analyzed experience. However a basic problem, resulting from this conception of communicability and never explicitly put as a theme by Martinet, is: is communication a feature of language (hence, does it constitute linguistic reality ?) or is it the epiphenomenon of speech ? 193 That this problem has to be resolved within the Saussurean frame, becomes more evident, when confronting it with A.Sechehaye's proposition to introduce besides the 'static' and 'evolutive' linguistics, a linguistics of speech which would precisely recuperate the communicability: 194 "Tout acte expressif, toute communication 191

A. Martinet, La linguistique synchronique, p. 3. A. Martinet, La linguistique synchronique, p. 5. 193 Benveniste had afready remarked in his discussion of Martinet's "Economie des changements phonétiques. Traité de phonologie diachronique", in Bull. Soc. Ling., 51 (1957, 1958), p. 43: "Nous sommes clairement et constamment dans la parole (au sens saussurien), dans les réalisations qui ont pour but d'assurer la communication". 192

194

According to A. Sechehaye, "Les trois linguistiques saussuriennes", in Vox Romanica, 5 (1940), p. 1-48, Saussure himself had in view a linguistique de la parole. This linguistics would have the following object: "la parole organisée, celle du fonctionnement de la langue au service de la vie" (p. 10); "l'intervention de la linguistique de la parole entre la linguistique statique et diachionique n'est pas autre chose qu'un effet de la primauté du facteur humain et vital en matière d'expression sur le facteur de l'abstraction intellectuelle et de l'institution sociologique de la langue présente" (p. 10).

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... est un acte de parole ... Il est permis de dire qu'on trouve toujours à son point de départ les moyens naturels d'expression qui nous sont donnés par notre nature psycho-physiologique ... Le langage humain en est une forme socialisée, et par là profondément transformée". 195 This primacy of the 'psychological' moment in respect to the 'social' one and consequently, the award of the feature of communicability to speech, rather than to language, has, in our opinion, to be placed integrally beyond Saussure's aim. It is true that communication, as language does, actualizes only within the "circuit de la parole"; 1 9 6 but this actualization contains always a loss as to the communicative feature of language itself. As soon as the propaedeutic force on the linguistic axiomatics, of both sign value and arbitrariness are taken seriously, communication can no longer be described as the result of speech, but communicability has to be defined as the constituting feature of language itself. For language is the whole of communicative features, which are realizable within discourse and speech. However, in Martinet's doctrine no elements are available to elucidate this conception. He, though postulating the fact that the linguist aims at language through speech, does not describe the status of the feature of communicability. The combination of instrumentality and communicability of language can lead towards a misapprehension. Indeed, speech is not the instrument of communication of the experience; language itself is, as the whole of communicative features, utilized and actualized partially within speech. 197 Hence, 195

A. Sechehaye, art. cit., p. 9: "Si la langue est née de la parole, à aucun moment la parole ne naît de la langue; il n'y a pas de réciprocité"! 196 Cf. Cours, p. 27. Here it can be examined that the initial statement: "Pour trouver dans l'ensemble du langage la sphère qui correspond à la langue, il faut se placer devant l'acte individuel qui permet de reconstituer le circuit de la parole", represents but a didactic aim, which in the frame of Saussure's sociologism leads towards the recognition of the primacy of language with respect to usage. 197 Saussure in the Cours, p. 30-31, upholds: "la parole est ... un acte individuel de volonté et d'intelligence, dans lequel il convient de distinguer: 1. les combinaisons par lesquelles le sujet parlant utilise le code de la langue en vue d'expiimer sa pensée personnelle; 2. le mécanisme psycho-physique qui lui permet d'extérioriser ces combinaisons". Important seems to us especially the first element: the use made of the linguistic code — the 'choice' of the speaking

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language as a whole can be considered as an instrument; the use made of the instrument in speech is nothing else but the actualization of the communicability. We particularly want to stress that the structural conception of linguistic communication — in opposition to and even as a reaction against a speculative doctrine — has to postulate a priori and axiomatically the communicability of language as the unique possibility of a science of linguistic 'reality'. Moreover, it is easy to conceive that a certain dichotomic approach, displayed by structuralism and not at least by Saussure, can lead to an erroneous representation of the instrumentality and communicability of the linguistic phenomenon. Language and speech, the social and the individual, are not opposed as two specific and possible domains of linguistic research as is stated by A. Sechehaye, but they go back to one and the same phenomenality, which linguistics investigates as a whole. 'Language' is in fact the feature of communicability of the linguistic phenomenality. Privileging language in Saussure's dichotomic perspective, coincides integrally with the stress, laid by the structuralism, on the communicative aspect of its object; for this reason, an adequate definition of 'linguistic communication' 198 can only be achieved through a right interpretation of the dichotomy of language and speech. 199 Within the linguistic phenomenality we want to define the feature of communicability. All elements of linguistic phenomenality having a communicative function are pertinent.200 It is known subject, to quote Martinet — is indeed the partial actualization of the communicative features of language. 198 'Linguistic' communication ; this restriction will be made explicit further on; for each communication is not linguistic communication. 199 Against the sociologism (A. Sechehaye) and psychologism (Ch. Bally) of some followers of Saussure, Hjelmslev has finally comprehended that the structural point of view proclaims the reduction of linguistic phenomenality to language as system of communication. Important in the respect, is the essay "Langue et parole", in Essais linguistiques, 1959, especially p. 74 ff., where the Saussurean dichotomy is subtilized into four components: schema, norm, usage, act. Cf. B. Siertsema, A Study of Glossematics, The Hague, 1955, p. 11-13, where the exact bearing of the structural reduction of linguistic phenomenality to language is treated. 200 A. Martinet, Eléments de linguistique générale, n. 2-5 : "Toute description

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that Martinet considers linguistic phenomenality as dominated by the lasting antinomy between communication and economy: the continually unsatisfied want of actualization of communicability, is balanced by man's inertion, which puts an end to the infinite specification. The linguistic choice is in fact situated on the intersection of this antinomy: "l'économie de la langue est cette recherche permanente de l'équilibre entre les besoins contradictoires qu'il faut satisfaire, besoins communicatifs d'une part, inertie mémorielle et inertie articulatoire d'autre part". 201 It is argued here that the energy spent is proportional to the mass of information created. According to Martinet, nothing can be brought about in language which is not conducive to communication, or better: each element of discourse is a consequence of an energy, which is proportional to its communicative function. Speech is accompanied by redundancy resulting from the lack of ideal circumstances, in which the communicative activity would develop. We, however, are convinced that this explanation of Martinet does not connect communication with the exact bearing of the dichotomy of language and speech; moreover the inadequate explicative force of the notion of pertinence is its attendant. The return to Saussure, who defines language as a system of distinctive elements, and to the Hjelmslevean topic of function, 202 which is directly connected with the former, tends to be very rewarding. We replace the criterion of pertinence by the criterion of distinctiveness (or functionality) and we maintain that the features of communicability of the linguistic phenomenality are the distinctivefunctional elements of language itself. In as far as redundancy is recognized as redundancy within the linguistic phenomenality, sera acceptable à condition qu'elle soit cohérente, c'est-à-dire qu'elle soit faite d'un point de vue déterminé. Une fois ce point de vue adopté, certains traits, dits pertinents, sont à retenir..."; n. 2-6, p. 32: "... on fait le départ entre ceux qui contribuent directement à l'établissement de la communication et les autres". Martinet does not distinguish between information and communication; we, however, want to introduce this distinction. 201 A. Martinet, Eléments de linguistique générale, n. 6-6, p. 178. 202 It can already be noted here that 'function' is defined differently by both Martinet and Hjelmslev; cf. A. Martinet, "Au sujet des fondements de la théorie linguistique de L. Hjelmslev", in Bull. Soc. Ling., 42 (1945-1946), p. 19.

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it cannot be repelled into speech, but it has rather, in its distinctiveness, to be recuperated within language. Yet we are able to conceive our notion of communicability in a broader way than Martinet can: indeed, each linguistic element that is recognized as being different from all other linguistic elements — moreover, on all levels of the stratification of language —, is distinctive and possesses the quality of communicability. The different terms: pertinence, redundancy and distinctiveness, as quoted by R. Jakobson, serve the broad structural notion of communication, which we have defended: because the redundant term is not 'superfluous', but has in fact a function as to the recognition of the distinctive characteristics of the enouncement. We not only reckon redundancy to the linguistic pertinence (at one with Jakobson, but in opposition to Martinet), but we also ascribe the distinctiveness to it (hence, going further than and even in opposition to Jakobson), because we defined distinctiveness as the feature of each entity, which is identifiable (as other than all the other). 203 This radicalization of Martinet's and even of Jakobson 's point of view, leads us back, at least in our opinion, to the Saussurean and Hjelmslevean basic ideas about, on the one hand, difference and identity, and on the other, functionality. 204 At the same time a substance is given to the topic of 'communicability': communicative is in fact each linguistic entity which is 'identifiable' on account of its distinctiveness, and which can hence be recuperated by the linguistic description; these communicative entities are always functional205 and determine the total communicative value of discourse. 203

N . Ruwet, in his introduction to R. Jakobson, Essais de linguistique générale, Paris, 1953, p. 17: "Une notion qui joue un rôle essentiel chez Jakobson, et qui n'a pas toujours été comprise, est celle de redondance. Avant tout, comme Jakobson n'a pas cessé de le rappeler, il importe de ne pas identifier traits distinctifs et traits redondants avec, respectivement, traits pertinents et traits non-pertinents. Redondant n'est, d'aucune manière, synonyme de superflu. Au contraire, la redondance doit être conçue comme une fonction". 204 In connection with difference and identity, cf. 1.1.1.4; in connection with functionality, cf. 2.2. 205 it c a n w ith as much right be maintained that each functional linguistic entity is 'communicative'.

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We have to stress that the communicative function and the referential or denotative function of language are not identical at all. Language is a set of function registers, wherein the denotation (or reference) holds but a privileged place. Moreover, we discern, at one with Jakobson: 2 0 6 the emotive or expressive function, which aims at the direct expression of the speaking subject's presence in language and of his attitude towards what is spoken about; the conative function, which intends the presence of the receiver in the utterance; 207 the poetic function, which accentuates the 'palpable' qualities of the message; the phatic function, which intends the elements, expressing the contact brought about by linguistic communication, and finally, the metalinguistic function which has language or message itself as subject. The six functions (whose inventory is not necessarily exhaustive), drawn up by Jakobson, possess the feature of communicability. Hence, it does not seem necessary, even in structural perspective, to push the expressive, poetic and the other functions of the linguistic phenomenality, out of language (in the Saussurean sense). They however can, on account of their functionality and distinctiveness, be marked as the features of communicability of language itself. We draw up a broad concept of communication: not only redundancy is taken up, but also each linguistic feature, belonging to any function register, on account of a criterion of distinctiveness, which is more general than pertinence. In this way, the definition of linguistic communication is derived from a Saussurean basic axiom : "Dans la langue, il n'y a que des différences". 206

R. Jakobson, Essais de linguistique générale, p. 214 and 220. The referential, emotive (expressive) and conative (appelative) function was already revealed by K. Btihler in his famour triangular schema, in the Sprachtheorie, Jena, 1934. J. Kurylowicz in his essay "Linguistique et théorie du signe", in JPs, 42 (1949), p. 170-180, constitutes a clear example of an impoverished conception about communication. For the author, leaning upon Buhler's diagram, only reckons the referential function to language, whereas the emotive and conative function do belong to a theory of 'human activities' (psychology?) but not to linguistics. Moreover, 'sociability' (which, as to us, is but provisional and only preliminary to the category of communicability) and language are merely described in their outward relation: "La sphère d'emploi d'un signe à l'intérieur du système correspond à la sphère de son emploi dans la communauté linguistique" (p. 179). 307

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Moreover, our concept of communicability is in discontinuity with the notion of information,208 The informative process 2 0 9 is indeed based upon four terms: the speaker transmits in a certain code a message to the receiver ; coding and decoding consequently constitute the starting points of information theory. Jakobson is right when he defines the influence of this point of view o n linguistics, in the following way: "Je pense que la réalité fondamentale à laquelle le linguiste a affaire, c'est l'interlocution — l'échange de messages entre émetteur et receveur, destinateur et destinataire, encodeur et décodeur. Or on constate actuellement une tendance à en revenir à un stade très, très ancien, je dirais pre-whitneyen, de notre discipline : je parle de la tendance à considérer le discours individuel comme la seule réalité". 210 A pre-Whitneyan and pre208 We are not very enthusiastic about the good, Jakobson in some of his essays seems to expect from the theory of information (Essais de la linguistique générale : "Le langage commun des linguistes et des anthropologues", especially p. 28-34, and "Linguistique et théorie d'information", p. 87-99) and from the informational terminology, i.e. code and message (substituting language and speech). Jakobson approaching the information theorists, evolves away from Saussure. We do not only agree with Martinet's scepticism as to the linguistic importance of the theory of information but also with N. Chomsky's diatribe where he rightly accuses the complicity of the information theory with the stimulus-response psycholinguistics. The object of linguistics is competence (or, to quote Saussure, the langue) and not the process of coding and decoding. This is also the reason why we do not want to identify communication and information. 209 Cf. B. Malmberg, Structural Linguistics and Human Communication, Berlin, 1963, especially Chapter II: "The communication process", p. 17-29, which offers a linguistic interpretation of the informational process. Malmberg accepts the informational framework, leaving aside the Saussurean doctrine: hence he is compelled to forsake the phonology for the benefit of the acousticphysiologic and statistical study of the linguistic process. 210 R. Jakobson, Essais, p. 32. Jakobson continually tends to extend the Saussurean langue not only through the subtilization of the linguistic functions — an enlargement which we consider as justified and operative — but especially through the fading of the difference between sign and symbol, and, following C.S. Peirce, through the involvement of the 'interprétant' into the linguistic 'reality'. Hence Jakobson's sympathizing with the informational framework; cf. Essais: "Linguistique et théorie de l'information", p. 87-99 and also p. 32: "La théorie de la communication (it is in fact the information theory which is meant here) me paraît une bonne école pour la linguistique structurale actuelle, tout comme la linguistique structurale est une école utile pour les ingénieurs des communications"!

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Saussurean attitude, which is situated beyond the semiological focusing of structural linguistics: within the informational framework, the topic of 'sign' defined in its reciprocity and in its systematicness, appears to be superfluous. According to a definition of Martinet an informative unit is "tout ce qui a pour effet de réduire l'incertitude en éliminant certaines possibilités" 211 ; consequently, the informative value of a linguistic unit is dependent on situation and context and is inversely proportional to probability and frequency : the more probable or frequent, the less informative it is. It is obvious that such an 'informative entity' principially cannot coincide with the linguistic sign, on account of the two reasons, resulting from the double specification of the structural sign, as described above. Since the 'informative entity' is not significative and consequently information and signification do not coincide 212 , the informative entity does not possess reciprocity. For the informational problem is a problem of transfer, i.e. of coding and decoding (in their dependence on the probabilistic situation) whereas the informational entities correspond to the contextual pattern of choice and expectation. These entities do not by themselves own a signified and they hence cannot be considered as linguistic signs. 213 The absence of the semiotic relation of reciprocity within the informative entity, is at the basis of the fundamental incompatibility of both structural linguistics and information theory. The second reason of this irreconcilability is that the informational

211

A. Martinet, Eléments, p. 182. A. Martinet, Eléments, p. 182-183: "Si j'entends /il a p.../, /p/ n'a pas de signification en lui-même, mais il est doué d'information dans ce sens qu'il exclut toutes sortes d'énoncés possibles, comme il a donné, il a bougé. Si à l'énoncé tronqué s'ajoute /r/ (/il a pr.../) l'incertitude est de nouveau réduite puisque sont exclus il a payé, il a poussé, etc., ce qui indique que /r/ est doué d'information. L'information n'est donc pas un attribut de la signification, puisque des unités non signifiantes comme /p et /r/ y participent". 213 It can be perceived in what way A. Martinet inserts the information within the diachronic linguistics (chapter 6: "L'évolution des langues", in Eléments) and how G.G. Granger emphasizes the distinction between meaning and information, and discusses the informational standpoint as an enriching contribution to the study of the parole in its relation to the langue (cf. Essai d'une philosophie du style, Paris, 1969, p. 121-127). 212

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content of language — which, as we have suggested above, cannot be identical to the structural level of the linguistic content, in the Hjelmslevean stratification — is not subjected to the impact of systematicness. The informational approach is lexical or, to quote G. Granger, pansemantic and not syntactic 214 ; expressed more axiomatically, this means that the informational entity is substantial whereas the structural-linguistic one is formal. The informational context is situational or extra-linguistic, whereas the structural context is the linguistic system itself. Since information is achieved in a situation of transfer, in which speaker as well as receiver apply the code in order to bring about the message, but in which neither of them is present as expressive and conative function within the linguistic factualness itself, the object of information theory, consequently, will concern the situation of transfer and the process of coding and decoding (in their neuro-psychologic and acoustic or physiologic aspect).215 Starting from the structural axiomatics, it can be stated that, since the informational entity is not subjected to reciprocity and systematicness, all informational practice develops outside the sign theorem, on which the structural-linguistic axiomatics is based. This means in Saussurean terminology that 214

It is true that the syntactic impact is recognized fragmentarily, e.g. in the morphological information, but always as an enrichment of the substantial lexical content, i.e. the form is treated as a dissimulated content. 215 w e once more refer to B. Malmberg, op. cit., table p. 26, where the various phases of coding and decoding are given. Particularly instructive in this connection is K. Ammer's article: "Zeichen, Bedeutung and Verstehen", in Wiss. Zeitschrift der Univ. Halle-Wittenberg, 12 (1963), p. 951-965, where the sign notion is framed within the informational perspective. The sign is "über sich selbst hinaus interpretiert, wobei interpretieren zunächst hier in dem Sinne verstanden sein will, dass der ankommende Anstoss eine Kette unterschiedlicher diskreten Erfahrungs-Erinnerungen aktiviert" (p. 951-964); in this conception of the sign, all communication on the one hand is reduced to information, whereas, on the other, interpretation is marked by means of the behaviouristic model (the S-R pattern). The activity of the sign is explicitly considered, hence following Polish linguists as e.g. A. Schaff and D. Adiukiewicz, as a conglomerate of contextual facts:"... am Anfang eines überaus komplexen psychischen Reaktionvorganges steht, dass sich der dem Zeichenargument gegenüber gesetzte Inhalt aus Vorstellungselemente, aus Denkschemata, aus Begriffen, und aus emotionellen Komponenten zusammensetzt, die allen in den meisten Fällen noch aus Situationskonteksten ... ergänzt wird" (p. 959).

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the information operates within speech and not within language, and that it hence cannot be investigated by structural linguistics. The information is a category of speech and communicability is the quality of language itself. Therefore we opposed communication to information and enlarged the notion of communication, so that it no longer had to be defined by the criterion of pertinence or denotation, but by distinctiveness. Having taken into account the fact that communicability of the linguistic system is opposed in dichotomy to the actualization within speech, and having retained the notion of 'language-instrumentality' opposed to 'speech-instrumentality', we conceive clearer that the structural axiom of the linguistic autonomy (the closeness of the linguistic universe and its absolute arbitrariness before any other sphere of reality, of which language should be the representation) can only be maintained, if the features of communication are defined by their distinctiveness. Language is communicative, because its entities are recognizable as different from each other. These entities — which, in the light of the stratification of language, belong to the plane of expression and content — do not offer the substances, which would be defined as the representation of the situational context. The whole of distinctive features in linguistic phenomenality is modulated into language; language is the recognizable in linguistic phenomenality, whereas the unrecognizable and hence unknowable for linguistics, is the moment of actualization or speech, which always means a loss as to the features of communicability of language itself. These features have to be considered as the whole of signals which invite the speaker to explore the common linguistic universe in a determined direction. Our definition of linguistic reality as the whole of the features of communicability of linguistic phenomenality — with the communication subjected to the distinctiveness as its criterion — offers larger possibilities to linguistics than the Saussurean dichotomizing of linguistic phenomenality into language and speech originally provided. It becomes possible to recuperate within language, the very diverging linguistic functions (hence, not only the privileged function of denotation) as well as the prosody, the redundancy and the stylistic

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connotation. 2 1 6 Speech itself, according to our opinion, is not a proper differentiated domain: the moment of actualization is precisely this moment of linguistic phenomenality which is not communicable and which consequently does not belong to linguistic reality. For this reason, we did not hesitate to advance communicability as the basic category of the structural definition of language. Besides, our conception about communicability appeals to the sign theorem because communicability is subjected to distinctiveness or recognition and consequently it supposes the sign; for the sign is the entity, which is recognizable or identifiable on account of its reciprocity and systematicness.

216 what A. Sechehaye calls the domain of the parole organisée, object of a linguistique de la parole, is in our conception situated within language as the whole of features of communicability. Sechehaye defines the domain of the parole organisée ou du fonctionnement de la langue as follows: "... des phénomènes concrets... avec tout ce qui fait de chacun d'eux un phénomène occasionnel différent de n'importe quel autre phénomène. Il comporte de la part du sujet parlant.. .un certain emploi des ressources de la langue combinées naturellement avec celles du langage symbolique et spontané" (p. 17); "c'est par ses éléments de motivation que la langue reste malgré tout, en contact d'harmonie ou de conflit avec la mentalité des sujets parlants et subit son empreinte" (p. 28). These elements of motivation, even if they are recognizable within the linguistic phenomenality, are communicated and consequently belong to language itself. The distinction made by Sechehaye between the parole prégrammaticale, which precedes the three linguistics (the synchronic, diachronic and the linguistics of speech), and the parole organisée, object of the linguistics of speech, is typical; these terms are, as to us, chosen badly and go back to pure abstractions. We add the following remark. Our criteria of distinctivity or 'recognition' have not the same meaning as in Martinet and in phonology. Our distinctivity does not refer to the phonological pertinence but to the Saussurean différence. To escape a finalistic functionalism (as the one of Martinet) the notion of communication is enlarged to communicability. This basic category is in fact Saussurean since it allows a formalistic and substantialistic framing of the axiomatics. However, we are convinced that Hjelmslev, notwithstanding his systematism, provides the most valuable interpretation of this Saussurean basic intuition because he is aware of the tension between 'practical' and 'theoretical' commutation and between 'empiricism' and deduction. In this respect, we are at one with O. Ducrot's opinion in "La Commutation en glossématique et en phonologie", in Word, 23 (1967), p. 101121.

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1.2.3. Sign and linguistic sign, semiology and linguistics: 'form perfectness' as distinctive criterion We finally have to state clearly the mutual relations between language, sign and communication as linguistic basic categories. Sign and communication determine each other mutually. The mutual determination of on the one hand language and sign, and on the other communication and language, is impossible. Language can be defined as sign system or as system of communication, but a system of communication is not necessarily language (or each sign is not a linguistic sign). Hence, the necessity exists to delimitate the 'linguistic reality', especially with respect to the total semiological area. It first has to be noted, that the specification of sign in its reciprocity and systematicness, and of language in its arbitrariness 2 1 7 and communicability, enables us to exclude different domains of meaning from the semiological, and hence per se from the linguistic area: the symptom as well as the index and the symbol (in Hegelean and Saussurean sense) bring about signification, which cannot be inscribed in the structural sign theorem; in these cases neither reciprocity between the relata of relation, nor systematicness can be mentioned. 2 1 8 One can postulate that each 217 We want to remind : the semiotic arbitrariness or the arbitrariness of the relation between signifier and signified; the linguistic arbitrariness or the arbitrariness within the linguistic systematicness; the 'absolute' arbitrariness or the arbitrariness of language as a close universe. 218 Since in all these cases, no mention can be made of semiotic arbitrariness, the underlying relatum always exceeds the representing relatum: we could say that the symptomatic, indexial or symbolic relatum eliminates itself, in order to make the underlying relatum present. Absent in this connection is not only the reciprocity, but also the own systematicness of symptom, index and symbol, which on account of their representing character refer to the logical or 'real' structure of the underlying relatum. Ch. Bally in "Qu'est-ce que le signe?", in JPs, 36 (1939), p. 161-174, expresses the same idea, slightly more psychological. When symptom, symbol, index and signal are a fact (or phenomenon, process, event), sign is an act, i.e. the result of some intention: "l'indice est un moyen de connaître, le signe est un moyen de faire connaître : si l'emploi du signe est un acte, il engendre à son tour un autre acte chez le récepteur : il est un moyen d'action sur autrui, et c'est en cela que réside sa fonction sociale". This psychological distinction implies, as to the sign, opposed to symptom,

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semiological reality (i.e. such a region of reality, shaped by the double specified sign theorem) is language in its large sense; such a language is only characterized by arbitrariness and communicability. A still larger conception of language wherein the metaphoric force of the notion of language becomes so large that reality and language coincide, is not used by semiolinguistics and it indeed is but a philosophical proposition, highly distrusted by the Saussurean tradition. W e next have to introduce a new criterion in order to distinguish between the 'semiological' and 'linguistic' language (i.e. between language in large and narrow sense), between sign and linguistic sign, between semiology and linguistics. For each sign, marked by reciprocity and systematicness, is not necessarily a linguistic sign, 2 1 9 and each language, bearing arbitrariindication and symbol, which in fact have a 'natural' link with the relatum they represent, the criteria of conventionality and arbitrariness. This distinction already upheld in Hegel's Esthetics and taken over by Saussure, is denied by various authors. F. Denk in "Das Zeichen — Versuch einer anthropomorphismen freien Definition", in Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung, 15 (1962), p. 115-126, wants to create an axis of continuity between what he calls 'sign in nature' ("zum Wesen des Zeichens gehört also nicht, das es jedesmal jemandem bewusst ist, sondern die Tatsache, der jemand — oder etwas — auf sie anspricht", p. 120), 'technical sign' ("das Zeichen im stummen Denken") and 'human sign'. Signal, as well as abstraction, symbol and indication are brought together into the general term of 'human sign': "Das Zeichen ist mehr als eine bloss zwischen Menschen bestehende Konvention: dass Zeichen stellt, im positiven oder negativen Sinne, materielle (und in abgeleiteter Weise auch geistige) Relationen her" (p. 124). It is obvious that this idea of continuity as well as the misappreciation of the semiotic arbitrariness are in straight conflict with the structural conception of the sign. R. Jakobson is more subtle in "A la recherche de l'essence du langage", in Diogene, 51 (1965), especially p. 24-30; he contests the radical discontinuity of the sign in respect with the other relation figures and uses, in order to define the sign itself, C.S. Peirce's categories, namely: icon, index and symbol. According to Jakobson, there are only grades of arbitrariness and not an absolute rupture between the figures, whose relata relation is 'natural' and the sign, marked by the radical arbitrariness in the Saussurean tradition. 219 For this distinction, cf. G. Mounin, Clefs pour la linguistique, Paris, 1969, p. 52-70. We in this connection refer to an interesting article of E. Koschmieder, "Die verschiedenen Arten der Zuordnung von Zeichen und Funktion in den Zeichensystemen von Typus 'Sprache'", in Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung, 17 (1964), p. 553-562. The author does not search the criterion to define the 'linguistic' language beyond.

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ness and communicability, is not a 'linguistic' language. 2 2 0 It is the point not to fall into the 'annexionism' rightly accused by A. Martinet, 2 2 1 but to examine whether the criterion of distinction, as proposed by the latter, does find some place within the structural axiomatics. This criterion, on first sight, seems to be a discovery of c o m m o n sense, being the criterion of the vocality of the ('linguistic') language. 2 2 2 The linguistic sign system, since it is articulated on a double level, is according to Martinet, distinguished from all other sign systems. 2 2 3 The first articulation, in which discourse is analyzed but within the systematicness; for the 'linguistic' system is the system where signs can have different functions ("Aber die Sprachwissenschaft weiss um die Multifunktionalitat des Zeichens schon recht lange"), and where sign and function have a facultative relation and consequently admit synonymy and homonymy (p. 561). No conclusive value however can within the axiomatics be attributed to Koschmieder's criteria because, in the Saussurean perspective, neither synonyms nor homonyms but continually other signs are available, and because different signs are steadily meant in connection with the so-called multifunctionality of the sign. 220 For a typology of the 'semiological reality', according to the nature of their communicability, cf. G. Mounin, "Les systèmes de communication non-linguistiques et leur place dans la vie du XXième siècle", in Bull. Soc. Ling., 54 (1959), p. 176-200, where, imitating Buyssens, a distinction is made between the asystematic and systematic processes of communication, the extrinsic (arbitrary) and intrinsic (non-arbitrary) media of communication, the direct (as the 'linguistic' language) and substitutive communication systems (writing, braille, morse, gesture-language, etc.). 221 A. Martinet, La Linguistique synchronique, p. 3: "Aujourd'hui encore, les 'annexionistes', ceux qui ne trouvent jamais assez vaste le domaine de leur science, n'hésitent pas: tous les systèmes de signes sont des langues, y compris des jeux comme les dames ou les échecs... Il nous faut trouver une caractérisation qui ... nous permet de préciser en quoi tel ou tel système de signes qui n'est pas une langue diffère de toutes les langues proprement dites". 222 A. Martinet, op. cit., p. 9: "Il faut toujours garder présent à l'esprit ce caractère primordialement vocal du langage"; "la nature vocale du langage humain n'est donc pas un aspect périphérique, mais un fait fondamental sans lequel l'organisation de la communication serait complètement différente de celle que nous connaissons" (p. 10). Since vocality produces the linearity of the signifier, beyond which no articulation is possible, even the articulated character of human speaking is dependent on it. More, human language is merely an articulation of 'sounds' or vocality, which is distinguished from the animal sound through the articulation (p. 11). 323 Cf. 1.1.3.2.

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into minimal significative units, called monemes, operates within the semiological framework: for a moneme is a sign, because it is subjected to the requirement of reciprocity and systematicness. However, the linguistic system is distinguished from each semiological system because a second articulation, whose minimal units are merely distinctive, is added. This distinctive unit or phoneme is not a sign, because it is only definable by means of its systematicness and not by reciprocity (the phoneme is a phonic form without signified). It is by this second articulation, lacking in any other semiological system, that the linguistic sign system acquires its great richness and elasticity: for the limited number of distinctive units constitute a code which enable to form a great number of signifiers or monemes. This tendency towards economy is, according to Martinet, the main feature of all human activity in general and of speaking in particular. What is the bearing of Martinet's criterion, concerning the relation between sign and linguistic sign? Looking more closely, the adduced criterion appears to testify of linguistic 'realism' and operationality, but not to introduce new aspects to enrich the linguistic sign theorem. Since the distinctive units determine the form of the signifier (of the expression, in Hjelmslevean terminology) and acquire only as the constituants of the sign relatum, their own systematicness (or their own distinctiveness), the second articulation can hence only be considered as a specification of the first. Because the phoneme brings about a significative unit, it is distinctive and subjected to systematicness. The Prague school (and especially Jakobson) as well as Hjelmslev have always reacted to the radical 'phonologism'. For there is only phonemic distinctiveness within a situation of signification, i.e. within the sign.224 The phoneme is identified by commutation, which supposes the reciprocity between the sign relata. The distinction between the significative and distinctive unit and between the first and second articulation, is abstract (though, as we mentioned, operative and 224

It is this insight which made Hjelmslev drawn up figurae on the content plane. This is obviously the antipode of Martinet's aim to place the second articulation beyond the parallelism and isomorphism of the sign relata.

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'realistic'): for each distinctive unit is signifying, whereas each significative unit is distinctive, because it is subjected to the impact of systematicness. Hence, the introduction of the second articulation does not learn anything about the sign character of language and its specificness, but only about the substantial constitution of the signifier. The second articulation does not treat the formal but only the substantial specificness of the signifier — it moreover is principially possible to reveal an articulation of distinctive units in each semiological system. 2 2 5 The originality of Martinet's point of view consists in joining distinctiveness with vocality; for the second articulation, which would distinguish the 'linguistic' language from all other semiological 'languages' (Martinet even refuses to speak of 'language' within the semiological framework) is in fact the specific articulation of sound. The difficulty, which Martinet is aware o f 2 2 6 , is of a primordial axiomatic value. If the sentences: "la langue est une forme" and "l'essentiel de la langue est étranger au caractère phonique du signe linguistique" 227 — as Saussure has formulated in many different ways —, show to be true and if it is right that the linguistic sign, as the Hjelmslevean stratification tends to demonstrate, is the function of the form of 225

This principial possibility is moreover recognized and even illustrated by Martinet by means of the language of deaf-mutes. Martinet obviously sacrifices the axiomatic standpoint to the operative and he hence does not want to take into account such a principial possibility (op. cit., p. 20-21). 226 "On peut, au premier abord, estimer que l'inclusion, dans la définition du langage, de la double articulation dont nous venons de traiter n'implique pas nécessairement une prise de position quant à la nature substantielle des unités en cause ... C'est évidemment en ce qui concerne la substance de l'expression que les points de vue peuvent le plus aisément diverger" (in op. cit., p. 19). Martinet even remarks that Hjelmslev changes the terms phoneme and phonology into 'ceneme' and 'cenematics' in order to eliminate each reference to the phonological substance. It has to be noted that Martinet aims at rejecting the Hjelmslevean radicalism. Operationality and axiomatic force appear to be inversely proportioned: indeed, in Martinet, the operative 'realism' includes axiomatic weakness, whereas in Hjelmslev a powerful and coherent axiomatics is to be found, which however appears to be hardly 'applicable'. In our perspective, which especially wants to be epistemological, the Hjelmslevean interpretation of Saussure always appears to be a more important guiding doctrine than Martinet's approach of the Cours. 227 Cours, p. 21.

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expression and content, it cannot be perceived that the vocality as substance of expression could be used in order to define language as sign system. We reject Martinet's criterion on a twofold argumentation: on the one hand, the distinction between distinctive and significative units is hypostatized, since distinctiveness and sign situation determine each other mutually, and on the other, the application of vocality, i.e. substance of expression, as criterion of the distinction between sign and linguistic sign, is a deviation of the structural sign theorem itself. This sign definition only accepts one articulation, resulting in the identification of the significative-distinctive unit. Each unit is subjected to reciprocity and to one and the same systematicness, i.e. the one of the sign system itself: the vocal substance is irrelevant in this respect. Because, in a structural-axiomatic perspective, the linguistic sign can only be established in its semiological origin, semiology and linguistics are identically built up. This may be examined for all Saussurean dichotomies and their specifications, as formulated by Hjelmslev. We now think useful to enlarge on the dichotomy of language and speech. It is known that Hjelmslev carefully divided the double definition of speech, as maintained by Saussure228, and has remarkably subtilized229 the dichotomy. Beside the scheme (or the Saussurean langue) he distinguishes between the usage (of the scheme: "les combinaisons par lesquelles le sujet utilise le code du schéma") and the act ("le méchanisme psychophysique qui lui permet d'extérioriser ces combinaisons").230 The semiologist E. Buyssens whose terminology was partly taken over and completed by L. Prieto, drafts an axiomatic configuration (langue, discours, parole, correspond to the Hjelmslevean scheme, usage and act), which in semiology is also used as system (in Prieto's work, code), 228 Cours, p. 30-31 : "La parole est... un acte individuel de volonté et d'intelligence, dans lequel il convient de distinguer: 1. les combinaisons par lesquelles le sujet parlant utilise le code de la langue en vue d'exprimer sa pensée personnelle; 2. le mécanisme psycho-physique qui lui permet à'extérioriser ces combinaisons". 229 230

L. Hjelmslev, Essais, p. 67 and especially p. 69-81. L. Hjelmslev, op. cit., p. 79.

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seme and semic act,231 The interdependence of semiology and linguistics is made clear in the analogous structure of the apparatus of concepts and of the applied methods which, as commutation, always are based upon the double sign definition. It can be noted, with some reserve however, that until now the distinction between both disciplines was only founded upon an operative consensus: semiology investigates all sign systems except language and linguistics presents itself as a semiological subscience. N o axiomatic principle is elaborated as a distinctive criterion by the semiologists themselves,232 who because of their obstinate references to the Cours (which in respect to our problem stays ambiguous), have overlooked the renovating insight of Louis Hjelmslev. In connection with the short chapter Caractèresfondamentaux des langues devoted by E. Buyssens to this problem, all pretended distinctions between language and the other sign systems can be reduced to Martinet's criterion of vocality or to secondary differences of degree (e.g. "le discours est la sémie la moins limitée dans ses moyens"; c'est celle qui est la plus employée"; "le désaccord entre l'articula231 E. Buyssens, "La communication et l'articulation linguistique", p. 40-42, with a first version in Les langages et le discours, Brussels, 1943, § 42-45. Cf. L. Prieto, Messages et signaux, p. 39. Buyssens defines seme of semic act as follows: "L'acte sémique est un comportement concret destiné à faire connaître un état de conscience concret; ... dans cette variété infinie du concret, les locuteurs reconnaissent le sème, constitué par les éléments fonctionnels du comportement perceptible... Il en résulte que l'objet de la sémiologie n'est pas l'acte sémique dans sa réalité concrète, mais la partie fonctionnelle de cet acte, à savoir le sème" (p. 36). In the same way as the linguist, according to Buyssens, examines discourse, the functional part of speech, hence reconstructing language, the semiologist bends towards the seme, and through the seme towards the system (or the code) (p. 41). The semio-linguist, as to Buyssens, moves on the level of the code-system and the seme-discourse (looking more closely the code appears to be the system of semes, hence the aim of the semiolinguist ultimately is only concentrated on the system or on the Saussurean langue, in accordance with the most perfect structural orthodoxy), whereas L. Prieto also mentions the semic act dichotomized to signal and message (signal et message), which are concrete entities corresponding to signifier and signified. We, in connection with the commutation, already dealt with the renovation, brought about by Prieto: the relating of code, seme and semic act. We however are only interested in the fact that the semiological and linguistic structure are analogous. 232 We mainly refer to E. Buyssens and L. Prieto.

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tion de la signification et celle de la connaissance est plus grand" in language). We want to retain only one criterion of Buyssens, which points to the one, which we, in imitation of the Hjelmslevean intuition, will deal with: "le discours a donné naissance à un nombre plus grand de sémies substitutives et aux connotations plus riches".233 The impossibility of specifying the linguistic sign in respect to the sign in general, would result in the absolute primacy of the semiological point of view, hence inflicting on linguistics the status of a subscience. The hesitating statements of Saussure himself, echoed in some passages by Hjelmslev, testify of this conception. At the beginning of the Cours, the following remark is made: "la langue est un système de signes exprimant des idées et par là, comparable à l'écriture, à l'alphabet des sourd-muets, aux rites symboliques, aux formes de politesse, aux signaux militaires, etc. Elle est seulement le plus important de ces systèmes ... on peut donc concevoir une science qui étudie la vie des signes au sein de la vie sociale; nous la nommerons sémiologie ... La linguistique n'est qu'un partie de cette science générale, les lois que découvrira la sémiologie seront applicables à la linguistique, et celle-ci se trouvera ainsi rattaché à un domaine bien défini dans l'ensemble des faits humains". 234 Having defined semiology, Hjelmslev almost literally resumes this Saussurean statement: "This definition (of semiology) obliges the linguist to consider as his subject, not merely 'natural', everyday language, but any semiotic — any structure that is analogous to a language and satisfies the given definition. A language (in the ordinary sense) may be viewed as a special case of this more general object, and its specific characteristics, which concern only linguistic usage, do not affect the given definition". 235 The semiological focusing of the Saussurean (as well as the Hjelmslevean) linguistics appears to be incontestable: "La tâche du lin233

E. Buyssens, "La communication et l'articulation linguistique", p. 73-74. Cours, p. 33 (our italics); cf. also R. Godel, SM, p. 183. 235 OSG, p. 94-95 (our italics). And further: "... the linguist cannot with impunity study language without the wider horizon that ensures his proper orientation towards these analogous structures" (p. 95). 234

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guiste est de définir ce qui fait de la langue un système spécial dans l'ensemble des faits sémiologiques" ; "pour nous, le problème linguistique est avant tout sémiologique ... Si l'on veut découvrir la véritable nature de la langue, il faut la prendre dans ce qu'elle a de commun avec tous les autres systèmes du même ordre: et des facteurs linguistiques qui apparaissent comme très importants au premier abord (par exemple le jeu de l'appareil vocal), ne doivent être considérés qu'en seconde ligne".236 Hjelmslev explains why the 'facteurs linguistiques' are but secondary and why the linguist has to move within the sphere of the 'analogous structures', if he wants to understand 'natural' language. The universal applicability of the glossematic apparatus as well as the submission of all sign systems to one and the same structurally, results from the Saussurean distinction between form and substance, or better, from the fact that the substance is not determining language. It may be reminded that the same argument has been used, when we questioned the importance of Martinet's second articulation. Substances which, from the standpoint of the hierarchy are clearly different, can be subordinated to one and the same 'semiological form\ Since the linguistic sign is defined as the function of the form of expression and content, the substances of expression (both, the phonetic as well as the graphic) and of content are strange to the sign system: "the entities of linguistic form are of 'algebraic' nature and have no natural designation; they can therefore be designated arbitrary in many different ways". 237 The task of the semiolinguist is to define the 'structural principle of language', deducing from it a general 'calculus' in the form of a typology, of which the categories are the specific linguistic types. Hjelmslev introduces the topic of manifestation, in order to elucidate this basic aim of the semiological structural thought: manifestation is a selection238 with linguistic form as the constant and substance as the variable, hence, the form is always and necessarily presupposed 236

Cours, p. 33 and p. 34-5. OSG, p. 94 and 71. Definition 39: "Selection; determination between terms in a process"; definition 15: "Determination: function between a constant and a variable".

237

238

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by the substance but not vice versa 239 : different substances demonstrate the universal form. The definition of the semiology as a 'hierarchy', i.e. in Hjelmslevean terminology, the class of classes 240 or the class of language and all 'analogous structures', points at the axiomatic primacy of semiology with respect to linguistics, or of sign with respect to linguistic sign. But the affirmation of the axiomatic primacy of the semiological standpoint does not resolve our problem. A number of texts of the Cours and the Prolegomena question this affirmation in the following way. Because fully arbitrary signs realize the semiological process in the most perfect way, language is not only the most complex and most distributed of all the 'systems of expression', but also the most characteristic. Saussure goes on: "en ce sens la linguistique peut devenir le patron générale de toute sémiologie, bien que la langue ne soit qu'un système particulier".241 And Hjelmslev writes at the beginning of the Prolegomena : "We choose to tale our start from the premisses of previous linguistic investigation and to consider so-called 'natural' language, and this alone, as point of departure for a linguistic theory"2*2 ; for all the structures 239

As to Hjelmslev, the form is identified with the linguistic scht.ne (the Saussurean langue) and the substance with the linguistic usage. But 'linguistic usage' only points at one of the two defining elements of the parole, quoted by Saussure (namely the system mechanism but not the psycho-physic exteriorization, which Hjelmslev calls the linguistic act). Taking into account the text only (without contextual interpretation), an opposition between Saussure and Hjelmslev can be perceived. Whereas language in the Cours (p. 33) is called "un système spécial dans l'ensemble des faits sémiologiques", Hjelmslev writes: "A language, in the ordinary sense, may be viewed as a special case of the more general object, and its specific characteristics, which concern only linguistic usage, do not affect the given definition" ( OSG, p. 95). Cf. B. Siertsema, A Study of Glossematics, p. 57. However it has to be investigated thoroughly: 1. whether Hjelmslev sticks to the thesis that language is not a specific system, but merely a modus of manifestation of the universal form', 2. whether the Saussurean 'system' is identical to the scheme (in its opposition to usage and act) in Hjelmslev's works. As to us not too much value has to be attributed to the inconstant Saussurean terminology. 240 Definition 4: "Hierarchy : class of classes"; definition 2: "Class: object that is subjected to analysis". 241 Cours, p. 101 (Italics mine). 342 OSG, p. 19 (Italics mine).

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within the semiological hierarchy are considered by Hjelmslev as analogous to the linguistic structure.243 Why is the linguistic sign system the most characteristic (Saussure) to which all sign systems are analogous (Hjelmslev)? Our leading question arises again: "What place within the totality of the semiotic structures can be thought of as assigned to language?". 244 Hjelmslev defines language as the semiotic system, of which the classes are manifested through all purports.245 Taking into account the glossematic definition of purport which indicates the class of variables, manifesting more than one class of more than one semiotic system, the abstract definition as to the practice is then: language is the semiotic system, wherein all other sign systems (all other languages as well as all possible semiotic struc-

243 OSG, p. 91: "... any structure whose form is analogous to that of a 'natural' language". 244 OSG, p. 96. 245 Definition 89 : "Language : paradigmatic whose paradigms are manifested by all purports"; definition 67: "Paradigmatic: semiotic system"; definition 54: "Paradigm" : class within a semiotic system"; definition 69: "Purport: class of variables which manifest more than one paradigm under more than one paradigmatic". Though E. Benveniste does not write from a glossematic point of view, an analogous criterion is found in his work. In "Sémiologie de la langue", in Semiotica, 1 (1969), p. 1-12 and p. 127-135, he treats the problem about the criterion to discern the semiotic systems and language and he implicitly uses the here proposed criterion of 'translatability' : "Toute sémiologie d ' u n système non-linguistique doit emprunter le truchement de ia langue, ne peut donc exister que par et dans la sémiologie de la langue ... La langue est l'interprétant de tous les autres systèmes, linguistiques et non-linguistiques ... On peut ainsi introduire et justifier ce principe que la langue est l'interprétant de tous les systèmes sémiotiques" (p. 130-131). However, the profound reason of the primacy of language over all other sign systems is not situated in its 'form perfectness', but in its double 'structure' of signifying: "Peut-on discerner pourquoi la langue est l'interprétant de tout système signifiant? N o u s le découvririons en prenant conscience de ce fait que la langue signifie d'une manière spécifique et qui n'est q u ' à elle, d'une manière qu'aucun système ne reproduit. Elle est investie d ' u n e double signifiance ... La langue combine deux modes distincts de signifiance, que nous appelons le mode sémiotique d'une part, le mode sémantique de l'autre" (p. 132). The Saussurean discontinuity between langue and discours, dealt with in our study, offers, as to Benveniste, the absolute distinctive criterion for language before other semiotic systems, because the 'semantic modus' incarnates in the discursive linguistic dimension.

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tures) can be 'translated'. This translatability results from the fact that only language can shape all the manifesting purports: "...une langue est par définition une sémiotique passe-partout, destinée à former n'importe quelle matière, n'importe quel sens, donc une sémiotique à laquelle tout autre sémiotique peut être traduite sans que l'inverse soit vrai". 246 Consequently the axiomatic primacy of the semiological standpoint detracts nothing from the real primacy of language with respect to all other semiotic systems, which, on account of their 'analogy' or 'translatability' are subjected to language. This conception fits in the general aim of structural radicalism: all manifestation, i.e. all manifesting purport is shaped in and by the linguistic form. Since purport, as the variable of a function of selection, is related to form as the constant, a fundamentally structural adage is at work here: the semiological reality, as the whole of manifestations, only exists in as far as it is shaped within and by language. Language is the basic condition of semiotic reality, because the form is defined as the constant of each manifestation. 247 Consequently, the linguistic sign is the sign pre-eminently. The 'translatability'' of all sign systems into the linguistic sign system can be considered as the absolute criterion in order to distinguish language from any other semiotic system. The essential reason of the possibility of translatability is situated in the fact that substance within the stratification of language, is only related to the form in a negative functional manner. Language as form manifests itself in the (phonic, graphic a.o.) substance, hence preceding the substance to a certain amount. The radical formalism upheld in the glossematics, privileges linguistic structure, because no other semiotic system, in respect to the 'form perfectness' of language, can realize the whole of 'structural peculiarities', which characterize form. If translatability is an absolute criterion, arguing the real primacy of language with respect to all semiotic systems, 'structural peculiarities' as subphenomena, are only relative criteria. This means that on the level of description of these 246 247

L. Hjelmslev, "La stratification du langage", in Essais, p. 61. Definition 51 : "Form: the constant in a manifestation".

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'peculiarities' a continuity can be drawn between language and the other semiotic systems or that the opposition between sign and linguistic sign, as noted here, only implies differences of degree. Hjelmslev himself does not distinguish (but we do) between the absolute distinctive criterion and the relative criteria. 248 We only formulate these 'peculiarities' which appear to be relevant for our problem. 2 4 9 (1) The linguistic sign seems to be the sign pre-eminently, because the functives of the semiotic function (i.e. the relation of the expression-form and content-form) have, as to the linguistic sign, an own autonomy, so that the dichotomy of the linguistic sign is protected: for the parallelism of the relata is nonisomorph. This is opposed to other sign systems, where the semiotic function always tends to change into a symbolic function, which entails the isomorphism of the relata and annihilates in this way the sign value. Gradually it is within the linguistic sign that the reciprocity of the relata is best guaranteed: for it is the impact of the substance, which changes the relation of the relata into a symbolic function and which urges the relata to isomorphism. Reciprocity, nonisomorphic parallelism, arbitrariness, negative (selective, in Hjelmslev's terminology) relation between form and substance, as 'ideal' characteristics of the sign, are realized most perfectly within the linguistic sign. (2) Within the linguistic sign system the principle of economy (formulated by Hjelmslev as well as by Martinet) 2 5 0 rules pre-eminently because of the unlimited possibility to accomplish, by means of the units of a minor order, signs of a higher order. Hjelmslev's figurae theory as well as Martinet's second articulation, notwithstanding the difference of opinion as to the reciprocity of the minima-units, express the same 'structural 248

OSG, p. 97 ff. The four structural 'peculiarities' quoted, are drawn up by Hjelmslev and repeated by B. Siertsema. They are presented as absolute, which can invite criticism, since the four 'peculiarities' are also partially realized within other semiological systems. 249 It seems completely irrelevant to us that language offers false, obscure and non-ethical as well as true, obvious and ethical formulations, and that it is independent from any specific intention. Cf. OSG, p. 97-98. 250 Martinet will not accept other semiological systems, even in a gradually less rewarding way, to be able of 'economy'.

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peculiarity'. The figurae (of expression and content) or the phonemes (units of expression) are in se meaningless and are consequently no signs, 251 but they guarantee the existence of an unlimited number of sign relata (Hjelmslev) or of monemes (Martinet). Not only the phonemes lead to the constitution of monemes (or the figurae to minimal signs), but also the signs as units of smaller extension constitute signs as units of greater extension. Hjelmslev affirms: "It is an all but obvious conclusion that the basis (of 'translatability') lies in the unlimited possibility of forming signs and the very free rules for forming units of great extension". 252 Linguistic capacity is characterized by an unlimited creation of minimal signs as well as of signs of greater extension (to the sentence and perhaps to the discourse). The distinctive criterion of the translatability is based upon the 'structural peculiarity' that the linguistic sign system on the one hand is the most economic semiotic system and that on the other it is extensible to the translinguistic sphere of discourse. 3) Language can be extended in the syntagmatic order (i.e. as process) and exceeds itself in the translinguistic sphere, in the same way it can undergo a similar extension in the paradigmatic order (i.e. as system): language may become a connotative semiotic253 or a metasemiotic25i system. Hjelmslev demonstrates that one relatum can again be constituted into a sign and be active upon the double plane of expression and content. Hence, connotative semiotics is a system, whose expression plane has not only 251

Our criticism on the Hjelmslevean figurae-theory may be reminded (cf. 1.1.2.3.). We demonstrated the impossibility of the content-figurae, quoting Martinet. We criticized Martinet's second articulation, on account of the joining of this second systematicness to the vocality as substance (cf. 1.1.3.2.). It can be advanced against both authors, that units, which are no sign in se, only exist in their relation to the sign, which has still to be constituted; for they are identified by commutation, i.e. within the sign figure. The system of the expression figurae or of the phonemes is secondary (in the sense of parasitic) and it, as Roman Jakobson has always stressed, has only consistence within the sign. 252 OSG, p. 97. 253 Definition 103: "Connotative semiotic: semiotic one or more of whose planes is (are) (a) semiotic(s)". 254 A connotative semiotics is opposed to a metasemiotics, in which the content plane constitutes a new sign figure:

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a semiotic relation with the plane of the denoted content, but it is by itself a sign figure i.e. connotes an o w n (or second) content. It can be noted that the nature of the various criteria is very rich. A m o n g them, the nonisomorphic parallelism of the relata of the linguistic sign and the unlimited 'economic' possibility to constitute the linguistic sign have come up more than once in the course of this chapter. The extension of the linguistic sign process to the translinguistic reality of discourse as well as the extension of the linguistic sign system t o the specific systematicness of connotation — extensions which operate on the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis of language — will be an important object of our reflection; for the possibility of a linguistics of discourse enters here into discussion.

(

expression \ expression I content /

It can be maintained that a metasemiotics is a linguistic system which expresses how and which content is expressed, whereas a connotative semiotics

(

expression content content j

is a linguistic system which denotes the content and connotes the expression as a (second) content. 'Science' is the prototype of a metasemiotics and literature (besides all 'stylistic' units of discourse) the prototype of a connotative semiotics. A linguistics (or semiolinguistics) of literature is situated in the line of these possibilities of extension. In opposition to the other semiotics literary discourse interferes directly in the linguistic sign, which hereby acquires a connotative value. The complexity of the relation between language and literature has to be noted; it is a relation of both implication and opposition, according to the pattern of the relation linguistics — translinguistics, linguistic sign — connotative linguistic sign, intralinguistic unit — unit of discourse. Even A.J. Greimas, a promotor of semiolinguistics of literature, does not always draw clearly the distinction between the semio-linguistic wholes, which interfere directly in language (as literature) and the other semiotic systems. Cf. "L'actualité du saussurisme", in Le Français moderne, 34 (1956), p. 198, where the author stresses the autonomy of the semiotic systems with respect to linguistics, but within these systems he does not distinguish between the translinguistic and pure semiotic systems : "Il semble bien que dans ce cas, la langue, tout en restant à l'égard de ces ensembles à signification autonome qu'elle est, c'est-à-dire un système de signes...serve à construire des 'ordres de pensée' médiatisés, des métalangages".

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In the context of our argumentation, the extension of the linguistic sign process and system is only considered as a relative criterion, used to distinguish between sign and linguistic sign. This means that the criteria do not exclusively refer to language, but they also, though only in a small measure, refer to other semiotic systems. The relative criteria, of which the enumeration is not exhaustive, play upon already obtained results (the nonisomorphic parallelism and the principle of economy) or prefigure future problem areas (translinguistics of discourse), and bear the basic criterion of translatability of all semiotic systems to language. This principle is based upon the form perfectness of language and on the (negative or) selective relation between the linguistic form and any substance. It can be perceived that the structural definition of language, which ultimately goes back to the Saussurean "la langue est une forme", can rewardingly start from the explicitation of the sign theorem but it can only be achieved by elaborating the form theorem. The results of our investigation remain provisional. Based upon the analysis of the sign as tension between reciprocity and systematicness, language has been defined as a sign system; the arbitrariness and the communicability refer to this axiomatic sign theorem. The basic distinctive criterion of the translatability, which is reached in the relative criteria mentioned above, postulates the form perfectness of the linguistic sign system. These results of the structural definition of language only become definite when the Saussureanform theorem is taken up. The analysis of the form theorem is dealt with in the second chapter of this axiomatics of structural linguistics.

2 LANGUAGE AND FORM

The axiomatic primacy of systematicness on reciprocity in the sign theorem — a primacy which enables the identification of the linguistic units, coextensive with the terms in which the system is presupposed — urges us to a closer investigation about the topic of system and of structure, directly related with the former and very often applied after Saussure (2.1. "Systematicness and Structurality"). The topic of system has, especially in Louis Hjelmslev's works, been articulated by the elaboration of the axiomatically as well as operationally fruitful notion of function-, it will be necessary at the same time to distinguish and to connect the two current tendencies of the definition of function (2.2. "Functionality"). Having defined system, structure and function and investigated the varying opposition between form and substance on the different stratified levels of language, we can explicit the Saussurean adage: 'la langue est une forme' (2.3. "Linguistic form"). We consider the topics of systematicness and structurality, of functionality and of 'linguistic form' as a triptych, offering the various approaches to the form theorem operating in structural linguistics, with which our critical and epistemological attitude must be confronted. 2.1.

SYSTEMATICNESS AND STRUCTURALITY

2.1.1. Language as system The way to the system, in the order of the linguistic procedure,

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seems to move through operations (delimitation and identification of units by commutation) on the process. First, it has to be examined which is the relation between process and system and in how far the poles of this Hjelmslevean opposition coincide with the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis of language (2.1.1.1. "From Process to System"). Next, the complex definition of system in the Cours and especially the distinctions between solidarity and non-isolation, between difference and opposition will be explored (2.1.1.2. "Saussure's Notion of System"). Finally it will be revealed what consequences result from the structural conception of system for the linguistic procedure (2.1.1.3. "The Linguistic Procedure: Deduction and 'Empiricism'"). 2.1.1.1. From process to system "If the linguistic investigator is given anything, it is the as yet unanalyzed text in its undivided and absolute integrity".1 According to Hjelmslev, text is a semiotic process, of which the classes of whatever extension are manifested by all purports. 2 A process is a relational hierarchy, i.e. a class of classes which are 'relationally' (according to a 'both-and' function) related, whereas a system is a correlational hierarchy, i.e. a class of classes which are 'correlationally' (according to an 'either-or' function) related. Consequently, text and process denote one and the same linguistic factualness: this factualness is defined a text when the selective function with the purport is considered; it is defined a process, when the relational functions, i.e. the relations inherent to the syntagmatic hierarchy, are dealt with. Hjelmslev specifies, on the contrary, system as a paradigmatic hierarchy of which the functions are correlational. These distinctions, as sketched here, can be explained by the well-known passage from the Cours: only the functions of which the functives (i.e. the poles of the 1

OSG, p. 13. Definition 90: "Text: syntagmatic whose chains, if expanded indefinitely are manifested by all purports". Cf. also the definitions 26, 27, 28 and 29. 2

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functions) are combined in praesentia, are relational, whereas the functives of the correlational function are selected in absentia. Process (or text) is related to system, as syntagm to paradigm, combination to selection, continuity to similarity (Jakobson), relation to correlation (Hjelmslev), conjunction to disjunction (Hjelmslev), coexistence to alternation (Hjelmslev) and delimitation to classification.3 When analyzing the relation between process and system, we have to take into account the following remarks: 1. The procedure, which enables the transition of process to system, does not start from the 'non-analyzed text', as some vague statements of Hjelmslev made suppose (cf. the quotation at the beginning of 2.1.1.1.), but from the analyzed process, i.e. the process, of which the syntagmatic units are already delimited. Hjelmslev suggests alternately a double starting procedure: either the 'undivided and absolute integrity' of the text is analyzed into a relational hierarchy, where functions and functives have been 'recognized', or this analyzed process is changed into system. The transition through speech phenomenality to language (from parole to langue) can be stated as parallel to the first starting procedure, whereas the transition of the syntagmatic to the paradigmatic systematicness (in Hjelmslevean terms, of process to system) can be stated as parallel to the second starting procedure.4 Consequently, process and system are not to be identified with parole and langue ; but it is true that, as language is aimed at through speech phenomenality as the whole of communicability features of this phenomenality, system is achieved as the functional whole of terms, which have already been delimited as units of the process. Process and system, syntagm and paradigm are mutually related, as parole and langue,

3

We do not enter into these oppositions, known sufficiently by those using the concepts of structural linguistics. A good résumé is given by R. Barthes, "Eléments de sémiologie", Communications 4, p. 114 ff. 4 It can be noted that Hjelmslev does not explicitly make this distinction, causing the hard definition of deduction as principle of linguistic analysis; for it can be premised that the so-called first starting procedure is inductive, the (non-analyzed) text becomes through delimitation the (analyzed) process, whereas the second starting procedure (from process to system) is deductive

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but they cannot be identified with them. 5 2. The process is constituted by delimitation of the units within the non-analyzed text: the process governs the inductive procedure, which operationally appears to be primary. The system is reached by the classification of terms within the process: the system governs the deductive procedure, which axiomatically appears to be primary. This operational or axiomatic primacy is determined by the systematicness which is the final result of the procedure: whereas the process is primary in the order of linguistic analysis, the system has the absolute primacy in the order of linguistic 'reality'. This statement points at a basic tendency of structural linguistics: not only language is privileged with respect to speech, but also, within language, the paradigmatic systematicness with respect to the syntagmatic one (or system with respect to process). However, a syntagmatic linguistics is not elaborated in the Cours — although its principle is recognized —; in the glossematic doctrine only the paradigmatic systematicness is pointed out as 'system' and ambiguity still exists concerning the systematicness of the process. The twofold reduction, characterizing linguistics (from speech to language and, within language, from process to system) indicates two restrictions, which are decisive as to the bearing of the structural project. The primacy of the systematic or paradigmatic axis on each other linguistic feature and even on the total speech phenomenality does not preserve linguistics automatically from each socio-psychological contamination. For the system as paradigm is defined by Saussure as the associative field, of which the terms are brought together by phonic and semantic affinity, the consti-

5

Saussure himself was aware of this difficulty: "... ne s'ensuit-il pas que le syntagme relève de la parole? Nous ne le pensons pas. Le propre de la parole, c'est la liberté des combinaisons; il faut donc se demander si tous les syntagmes sont également libres". He remarks that some syntagms are fixed (belonging consequently to language) and subjected to the syntactic order; "mais il faut reconnaître que dans le domaine du syntagme il n'y a pas de limite tranchée entre le fait de langue, marque de l'usage collectif, et le fait de parole ... Dans une foule de cas, il est difficile de classer une combinaison d'unités" (Cours, p. 172-173). Hjelmslev is less hesitating in this respect.

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tution of the system by means of terms which are but 'virtual' and mutually related in absentia is, to quote Saussure, a 'mental' activity. The Saussurean intuitionism has been attacked by Chomsky: generative grammar, after all, will be a syntax of the syntagmatic systematicness, in order to escape the paradigmatical taxonomy. Moreover, Hjelmslev's taxonomic structuralism represents to a large extent the Saussurean orthodoxy as well as its tendency to reduce process to system. Besides the risk of falling into associationism and intuitionism, the hypostasis of the system contains a second restriction: a linguistics of discourse seems, in the structural perspective, to be difficult because discourse can only be defined as the syntagmatic unit with the largest extension. Only a linguistics of the process can introduce a translinguistics of the discourse. If the proper systematicness of the process is absorbed in the systematicness of the system, as is supposed by the Hjelmslevean principle we consequently deal with, it cannot be perceived how structural linguistics can ever reach the analysis of discourse. Chomsky's 'syntactic' perspective probably offers a more adequate solution. This double remark aimed at situating the following glossematic axiom: "A priori it would seem to be a generally valid thesis that for every process can be analyzed and described by means of a limited number of premises".6 Accordingly, it is obvious that systematicness is only attributed to the system and not to the process, since process and system are opposed as 'fluctuation' and "underlying constancy that makes language a language".7 The aim of linguistic construction is the analysis of each process into a limited number of units, which are grouped into classes according to their combining possibilities; this ultimately aims at a general and exhaustive calculus of all possible combinations. 8 The ambiguity as to the 6

OSG, p. 9. OSG, p. 8 and p. 10. Hjelmslev reproaches the so-called 'humanistic' vision on language its a priori denying of the existence of constancy, hence linguistics will never be able to become a "systematic, exact and generalizing science". 8 Not only all the combining possibilities of one language, but of all possible 7

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starting procedure of linguistic analysis may be recognized again. On the one hand, the inductive procedure, called 'partition' by Hjelmslev,9 takes the (non-analyzed) text as its 'datum'10 and is governed by the possibility of delimitation in classes and components of classes of the relational hierarchy, which is the process. But on the other, this procedure is subjected to a counter-movement: since the system is the basis of the process ("the process has a underlying system") and since the system, as will be stressed further on, enables the process, the starting procedure can be considered as a deductive analysis of the system, called 'articulation' by Hjelmslev,11 i.e. the recognition of the terms of the calculus of all possible relations in the units of the process. Though a glossematic terminology with a parallel apparatus of concepts for process and system is available,12 and though Hjelmslev, in some of his earlier studies, mentions the equivalence of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis, 13 yet the Prolegomena is explicit: the relation of process to system is the relation of the function of determination, i.e. the function between a constant

languages: "...linguistic theory must be of use for describing and predicting not only any possible text composed in a certain language, but, on the basis of the information that it goes about language in general, any possible text composed in any language whatsoever" (OSG, p. 17); and further: "... and to admit them into this theory, so that it will be applicable even to texts and languages that have not appeared in this practice, or to languages that have perhaps never been realized, and some of which will probably never be realized" (P. 18)! 9 Definition 31: "Partition: analysis of a process". 10 OSG, p. 21. Also: "the immediate datum is the unanalyzed whole" (p. 29). 11 Definition 30: "Articulation : analysis of a system". 12 OSG, p. 24 and 28 if. Another example of this parallelism in connection with the substance of expression, p. 51. 13 Cf. "La structure morphologique", in Essais, p. 127: "Ces deux sortes de fonctions (paradigmatiques et syntagmatiques) sont fonctions l'une de l'autre; le système, qui par définition est paradigmatique, n'existe qu'en vertu de la conjonction syntagmatique. Ainsi la catégorie, classe fondamentale de la paradigmatique, est définie par la faculté de ses membres d'entrer en des relations spécifiques; et l'unité, classe fondamentale de la syntagmatique, est définie par l'appartenance de chacun de ses membres à une catégorie spécifique".

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(the system) and a variable (the process) : 14 "a closer investigation of this function (relation between process and system) soon shows us that it is determination in which the system is the constant: the process determines the system".15 Though the process is directly (inductively) observable and the system has to be 'discovered', yet the existence of the system is the necessary premise for the existence of the process. The textual process is, with respect to the 'real' system, accidental (though 'concrete' and observable); this ultimately means that the process belongs to the order of the linguistic factualness, whereas the system belongs to the order of the linguistic reality. The systematicness of the process is but the presence of the system in the process, consequently the structural radicalism, represented in its most coherent form in glossematics, not only denies all systematicness to speech phenomenality, but even to the syntagmatic axis of language. The double reduction, mentioned above, is effected: speech is reduced to language and language itself to the paradigm or the Hjelmslevean system. The conception of the system, as operating in glossematics and being of great importance in order to understand the structural project — for the bearing of this project is presumed by the radical axiomatic tendencies —, can be approached critically in three ways. The reduction of process to system interferes with an investigation of discourse: if no specific systematicness is attributed to the syntagmatic axis, the possibility of a translinguistic area, which is the continuous extension of intralinguistic schemes, is denied; it will appear necessary to leave the Hjelmslevean radicalism in order to gain capacity of explanation with respect to the discourse.16 Next, it can be demonstrated that the glossematic definition of 14

Definition 15:"Determination: function between a constant and a variable". OSG, p. 36; further: "the process comes into existence by virtue of a system's being present behind it, a system which governs and determines it in its possible development"; "it is thus impossible to have a text without a language lying behind it. On the other hand, one can have a language without a text constructed in that language". 16 Cf. 5. R. Jakobson especially stresses this syntagmatic specificness and supposes that the linguistic creativity appears as the transgression of the specificness of both linguistic axes; hence it is supposed that syntagm and paradigm are definable in their specificness. 15

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system is the reduction of the more ambiguous Saussurean conception of systematicness. Though Hjelmslev explicitly joins the Cours}1 he however aims at abolishing the important distinction of opposition and difference, as a consequence of his reaction against the Saussurean 'psychologism' (associationism). It seems important to us to restore, in connection with the topic of system, the Saussurean orthodoxy. 18 Finally, Hjelmslev also wants to escape the circular movement created by the hypostasis of the dematerialized paradigmatic systematicness. He introduces the empirical principle and the notion of 'applicability' of the linguistic theory; 19 moreover, the articulation within the system definition is aimed at by the functionality, which appears to be an attempt to escape a too mechanistic conception of the system.20 We will have to demonstrate that these subtilizing attempts are but illusory and that they cannot make structural radicalism more acceptable. Thus, the linguistic theory, in glossematic perspective, has to be considered as a calculus:21 for the description of the text is only possible through an 'algebra of language'. The effective linguistic fragments are always part of the whole of possible fragments ("The calculation permits the prediction of possibilities, but says nothing about their realization").22 The system results from the linguistic calculus;23 the terms of a paradigm are always 'algebraic 17

Hjelmslev, in various passages, alludes to the Saussurean conception of system and even to the incomprehension shown by linguistics in this respect. In OSG, p. 22-23 : "Since F. de Saussure it has often been asserted that there is an interdependence between certain elements within a language, such that a language cannot have one of those elements without also having the other. The idea is doubtless correct,even if it has often been exaggerated and incorrectly applied"! A similar involuntary self-accusation is met with in Essais, p. 114: "La fameuse maxime selon laquelle tout se tient dans le système d'une langue a été souvent appliqué d'une façon trop rigide, trop mécanique et trop absolue. Il convient de bien garder les proportions"! 18 Cf. 2.1.1.2. 19 OSG, p. 18-19. 20 Cf. 2.2. 21 B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 59. In OSG, p. 17-18, 22, 87, 106, 126: "It is part of the task of linguistics to set up a general calculus for the relations between elements". 22 OSG, p. 15. 23 A recent text of Hjelmslev leaves no doubt: "... l'établissement d'une telle

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entities', which are arbitrary with respect to both manifesting substance and process. The linguistic theory "could be an algebra language, operating with unnamed entities without natural designation".24 This immanent algebra of the linguistic system can be given a content by the study of its internal functionality. That language is a systematic whole of things and not of relations is indeed a 'metaphysical' hypothesis;25 only the 'naive realism' théorie (c'est-à-dire une théorie générale de la structure linguistique) n'est pas d'abord et surtout un travail empirique, c'est un travail de calcul (Italics mine). Il est en effet impossible de parcourir tous les textes existants, et ce serait d'ailleurs assez inutile, car la théorie doit s'appliquer non seulement aux textes écrits ou parlés dans l'avenir, donc à tous les textes et à toutes les langues théoriquement possibles (Italics mine). L'expérience n'est par conséquent pas une base suffisante pour une théorie de la structure linguistique... Ce travail général sera déduit de la définition et, en lui-même, ne s'appuiera pas sur l'expérience, mais seulement sur les règles de la logique (Italics mine). On n'a pas à se soucier de savoir si le calcul s'accorde bien avec la langue ou les textes considérés. Certes la théorie de la structure linguistique doit imposer au calcul d'amener à des descriptions exemptes de contradictions et exhaustives, mais, pour le vérifier, on n'a pas à examiner si la théorie s'applique vraiment à tous les objets existants ...; on a seulement à contrôler si le calcul théorique est, en lui-même, exempt de la contradiction et exhaustif. Le théoricien du langage procède ici comme tout autre théoricien..." (in Le Langage, p. 140-141). It is not clear to the commentators of Hjelmslev whatever the system scheme of all possible languages (the realized as well as the non-realized) could mean. Hence, the criticism of A. Martinet, "Au sujet des fondements de la théorie linguistique de L. Hjelmslev", in Bull. Soc. Ling., 42 (1946), especially p. 36 ff., of B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 21-25, of A. Nehring, "Die Glossematik", in Die Sprache, 5 (1959), especially p. 96-101, is formulated against this opinion. 24 OSG, p. 71. Here a nostalgia for logic (and ultimately for the identification between logic and linguistics) can be recognized. Saussure never mentions a calculus of all possible languages, consequently also of the non-realized. He only deals with the idea of an algebraic description of the existing languages. The statement "la langue est pour ainsi dire une algèbre qui n'aurait que des termes complexes" (Cours, p. 168), may not be explained in Hjelmslevean sense. Moreover in most of Hjelmslev's texts, a greater mistrust in connection with a logical approach of language can be noted than in the Prolegomena. E.g.: "Il faudra rester plus sceptique à l'égard des tentatives, qui ont surtout fleuri dans le passé, d'établir une science de contenu linguistique sur la base de la logique conceptuelle, entre autres raisons parce qu'il y a, dans ce genre de tentatives, un cercle vicieux... : la logique conceptuelle est toujours une langue déguisée, et le fait qu'elle soit arbitrairement transformée ou subtilisée ne semble pas améliorer la situation" (in Le Langage, p. 158). 25 "The postulation of objects as something different from the terms of

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analyzes 'objects' which for the glossematic construction are but the intersections of dependencies. Hence, the analysis of the system is completed by the study of the internal relations of the system.26 We only retain a conclusion in connection with the relation between process and system. In the order of the linguistic reality, system has a primacy to process, which as manifestation is only accidental. The system is virtual and is encatalyzed to the process. The catalysis enables the transition from substance to form as well as from process to system. "The kernel of the procedure is a catalysis through which the form is encatalyzed to the substance, and the language encatalyzed to the text". 27 For the catalysis is the linguistic operation — governed by the principle of generalization — in which, as soon as one term of the relation is present, the other term, because of the functional quality of the first, is supposed: 28 consequently, the system is 'added' to the process, by means of the analysis of functionality (as the quality of the relation between a known and unknown term). The selective or determinative function 29 of the relation between process and system is manifested by the systematicness of the process. It is by means of the systematicness within the process, that the system is encatalyzed to the process, or better: as far as the system is present in the process (as functional quality), it can be 'supposed'. The fact that a selective or determinative function is mentioned, only indicates that the system as a constant enables the process as variable, and, at the same time, it points out that virtuality or possibility precedes realization or factualness. In the meantime it has become relationships is a superfluous axiom and consequently a metaphysical hypothesis from which linguistic science will have to be freed" ( O S G , p. 22). 28 Cf. 2.2. 27 OSG, p. 86. 28 We do not want to define the catalysis more technically (cf. Chapter 19 of OSG), nor to enter into the possible criticism on this linguistic procedure. Catalysis, in this respect, has only to illustrate the relation type between process and system. 29 We neither enter to the subtle distinctions between cohesion, determination and selection: these three relation types have one common characteristic: one term is constant, whereas the other is variable. This is the case for the relations form — substance and system — process.

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clear what debt has to be paid in order to achieve the radical coherent axiomatics. The system can only by encatalyzed to the process because of its presence (as functional quality) in the process; the systematic calculus is only possible by means of a description of the system in the process and this description supposes the systemic calculus. Consequently, a radical systemic thought is based upon a circular reasoning, which we want to thematize further on in connection with the relation type of deduction and empiricism. 30 But it has first to be verified in how far the conception of system in radical structuralism is faithful to the intuitions of the Saussurean orthodoxy, which, as to us, projects perspectives, broader than the ones retained in glossematics. 2.1.1.2. Saussure's notion of system In at least three different ways, elements of the Saussurean conception of system have been suggested: when describing the tension between reciprocity and systematicness — tension between the intrinsic and extrinsic aspect of the sign specification — the primacy of systematicness has been demonstrated; the implication of the topics of sign, unit and term indicated the dependence of the different linguistic entities on the system; the relative linguistic arbitrariness testified of the impact of the system on language as the whole of signs. We preferred to call the Saussurean 'system' as systematicness; for this topic is more general and subtle than 'system' according to Hjelmslev who, to the detriment of the process, attributed systematicness only to the paradigm. Though language and system are in the view of both authors identical, yet Saussure takes in a less reductional standpoint. Hence we will first analyze the general characteristics of systematicness, as dealt with in the Cours; next, the problem concerning the mechanism of language and its twofold systematicness will be broached; we finally will characterize the nature of the systemic relation ("/e rapport") and treat the distinction between difference and opposition. 30

Cf. 2.1.1.3.

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In opposition to the merely descriptive use of the notion of system in pre-Saussurean linguistics (as the scheme of the rules of correspondence, which explain the transition of one linguistic status to another) Saussure rather advocates in the Cours a synchronic and axiomatic notion of system, which we, for the time being, define as the whole of the relations, determining the linguistic units as differences. 31 In this respect, the term 'organism' is explicitly given up to the advantage of the term 'system'. 32 The topic 'mechanism', though having a hardly noticable nuance, is apparently used by Saussure as synonym of system. 33 However mechanism does not denote the realization of system in speech, but rather indicates the inherent dynamism of the systemic relations. 34 Saussure, obviously uses 'mechanism' to suggest the virtual movement of the systemic terms. We consequently have to keep in view this important, even implicit, distinction between mechanism and system. The functioning of the double systematicness (the syntagmatic and the associative one) is in fact the linguistic mechanism. 35 We wonder if it is possible to discover in the Cours a generative perspective and to distinguish mechanism and system as the dynamic and static components of language, in order to question the reductionism, characterizing radical systemic thought. We answer this positively and therefore we consider the glossematic 31

In the Cours language is defined 138 times as 'system', 13 times as 'mechanism' and 11 times as 'organism' (cf. G. Mounin, "La notion de système chez Antoine Meillet", in La Linguistique, 1 (1966), p. 24). 32 Though the rather Humboldtian 'organism' occurs more than once in the Cours, Saussure declares in II R 43 and 49 (quoted by M. de Mauro, Corso, p. 391): "On a fait des objections à cet emploi du terme organisme: la langue ne peut être comparée à un être vivant... On peut au lieu de parler d'organisme parler de système. Cela vaut mieux et cela îevient au même". 33 'Mechanism' has not been noticed by the editors of the Cours, since "mécanisme" is in the Index taken up under the heading of système. 34 The series, language as system, language as mechanism and speech, could be considered as the préfiguration of the Hjelmslevean series of scheme, usage and act. The problem concerning the relation between language and speech constitutes the most difficult part of the Saussure-exegesis, which we will treat in connection with discourse. It is certain that the author of the Cours uses the topic "mécanisme" in order to characterize e.g. the process of analogy, which is essentially connected with discourse (R 93-94; SM, p. 177-178). 35 Cours, p. 176.

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interpretation of system as the onesided stressing of the static component of the Saussurean view of language. 3 6 It has to be admitted that the Saussurean metaphorics 3 7 does not explicitly stress the dynamic linguistic component. For the game of chess metaphor has, in the Cours, to be recognized as the prototype of the definition of system: "... de même que le jeu d'échecs est tout entier dans la combinaison, des différentes pièces, de même la langue a le charactère d'un système basé complètement sur l'opposition de ses unités concrètes". 38 When abstracting the use of the topic of mechanism as systemic functioning, it can be noted that the notion of system, besides some allusions of Whitneyan origin, 3 9 in Saussure's text is mainly operating in one and the same area of argumentation: system is identified with either language or synchronism, 4 0 or it is defined in relation to term, articulus and value. 4 1 The following definition may stand as an 36

No diachronism is meant with 'dynamism' which is internal to synchronism. The richness of the Saussurean metaphorics is known especially in connection with the definition of 'language' (e.g. p. 36, 41-42, 56, 193, 235 a. o.). 38 Cours, p. 149. The game of chess metaphor is also used in three other contexts: 1. in order to distinguish the internal and external elements of language and to illustrate that "la langue est un système qui ne connaît que son ordre propre": the fact that chess has been imported from Persia does not change anything to the 'grammar' of the game (p. 43). 2. Language as well as chess, which is an artificial realization of what appears in a 'natural form' in language, are value-systems : the diachronic fact can be explained in both cases as the succession of different synchronic status. However the comparison appears to be impossible in one respect: "le joueur d'échecs a l'intention d'opérer le déplacement et d'exercer une action sur le système; tandis que la langue ne prémédite rien... Pour que la partie d'échecs ressemblât en tout point au jeu de la langue, il faudrait supposer un joueur inconscient ou inintelligent" (p. 125-127). 3. In order to prove that the notions of identity and value of the linguistic entities coincide, an appeal is once more made to the chess-metaphor, since here the materiality of the element does not coincide with its identity and value (p. 153-154). 39 Cf. p. 24, 41-43 and 107: language is a system because as a convention, it resists the individual as well the collective pressure. 40 "La langue est un système dont toutes les parties peuvent et doivent être considérées dans leur solidarité synchronique" (p. 124; cf. the whole context of this quotation, which treats the opposition between static and evolutional linguistics, from p. 114 on). 41 The topic of value specifies the topic of 'term' and is directly connected with the structural meaning theorem (cf. 3.1.2.). 37

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example of this specification of the linguistic system : "la langue est un système de pures valeurs que rien ne détermine en dehors de l'état momentané de ses termes".42 This relies on the basic axiom of structural linguistics: the system is presupposed in the term. Though not formulated by Saussure in this way, this statement is found in the Cours in the shape of two principles, already used by us : the sign is always solidary and hence a term, since it is extrinsically specified by systematicness, and linguistic arbitrariness is relative or language is motivated by the system. The principle of solidarity 43 as well as the principle of the restriction of arbitrariness goes back to the basic axiom formulated above, where system is said to turn each linguistic entity, in casu each sign, into one of its terms. 44 The linguistic entities are as terms solidary, hence language can no longer be defined as a nomenclature of isolated signs but it has rather to be denoted as a 'grammar' 4 5 which achieves solidarity. The term has to be defined as 'difference' because it coexists in solidarity with all terms, hence with language itself; it is precisely this 'difference' which enables the motivation by the system and the restriction of linguistic arbitrariness. 46 It is uncontestable that the principle of restriction of arbitrariness, subtilizes in a remarkable way the Saussurean conception of system. The linguistic motivation is realized relatively, i.e. gra42

Cours, p. 116: the two passages of the Cours, which make explicit this statement (p. 155-169 and 180-184) are, as to us, the most important pages of Saussure's work and even of all axiomatic writings of structural linguistics. 43 Principe de solidarité and principe de non-isolement are interesting categories introduced by R. Godel, SM, p. 225 and 250-251. 44 These statements which seem to be entirely acquired, have caused the revolution of structural linguistics. "Dès que nous disons terme au lieu de mot (or: signe), l'idée de système est évoquée" (SM, fr. 147) and "le système conduit au terme" (SM, fr. 150) are at the orgin of the new axiomatics, which finally have linguistics made a science. 45 It is in this sense that Saussure uses the notion of 'grammar' (I R 3.11 and 20; II R 106-107). In SM, p. 186: "Grammaire. Implique un objet complexe et systématique; s'applique à un système qui met enjeu des valeurs." 46 Whereas the principle of solidarity already appears in the second Cours, the principle of restriction of arbitrariness is a new acquisition of the third Cours; Saussure obviously wanted to elucidate in this way his conception about the systematic character of language.

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dually: "la langue est un système dont toutes les parties sont plus ou moins solidaires",47 because the syntagmatic systematicness represents, with respect to the associative one the relative moment: 48 the syntagmatic axis is first of all combination and solidarity only to some extent, whereas the associative axis incorporates the absolute solidarity, enabling the selection. We undoubtedly deal in this respect with a topic of the Saussurean axiomatics, of which the subtle richness in the course of linguistic structuralism especially in glossematics and its characteristic reduction from process to system, has got lost. What is meant in the third Cours when syntagmatic and associative axes are called "deux ordres de coordination" ? 49 What is the meaning of 'solidarity' or 'nonisolation' in connection with the combinative mechanism, on the one hand, and the linguistic system, on the other? "Il y a ici quelque chose de délicat dans la frontière des deux domaines; la frontière de la parole et de la langue est un certain degré de combinaison".50 This statement from the third Cours is rather enigmatic. Though we do not explicitly state the problem concerning the syntagm and its belonging or not to language — for these problems would lead us to the limit of linguistics with translinguistics — we yet have to demonstrate, in order to explain Saussure's conception of system, the specificness of both orders of coordination: mechanism and system, and of solidarity in its relation to non-isolation. We have already mentioned that Saussure, in contrast with 47

D 234 J, in R. Godei, SM, p. 227. All valuable examples given by Saussure in connection with the relative motivation, are syntagmatic: Cours, p. 182-182: dix-neuf, ceris-ier...; R. Godei, SM, p. 227, remarks that the so-called non-motivated men, sheeps, which Saussure compares to the so-called motivated ships (connected associatively with flags, birds, e.o.) are ultimately equally motivated, because they belong within the abstract framework of their paradigm. Indeed, no conclusion, as Saussure inconsequently suggests, can, as to the absence of the associative motivation, be drawn from the anomaly of the signifier. In whatever way these inconsequences of details have to be interpreted, it remains important to remark that the 'grammatical' moment incorporates the absolute motivation with respect to the combinative moment, which appears only as relatively motivated. 49 Cours, p. 171. 50 N 145.2 in R. Godei, SM, p. 89-90. 48

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'organism', prevents the topic of mechanism of being absorbed by 'system'. On the contrary, mechanism is, though always implicitly, opposed to the static system as the inherent dynamism of the systemic relations ; moreover the inherent dynamism is the fundamental condition of the realization of system in speech. Following passage is especially relevant in this connection: "Il y a deux manières ... d'être voisin, coordonné, rapproché en contact avec un autre: on peut appeler cela les deux lieux d'existence des mots ou les deux sphères de rapports entre les mots. Cela correspond à deux fonctions qui sont actives également en nous à propos du langage. D'une part, il existe le trésor intérieur, qui équivaut au casier de la mémoire. C'est dans ce trésor qu'est rangé tout ce qui peut entrer en activité dans le second lieu. Et le second lieu, c'est le discours, c'est la chaîne de la parole". 51 The classifying function is ranged in the 'interiority' of language, whereas the dynamic function is attributed to the syntagmatic activity (the syntagm is defined here in a remarkable and for us promising way as a 'discursive' unit). Consequently, the linguistic system — interior feature, which as a given whole makes from the association a passive registration — and the linguistic mechanism, which is combinative and discursive, are distinct and dichotomically opposed. However, Saussure's attempt in the third Cours to reduce both orders of coordination to one and the same faculty ("le fonctionnement simultané des deux formes de groupement"),52 his obstinacy to demonstrate the solidarity within the syntagmatic axis and his merging of association and combination to one heading 'the linguistic mechanism', mean a loss with respect to his former philosophy of language. The problem of the status of syntagm in its relation to both system and discourse remains to a great extent unsolved and open for interpretation. 53 We are inclined to conclude from these hesitations that the Saussurean project is ruled by an 51

R 89-90 of the second Cours, in SM, p. 72; it can be noted that at this phase of Saussure's thought the terms discours, parole, mot, syntagme are not yet fixed. What is called discours and parole here, is, in imitation of the third Cours, indicated by us as 'linguistic mechanism'. 52 Cours, p. 177. 53 Cf. 5.

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irreducible, but dialectic opposition: both orders of coordination have an own specificness ; syntagm is related to paradigm as combination to association (selection) and as mechanism to system. In language a systematicness can be discovered, which has to be defined in its dialectic double focusing: systematicness motivates in an absolute way the linguistic entities as terms of the system, which have mutually and with the system relations of solidarity ; it motivates in a relative way the linguistic entities as units of the mechanism, which are mutually related according to the principle of non-isolation. Moreover, a relation of solidarity is differential, whereas a relation of non-isolation is oppositional. Absolute motivation, term, system, solidarity and difference are in the linguistic systematicness irreducible but yet complementary to relative motivation, unit, mechanism, non-isolation and opposition. In this way the apparatus of concepts, which was reached through much hesitation in the Cours, starts to get ordered. In connection with the delimitation of the topics of sign, term and unit, we already have opposed54 sign as unit (characterized by positivity, concreteness and factualness) with sign as term (characterized by 'reality' and negativity). The complementarity of the topics of term and unit with respect to sign has clearly been denoted: whereas the unit results from the delimitation of the syntagmatic or discursive axis, the term is identified by deduction from the system55 or paradigmatic axis. The fact that both linguistic axes are complementary and consequently can only be specified as dichotomous poles of the systematicness, can be demonstrated by a very attentive exegesis of the Cours in connection with the distinction between opposition and difference.56 If both orders of coordination are 54

Cf. 1.1.1.4. "Dès que nous disons : terme, au lieu de mot, l'idée de système est évoquée. Mais de plus, ne pas commencer par le mot ou le terme pour en déduire le système. Ce serait croire que les termes ont d'avance une valeur absolue; au contraire, c'est du système qu'il faut partir, du tout solidaire. Ce dernier se décompose entre certains termes qui ne sont pas si faciles à dégager qu'il peut sembler" (D 268-269, in SM, p. 228). 56 Saussure does not always clearly distinguish between différentiel, négatif, on the one hand, and oppositif, on the other. This is probably why these concepts, though interesting and subtle, did not found acceptance in the axiomatics 55

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characterized by relations of difference or by negativity, only the syntagmatic or discursive 'order' is characterized by relations of opposition. For 'opposition' has to be considered as difference and connection-,57 the opposition supposes the positivity and factualness of the linguistic entities of the syntagmatic axis. Consequently, the principle of non-isolation does not without more coincide with the principle of solidarity. The Saussurean metaphorics can also be used to illustrate this fact: linear spatiality and ultimately the substantial materiality is always ascribed to the positivity of the syntagm or to the discursive 'factualness', whereas the 'reality' of the paradigm is marked as a constellation, in which the term is a point of convergency: "tandis qu'un syntagme appelle tout de suite l'idée d'un ordre de succession et un nombre déterminé d'éléments, les termes d'une famille associative ne se présentent ni en nombre défini, ni dans un ordre déterminé... Un terme donné est comme le centre d'une constellation, le point d'où convergent d'autres termes coordonnés, dont la somme est indéfinie".58 The solidarity of terms in and with the system carries the features of an associative series: both the indefinite order, and, because of the unlimited number of terms, an unlimited number of relations of solidarity. The 'systematicness' of non-isolated units is governed by the positivity of the linguistic entities (i.e. of the signs as units), whereas the systemic solidarity instores the negativity of the linguistic entities (i.e. of the signs as terms). In the paradigm not only the number of terms and — even if paradoxical — their ordering, but also the term as term cannot be determined: indeed, the term can only be defined as difference and only the systemic dependence can be denominated in the term, or: the system only is presupposed in the term.

of structural linguistics. Hjelmslev explicitly does not take them up (cf. L. Hjelmslev, Essais, p. 82 ff.): his systematism is essentially resulting from the lack of attention paid to this Saussurean distinction. 57 Cf. 1.1.1.4. 58 Cours, p. 174. The second characteristic: "le nombre indéfini", may be absent e.g. with a flexional paradigm, whereas the first characteristic: "l'ordre indéterminée", is always available.

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This is the basic axiom of structural linguistics. The present investigation about Saussure's conception of system shaded this axiom decisively. For the system is also a mechanism or a dynamism; if the term is instored by the system, the system only becomes dynamic within the discursive or syntagmatic factualness. Consequently the structural basic axiom is always accompanied by and is complementary to its 'shadow axiom': the system itself results from the discursive 'activity'. But it has to be kept in view that in this respect the domain of language itself is not abandoned ; only language is dialectized and system is subtilized to a sytematicness with a double focusing. The epistemological basic difficulty is now: the dialectics of language as system and mechanism, of sign as term and unit, of relation as difference and opposition, makes us inquire for the identity of language. The principles of solidarity and non-isolation, relying on the negativity and positivity of language, have to indicate the dialectical aspects within the identity of language. 59 Though not explicitly thematized by Saussure, the tension between non-identity and identity of language constitutes in the Cours the originality of the conception about the system. This rich and fascinating tension has since been kept out of linguistics, especially by L. Hjelmslev, at the advantage of a non-dialectic specification of linguistic identity. The uncertainty and the hesitating terminological and substantial results of Saussure's philosophy of language are mainly due to the instability of an axiomatics, in which language is considered as identity infused with non-identity. 2.1.1.3. The linguistic procedure: deduction and

'empiricism'

Undoubtedly the conception of the linguistic system will provide the characteristics of the linguistic procedure; 60 the system as 59

"La conception du système fondée sur les solidarités et celle qui s'appuie sur le principe de non-isolement ont peine à se rejoindre; et pourtant, il paraît certain que dans l'esprit de Saussure elles ne correspondaient pas à deux ordres de faits distincts et devaient se superposer exactement", is also the opinion of R. Godel, SM, p. 229. 60 We cannot refrain from alluding to G. Guillaume : "La langue est-elle un

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object o f linguistics and the procedure as the investigation o f the system coincide as construction

and reconstruction.

Not

only linguistics is 'grammar' but also language. This adequacy appears clearly f r o m the Cours:

"la linguistique statique o u des-

cription d'un état de langue peut être appelée grammaire,

dans le

sens très précis et d'ailleurs usuel q u ' o n trouve dans les expressions grammaire d u j e u d'échecs, grammaire de la Bourse o ù il s'agit d ' u n objet complexe et systématique, mettant en j e u des valeurs coexistantes; la grammaire étudie la langue en tant que système de m o y e n d'expression" 6 1 a n d "Toute structure, tout système suppose

des éléments

contemporains:

c'est

de la

grammaire". 6 2

système?", in Langage et science du langage, p. 220-240. Though this remarkable essay subscribes to the Saussurean problematics, it puts itself beyond structural linguistics as far as wording and results are concerned; it however enters directly in the matters dealt with here: both identity and non-identity of language and the nature of linguistic strategy. Language, according to G. Guillaume, has to be defined as immanent and transcendent; the 'systematism' is the only possibility of science, but it is never adequate to the factualness. "Démontrer, prouver que la langue est un système, déceler sous le désordre apparent des faits linguistiques, sous leur contradiction sensible, l'ordre secret qui en fait la trame en est le but... (La méthode suivie) consiste, après avoir pris des choses une première vue directe par le moyen de la constatation, à en prendre indirectement, la donnée de réflexion faisant écran, une vue seconde à travers un scheme de raison auquel il est demandé de représenter non pas la réalité patente ou expérimentalement, scientifiquement, devenue telle...mais, plus profondément, les exigences de théorie auxquelles, pour être, une réalité perçue, quelle qu'elle soit, doit satisfaire" (p. 221). This scheme de raison is a product of the constructive imagination, calling up the whole drama of the meeting between mind and fact. The true realism must "dans le va-et-vient qu'elle comporte du concret à l'abstrait et vice-versa, conclure au concret" (p. 222). The transcendent — the 'non-identical' in our terminology — is the concrete, whereas the abstracting systematism is inclined to state the closeness or immanence of the linguistic universe. Having elaborated a subtle conception of system, which is too remote from the one in classical structuralism to be cited here, Guillaume concludes: "La langue est bien, selon l'opinion des deux grands linguistes et penseurs qu'ont été Saussure et Meillet, un système cohérent et rigoureux, la cohérence et la rigueur tenant moins au plan...du système qu'a« dessein dont le système émane et procède qui est de recevoir une saisie intégrale du pensable..." (p. 239). 61 Cours, p. 185. 62 I R 3.20; in the second Cours also: "Tout ce qui est dans le synchronique d'une langue ... se résume très bien dans le terme de grammaire ... implique un objet complexe et systématique" (II R 106 in SM, p. 262). This double

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Since only the system constitutes the linguistic 'reality' — at least according to a radical axiomatics — the analysis has to aim at the reconstruction of the system: the identification of the term is but the recognition of the system, because the system is presupposed in the term. The linguistic reality can only be recuperated when the primacy of the system is recognized by means of a deductive reconstruction, which is concretized in the identification of the linguistic entities. It can be understood that this reconstruction is enabled because of the reduction of process to system or of the double focused linguistic systematicness to the paradigmatical. Hence it can be perceived that glossematics not only succeeds in constructing an adequate linguistic theory by the reduction of process to system, but that it is able to provide consequent principles for as analytic procedure, while 'empiricism' may be considered as an all-embracing deduction. But such a project has to be questioned: we are indeed convinced that linguistic analysis, however formal and desincarnated, is only able to present itself as strategy, since the identification of the term can merely catch the linguistic entity, if it is 'shadowed' (or made possible) by the delimitation of the unit. We want to examine, in order to elucidate the topic of system, how delimitation and identification are connected unseparately in the Cours keeping their specificness notwithstanding their dialectic rise and their want of identity. It can also be demonstrated that linguistic strategy becomes analysis — then 'grammar' as the 'order' of language and as the 'ordering' of linguistics coincide in identity — when the glossematic reduction of 'empiricism' to deduction is accomplished. We will deal with Hjelmslev's paradoxical definition of 'empiricism'. The attitude, placing itself in the field of systemic relations, meaning of the term 'grammar' is already upheld in the Grammaire générale et raisonnée de Port-Royal, of 1660, republications Paulet, 1969. Cf. the Introduction of Michel Foucault; he proves that the relation between both meanings is a relation of explicitation and not of mere reflection: "C'est la raison pour laquelle entre la grammaire comme art de parler et la grammaire comme discipline contenant les fondements de cet art, le rapport n'est pas de pure et simple réflexion: il est d'explication" (p. XV). It is this intermediate space between both meanings which is denied in structural linguistics.

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hence recognizing the system as their inherent and constitutive principle, is empirical; each other scientific attitude is considered as a priori. 63 The empiricism tries to identify with deduction: the system is at the same time general or abstract (which calls forth deduction) and objective or 'real' (which makes necessary the 'empirical' attitude). Deduction consequently means that the analysis starts from the most general, abstract and 'simple' (hence the principle of simplicity of the analysis) linguistic fact, i.e. language itself or the system, in order to pass to the more particular, concrete and complex linguistic classes. Let us order the concepts, used here: analysis, deduction and 'empiricism' of the linguistic theory ('theory' in Hjelmslevean sense means calculus), opposed to synthesis, induction and a priorism.64 A linguistic theory, which is analytical, deductive and empirical, reflects language, i.e. the immanent universe of the systemic relations. The mutual implication of 'empiricism' and deduction can lead the analytical theory to a 'general grammar', which not only recuperates linguistic factualness, but also each possible and not yet realized linguistic reality. "D'un certain point de vue la langue est au langage ce qu'est la parole à la langue et l'usage à la norme : c'est la réalisation d'un réalisable. Le système du langage est un système de réalisables généraux, et non un système de réalisés universels... La grammaire générale est faite par la reconnaissance des faits réalisables et des conditions immanentes de leurs réalisations".65 In this way the 63

L. Hjelmslev, "La structure morphologique", in Essais, p. 113. B. Siertsema points out in A Study of Glossematics that Hjelmslev's notions of empiricism and deduction are subjected to detail shifts (p. 42-48). We do not take these shifts into account but stick to the most recent and axiomatic texts, especially "La structure morphologique" in Essais, and OSG. 64 All kinds of combinations can be made with these sub-elements. These 'logical' grammars (as the Grammaire of Port-Royal) where the linguistic facts are deduced from the extra-linguistic area of the 'logical' systematicness, are a priori and deductive. The grammar, built up by chaotic and non-functional elements from the psychological area, is a priori and inductive. Each linguistics which is merely descriptive and related in an intuitive way to a 'fragmentai language' beyond each axiomatics, is empirical and inductive. Consequently an adequate linguistic theory is empirical and deductive. 65 Essais, p. 131. And further: "Or pour rétablir la grammaire générale il suffit de reconnaître le réalisable derrière le réalisé; mieux encore: de déduire le réalisé en multipliant le réalisable avec sa condition. Ici encore la méthode

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paradox is sharply expressed: since the linguistic reality does not implicate factualness but only possibility, in glossematics 'empiricism' is equivalent with the calculus (or the 'theory') of the linguistic possibilia. However, this equivalence is not explicitly admitted. According to Hjelmslev, theory has to be characterized by both arbitrariness and 'appropriateness':66 theory, as a deductive system is arbitrary with respect to all factual data, which can have no relation with theory itself, but only with its applicability; the 'appropriateness' of the theory is but a purely formal capacity of applicability. Since factualness does not either affect linguistic reality, this correction cannot take away the paradoxical nature of the notion of 'empiricism'. Besides, the 'theoretical' and algebraic character of the 'empiricism' is also supposed in Hjelmslev's tripartite definition of the empirical principle: "the description shall be free of contradiction (self-consistent), exhaustive, and as simple as possible" ; 67 the non-contradiction as well as the simplicity 68 are intrinsical claims of theory itself, whereas the exhaustibility aims at the complete recuperation of all linguistic possibilia.69 empirique consiste à reconnaître le général évident et véritable et à en déduire le particulier". However, the question has to be but in what measure and how general facts are evident and verifiable. 66 OSG, p. 14-15; "by virtue of its arbitrary nature the theory is arealistic; by virtue of its appropriateness it is realistic". "This calculus, which is deduced from the etablished definition independently of all experience, provides the tools for describing or comprehending a given text and the language on which it is constructed. Linguistic theory cannot be verified (confirmed or invalidated) by reference to such existing text and language. It can be judged only with reference to the self-consistency and exhaustiveness of calculus" (p. 17-18). This statement as well as its context constitute a rather indefensible passage of the OSG. Hjelmslev does not succeed in giving credibility to his theory of the linguistic procedure : the value of his aim is annihilated by the paradoxical concept of empiricism. 67 OSG, p. 12: Hjelmslev admits that the terminology is dangerous here and probably does not resist epistemological criticism. A. Martinet in "Au sujet des fondements de la théorie de L. Hjelmslev", in Bull. Soc. Ling., 42 (1946), p. 36, but especially A. Nehring, "Die Glossematik", in Die Sprache, 5 (1969), p. 97-98, pass a severe criticism on Hjelmslev's notions of empiricism and deduction. Cf. Also B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 38-40. 68 In OSG, p. 18, the principle of simplicity is drafted; cf. B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 64-67. 69 In OSG, p. 86, Hjelmslev formulates a principle of exhaustive description,

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The originality of the Hjelmslevean concept of 'empiricism' is its connection with deduction, which is, as a logical procedure, definable as the transition from the general to the particular, from class to segment, or as an analytical and specifying movement. 70 "We formally define a deduction as a continued analysis or an analysis complex with determination between the analyses that enter therein": 71 hence the deductive procedure is a continued 'partition' — "analysis, or partition is an accordion concept" 72 — in which each new level is determined by the level with a more general extent. Thus the whole, an immediate or empirical even if abstract datum, becomes a hierarchy of dependances; hence, deduction as analysis concretizes in the registration of functions. 73 An 'empirical' attitude brings on openness for the non-analyzed whole, which as purely deductive system is shaped by the analysis into a hierarchy, of which the data, i.e. the functions, participate to and are determined by the empirical datum pre-eminently which is the 'hypothetic' 74 system. We already wondered how the author could apply such analysis to the process: "The first task of the analysis is ... to undertake a partition of the textual process"; 75 the 'partition' used in this analysis of process into a hierarchy of subfunctions, is but the articulation of the system itself.76 Linguistics, in Louis Hjelmslev's work, is ascribed the following tasks, classified here in their glossematic-logical sequence.77 1) Linguistic entities are recognized as stratified according to the which aims at the registration of all possible systemic functions in the 'text'. The calculus is exhaustive, whereas "the calculation predicts the possibilities but says nothing about their realization" (p. 15). 70 On the contrary, induction is the transition from the particular to the general fact, from segment to class, i.e. it is a synthetic generalizing movement. 71 OSG, p. 29. 72 OSG, p. 28. 73 Definition 1: "Analysis: description of an object by the uniform dependences of other objects on it and on each other". 74 Cf. B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 49. 75 OSG, p. 28. 76 Definition 30: "Articulation: analysis of a system". Definition 31: "Partition: analysis of a process". 77 Cf. B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 23 and 25-6.

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oppositional couples: form and substance, expression and content. Moreover some entities may appear as signs, i.e. as the relations between the form of expression and content (substance being excluded) or as terms, i.e. testifying of systematicness, which both relata participate in. Provisory 'systems' of these entities can be realized in the greatest number of languages possible. 2) An 'algebraic' operation drafts a calculus of all possible systemic relations, leading to the grammar of language, reflecting the linguistic system. 3) The linguistic analysis confronts the realized functions of a particular language with the whole of the realizable functions, hence reaching the description of its participating dependence on the calculus. Our former outline of Hjelmslev's conception of system enables us to judge these three tasks in their glossematic coherency: a) since the first procedure operates within the sphere of 'factualness', it cannot become a true linguistic procedure; a transition from 'factualness' to 'reality' is impossible, because induction and deduction, synthesis and analysis are as procedure irreconcilable. Hence glossematics can be reproached that unit and sign (as intersection between reciprocity and systematicness) in their absolute submission to the term, lose their operational importance and axiomatic specificness. The sign theorem is abolished by the form theorem, though Hjelmslev himself introduced the most valuable elements for a structural sign specification. b) Glossematics obviously starts with an algebraic operation, since 'empiricism' and theory, analysis and calculus are identifiable, and since this operation is independent from linguistic factualness. c) However the status of the third task is more important. Which means in fact the confrontation of calculus and description or of system and process ? A suchlike confrontation results in the reduction of process to system, since factualness is subjected to its own possibility, which constitutes the reality of factualness. This in Hjelmslevean terms means that only the presence of the system in the process is retained in this confrontation, or better: within the linguistic identity there is no confrontation of system and process, in which both would be maintained as the specific poles, but there is only a reduction of the polarity to a non-dialectical

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identity. Consequently, the third task is as illusory as the first. A reductive axiomatics, appearing as a radical systematism, knows but one procedure: analysis and deduction (which 'empiricism' is made dependent on). To put it more clearly: axiomatics and procedure ultimately coincide in systematism, so that each linguistic strategy loses its operationally. 78 When 'grammar' as both order of language and scientific ordering becomes the Form, in which language and linguistic thought are one and the same 'reality', namely the possibility of linguistic factualness, we are placed in the paradoxical and idealistic circle of immanence. This procedural circle resulting from the conception of linguistic identity, necessarily goes back to a systemic hypostasis. Glossematics incorporates this radical tendency in an exemplary way. The procedure, drawn by Saussure, is not only 'analytical' in Hjelmslevean sense, but also strategic. This means that the identity of 'partition' of the text and articulation of the system is not accomplished in the Cours: since the delimitation of the unit and the identification of the term do not coincide, an operative space is guaranteed, hence a linguistic strategy can be developed. But delimitation is not detached from identification (as neither unit from term), since it is effected in a double way: as syntagmatic strategy and as analysis of the paradigm. 1) Delimitation as strategy can only be performed on the syntagm, bringing about sign as unit by commutation: "La langue ne se présente pas comme un ensemble de signes délimités d'avance dont il suffirait d'étudier les significations et l'agencement: c'est une masse indistincte où l'attention et l'habitude peuvent seuls nous faire trouver des éléments particuliers". 79 2) Delimitation as principle of analysis 78

However the difficulty of making glossematics operational does not escape the commentators of Hjelmslev. Indeed, it is an axiomatic linguistics preeminently, neglecting the description on account of reasons inherent to its own nature. On the other hand it is obvious now that from glossematics result the most interesting elements for an axiomatics of structural linguistics. 79 Cours, p. 146. This text is important in a twofold way: language is not a priori a system of terms; commutation imitates "l'attention et l'habitude" in speech, hence appears as the procedure, analyzing the linguistic mechanism as the intermediate term between speech and language.

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supposes the simultaneous functioning of both axes of systematicness, namely the syntagmatic non-isolation and the associative (or paradigmatic) solidarity: "En réalité l'idée appelle, non une forme, mais tout un système latent, grâce auquel on obtient les oppositions nécessaires à la constitution du signe". 80 It can be noted that both 'aspects' of delimitation appeal to the axiomatic tension within the sign, i.e. : the strategy is governed by reciprocity and the analysis by systematicness. We once more want to stress the fact that, in Saussure's doctrine, a dualism between mechanism and system, and between strategy and analysis is out of question; on the contrary, the Cours introduces the systemic thought and formulates the structural basic axiom. Though the identity is aimed at it is never reached, because the specificness of the relata of expression and content is perceived as constitutive for the linguistic procedure and for language. Let us conclude the notes about the structural linguistic conception of system. We have demonstrated how the Hjelmslevean asceticism purifies the basic axiom of the Cours: the system is presupposed in the term, in a reductive way. The tendency to 'systematism', marking the entire structural project, privileges within the Saussurean dichotomies the poles of paradigm (system), analysis, solidarity and difference, and leads to a conception of linguistic identity. Language as well as linguistics become 'grammar', 'algebra' or a combinative play of the possibilia. Since linguistics has become empirico-deductive, in opposition with the apriorism of prestructural linguistics, linguistic 'reality' has to be distinguished from factualness. The glossematics realizes the aim, unaccomplished by Saussure's attempt: the identity of language as Form. Finally, the system as possibility of language is separated from factualness, positivity and materiality of the linear or, to quote Saussure, 'spatial' phenomenality of language. The syntagmatic-discursive order of coordination is sacrificed to the absolute primacy of the paradigm. The ambitions of structural linguistics are justified by this fascination of Form. 80 Cours, p. 179. This is demonstrated by Saussure by means of the famous example of "défaire".

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2.1.2.

Language as structure

At first sight it is not quite clear what the fashionable topic of structure could import to the developed systemic conception. Saussure uses this term only sporadically and moreover in a secondary meaning; 81 from the Prague School 82 onwards and in glossematics either 'structure' is considered as a rewarding concept linking the topics of system and function. 83 We have to mention 81 Cf. E. Benveniste, "Structure en linguistique", in Problèmes de linguistique générale, p. 92 : "On a appelé Saussure avec raison le précurseur du structuralisme moderne. Il l'est assurément, au terme près. Il importe de noter ... que Saussure n'a jamais employé, en quelque sens que ce soit, le mot 'structure' ...". The latter assertion is not quite true, since this term occurs indeed in some less known passages; cf. in this connection T. de Mauro, Corso, p. 444-445. 82 Cf. E. Benveniste, op. cit., p. 94 ff., dealing with the historic development of the concept of structure. Into the Prague manifest of 1929 and since 1933 in Troubetzkoy's works, the term 'structure' appears regularly in the sense of the 'structure of the system'. The Prague linguists want to conceive a methode "propre à découvrir les lois de structure des systèmes linguistiques et de l'évolution de ceux-ci" ("Mélanges linguistiques au 1er Congrès des Philologues Slaves", in TCLP, 1 (1929), p. 8; also p. 10-11, 12, 26, in which is dealt with "le schème de structure de la langue considérée", "la structure intérieure (relations réciproques de ses éléments)", "la structure dudit système" e.a.). 83 Some passages taken from Hjelmslev: "Nous croyons avoir fait ressortir que la structure d'une langue est un réseau de dépendances... ou un réseau de fonctions" (Essais, p. 140); "Il est scientifiquement légitime de décrire le langage comme étant essentiellement une entité autonome de dépendances internes ou, en un mot, une structure" (Editorial, AL IV, p. V); "puisqu'une structure est par définition un tissu de dépendances ou de fonctions, dans l'acception logicomathématique de ce terme..." (Essais, p. 70); "est structure une entité autonome de dépendances internes" (Essais, p. 100). Some authors identify structure with function (even in Jakobson's sense of external, or, in our terminology, extrinsic function). Hence, M. Mouloud writes: "Les structures du langage représentent donc un instrument de la connaissance et de la communication... Le langage comporte une diversité de structure en rapport avec une diversité de destinations" ("Signification, langage et structure", in jRev. Philosophique de France, February 1967, p. 285). This opinion is not very far removed from A. Martinet's: "On voit dans quel sens un point de vue structurel implique un point de vue fonctionnel" ; since the principal function (defined as extrinsic also by Martinet) is communication, he can rightly assert that: "la structure, de part et d'autre, se confond avec ce que nous désignons comme les traits pertinents de l'objet; est pertinent, dans la langue, ce qui participe à l'établissement de la communication" ("Structure et langue", in Rev. Int. de Philosophie, 73-74 (1965), p. 292-293). This puts us already on the scent of the following adequacy:

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the structure of the system, in which 'structure' indicates the solidarity between the terms within the system. The lack of this concept in the Cours is probably due to an other than anecdotal reason. Though the adage of linguistic autonomy, according to which affinity does not exist between the order of language and of extra-linguistic reality, and the basic axiom, according to which the linguistic entity is only definable through language (the system is presupposed in the term) are developed in the Cours, yet the typology of internal solidarity is absent in it. 84 We already pointed out that the term, on account of the associative character of the paradigm, can only be defined as the centre of a constellation or a conglomerate, of which the order stays indeterminable: "les deux caractères de la série associative, ordre indéterminé et nombre indéfini".85 The affirmation of the term as negative co-status (as difference) is no criterion of an effective classification. Consequently, the absence of the topic 'structure' in the Cours eventually results from the Saussurean pessimism, which has appeared to be overcome by the glossematic asceticism. The criticism on Saussure's psychologism in glossematics is attended by the elaboration of a specific concept of structure: since system is consistent in itself, structure is deducible from the linguistic 'reality'. Though the topic of 'structure', on the one hand, has a rich preSaussurean history 86 and, on the other, relates the contemporary a 'realistic' conception of structure brings along an extrinsic definition of function. 84 O. Ducrot, "Le structuralisme en linguistique", in Qu'est-ce que le structuralisme, Paris, 1969: "L'organisation interne d'une langue est une donnée originale, et non pas la décalque d'un ordre qui lui est étranger... Dans le Cours on ne savait trop s'il s'agissait d'une décision philosophique (fondée sur l'idée qu'il ne peut y avoir d'ordre antérieur au langage, et que le monde, avant d'être parlé, est nécessairement une 'masse amorphe'), ou bien d'une conclusion empirique" (p. 72); "Saussure était amené à conclure que tout élément est solidaire de tous les autres. Mais cette formule, souvent présentée comme l'affirmation la plus décidée du caractère systématique de la langue, cache aussi le désespoir de ne pas pouvoir découvrir le système" (p. 59). 85 Cours, p. 174. 86 In this connection the well documented study of G. Lepscky, "Osservazione sul termine Struttura", in Annali della Sc. Norm. Sup. di Pisa, 32 (1962), p. 173-197, where first the notion of structure as 'organism' by Linné and Cuvier,

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human sciences mutually and especially with linguistics, 87 yet as the axiomatic intermediate topic between system and function, if has a rather ambiguous status. 88 This ambiguity mainly results from the double shifting, taking place within the linguistic concept of structure: 1) The Saussurean systemic thought affirms the character of systematicness of the linguistic entities and instores consequently the absolute arbitrariness of language with respect to reality, as well as the relative motivation of the linguistic entities by the system; language is a whole of systemic relations, having an immanent status, indifferent to and independent from the eventual organization of reality. Since the principle of relative motivation is only able to define the linguistic entity, dependent on the system, as different with all the other systemic terms, the paradigm consequently is indeterminably extensible and theoretically unorganized. The systemic thought changes into structural thought, as soon as the identification of the linguistic entity not only affirms the systemic dependence, but recognizes and elaborates the hierarchy within the system. In this respect, paradigm is no longer brought about in an associative manner (i.e. by means of an indeterminably extensible 'affinity', phonic as well as semantic),

Herder, Schlegel, Humboldt and Becker, and in the morphological idealism of Goethe and Kant, is studied; next 'structure' in the neogrammatical tradition, is interpreted as identical with a mechanistical corpus (in the works of a.o. Schleicher, H. Paul and Steindhal) and finally 'structure' as systemic arrangement is described already in Whitney's works, but especially in the Prague linguistics, in glossematics and even in the works of secondary writers as Breal, Meillet and Guillaume. 87 Cf. Sens et usages du terme Structure dans les sciences humaines, ed. R. Bastide, The Hague, 1962, which is a famous compilation, confronting the definitions of structure in the different human sciences (concerning linguistics, E. Benveniste's article, cited above, is taken up); the heterogeneous character of these essays makes this book unfit for use and illustrates how a monolithic concept of 'structure' is characterized by shallowness. 88 In a way different from American structuralism, opposing system and structure as the arrangement of the paradigm on the one hand, and of the syntagm on the other. Hence 'structure' becomes the equivalence of 'distribution' of the syntagmatic units; however this linguistics does not catch our interest, because it happens beyond the sign theorem, dominating the Saussurean structuralism as a whole.

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but it testifies of an internal 'structurally', since its entities are terms of an internally motivated class. Or better: system acquires a structure, as soon as it is definable as a hierarchy of classes.69 2) A second shift radicalizes the structural thought, since it appeals to the intrinsic functionality, as delineated in e.g. glossematics. Structure in this respect, is no longer the organization of a hierarchy into classes, but is rather an algebra consistent in itself, an intrinsic 'group' of relations with formal qualities, independent from the domain of effective 'objects' to which structure is applicable (the Hjelmslevean 'appropriateness' of the linguistic theory may be reminded here). Structure becomes in fact independent from the structured domain; it can even be maintained that structure is related to the factual language, as language to the factual world. Whereas structure, in the first stage, could still be considered as the principle organizing the system to a hierarchy, structure now is no longer subjected to the factualness of the linguistic system and is even detached from it, as a logico-mathematical apparatus possessing 'appropriateness' and applicability with respect to linguistic factualness. In order to make this 'appropriateness' operative, the 'object' of investigation has to be changed from factual into 'real', i.e. to a whole of relations, characterized by specific formal qualities; at this stage of structural thought a linguistic entity is no longer the negative co-status with all the other systemic terms, nor even the index of a hierarchic class, but, to 89

This shift is of course not entirely absent from the Cours, it is indeed operative in the transition of the example enseignement to défaire, meant as an illustration of the paradigm: the associative series enseignement, apprentissage, éducation; enseignement, changement, armement a.o.; enseignement, clément, justement a.o., can neither be limited nor ordered (Cours, p. 175). This 'feature of conglomeration' does not hold for défaire, because its paradigm consists of classes of a higher hierarchy: défaire, décoler, déplacer, a.o.; défaire, faire, refaire a.o., form part of one and the same paradigm, because défaire is related to refaire as décoller to recoller, as déplacer to replacer, etc. (p. 178). This holds also true for the famous example Nachtj Nächte, which, on account of the higher hierarchy Nacht/Nächte, Macht/Mächte a.o. belong to one and the same paradigm (notwithstanding the change in the word stem) (p. 168). Saussure writes in this connection: "La langue est pour ainsi dire une algèbre qui n'aurait que des termes complexes", which, as to us, alludes to the hierarchy within the system (cf. O. Ducrot, op. cit., p. 40 and p. 70-72).

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quote Hjelmslev, an intersection of the relations implied by structure. Consequently, such a structural conception supposes the intrinsic linguistic functionality, in which only the functions (or relations) are raised to linguistic 'reality'. Both stages in the axiomatic utilization of 'structure' are already in germ present in the Saussurean systemic conception; 90 they mean the radicalization of his systemic thought and result ultimately in the glossematic systematism. They moreover represent two interpretations of Saussure, the so-called realistic and formalistic tendencies,91 occurring in the history of structural linguistics. Autonomy of language and immanency of system are acquired by Saussure; the linguistic entities have but one principle of existence: the system itself. The real concept of structure defines structure as subjected to the systematic data; hence, the linguistic paradigm is no longer a constellation of terms, but rather a hierarchy of classes. The concept of formal structure, on the contrary, submits the linguistic system; the formal features of structure shape language to a 'reality' of intrinsic functions, with which structure is identical. Both conceptions of structure fit in the Saussurean presupposition of linguistic autonomy and immanency. The real structure 90

O. Ducrot, op. cit., p. 76: "Si Saussure s'est contenté parfois de l'affirmation indifférenciée d'une primauté du tout sur la partie — affirmation qui fait penser aujourd'hui à certains slogans du début du gestaltisme — c'est que cette thèse lui suffisait, dans sa lutte contre l'historicisme, pour contester le privilège accordé jusque là à l'élément". Hjelmslev has resolved the ambiguity of the Cours in one direction, without betraying Saussure; however, the glossematic solution appears always as a reduction of a richness of intuitions, getting lost in the coherency of a logicistic axiomatics. Hence, the best way to question the glossematic radicalism is referring to the Cours and a faithful exegesis of it. 91 Especially the phonologically minded linguists (i.e. the Prague school with N. Troubetzkoy and R. Jakobson as well as A. Martinet) use the concept of 'real' structure, on account of its great operative features, whereas Hjelmslev and the glossematics accept the concept of 'formal' structure which testifies though lacking operationality, a greater axiomatic coherence (Martinet in this connection writes: "L'expérience toutefois a montré qu'une vision aussi désincarnée de l'objet-langue peut aboutir, en pratique, à des élaborations qui sont, par rapport à la structure établie sur les bases de la substance pertinente, aussi distantes que pourraient être les constructions de ceux pour qui la structure est un produit de leur propre intelligence" ("art. cit.", p. 298)).

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is the arrangement of systemic terms, even if these terms are classes of relation: for the system impact transforms the linguistic entity to a term, i.e. a difference, merely determinable in its negativity and distinctivity or as a class of relations, which it has with the other systemic terms. The specificness of this concept consists in the fact that a positive and factual status is attributed to these classes, so that the structural whole of relations remains subjected to the resistance of the linguistic entity. This concept of real structure is implicitly based upon the operationally rewarding opinion that a difference can be interpreted as 'factual' or positive. The assertion that real structure is found in the object itself can only be maintained if the linguistic entities are accepted to be more than systemic terms, and class more than only an analytico-theoretical principle. Such a structure is submitted to the systematicness, as soon as it is defined in Saussurean sense, as both a paradigmatic construction and a discursive-syntagmatic 'order'. In this respect the linguistic entity is both term and unit, the relation both difference and opposition, the systematicness both solidarity and nonisolation. The concept of 'real' structure is undoubtedly conceivable within the Saussurean orthodoxy, for it alludes to the double focusing of Saussure's conception of system. 'Formal' structure, on the contrary, fits rather in the aim of the Cours, which is not realized in an adequate way, i.e. the aim of linguistic identity and unsplit systematism. A concept of formal structure is after all used in glossematics, in which class results from the analytical deduction. It is only in the conception of language as intrinsic functionality, that structure becomes formal; it is here that structure instores system, definable as the whole of functions. Since term is but an analytic-deductive class of functions and language is but intrinsic functionality, the formal structure does not any longer structure linguistic entities, but directly linguistic functions, i.e. the intrinsic 'linguistic reality'. The enigmatic affirmation, already formulated above: real structure is subjected to the systematicness whereas formal structure submits the system, has become explicit. This affirmation means that the real structure registers the relations between the linguistic entities, whereas the formal structure instores

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language as a system of functions. However, this hypostatized formulation will be specified. A. Martinet writes that "la plupart des linguistes hésitent entre un point de vue réaliste selon lequel la structure doit être cherchée dans l'objet étudié et une conception qui voit dans la structure une construction établie par le chercheur pour permettre de mieux comprendre les faits, sans que se pose la question d'une conformité entre cette construction et l'objet lui-même".92 It can already be presumed that the opinion, placing the real structure in the object, and denying the relationship between the formal structure and the object, testifies of a naivete, which is typical of a realistic standpoint. Martinet's assertion has rather to be reversed: the real structure is not in the object, but is the arrangement of the real or factual objects, since the linguistic entity in this respect owns a specific positivity, which as a resistance (the difference or negativity of the term is at the same time a co-status) rules and enables the structuration. Such a structure may only be called real because the 'objects' to be structured, are factual and positive, constituting the possibility of structure. On the contrary the formal structure is in the object, since the 'object' here is but functionality itself, which is not only instored by structure, but which is also identical to it. It can be perceived that a real structure adds itself to the object with which it is not identical, whereas the formal structure constitutes its 'object', i.e. structures itself to structure. This insight enables us to adapt the affirmation formulated above: the real structure instores the relations of the registered linguistic entities, whereas the formal structure instores itself as the system of intrinsic functions. The naivety of 'realistic structuralism' consist in the fact that structure is considered as a datum in the object. We do not agree with the aforesaid. A concept of structure can only be 92

Art. cit., p. 291 : the ambiguity of Martinet's point of view is clear in the following passage : "La structure est une construction de l'esprit (a) qui ne retient que certains traits de la réalité physique considérée (b) ; elle est une constatation fondée sur l'observation (b) intelligente (a) de cet objet... C'est là surtout qu'on est tenté de parler de structures comme des faisceaux latentes (a), ce qui, finalement, ne veut pas dire que ces relations ne soient pas réelles, c'est-à-dire présentes dans les faits (b)" (p. 294).

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'formal' when the structure itself has become 'object', since the formal structure, according to its nature, is identical with its object. The opposition between the real and formal structure can still be worded in another way: the structure is 'real' if the object is the origin of it, and the structure is 'formal' if the object results from it. The solidarity between both concepts of structure refers to the moment of structuration, for both concepts represent the scientific praxis, which is essentially structuration. If the structuration meets with the resistance of the object, the latter can be considered as the given origin of the structure, which is consequently 'real'; if the 'object' is resulting from the structuration, the object is but the structure itself, which, in this case, is 'formal'. A more adequate and exhaustive analysis of solidarity and opposition of the real and formal structure would lead us to the problem of structure and structuration; since here the entire project of structural linguistics is questioned, the discussion can only be taken up, when the whole of axiomatics has been developed. It seems sufficient to situate here inchoatively the debate of realism and formalism about the concept of structure in its connectedness with system and function. These remarks may lead to a renewed insight of Martinet's affirmation: "Ce qui distingue ce point de vue (i.e. of formalism) de celui des réalistes n'est pas une conception différente des rapports entre objet et structure, mais une autre délimitation de l'objet". 93 Considering a former distinction concerning the linguistic system, we can maintain that the object staying at the origin of the structure, is factual, whereas the 'object' resulting from the structure, is 'rear and identical with the structure. But both 'structures' are solidary in their dynamic component: as structuration ("pas une conception différente des rapports entre objet et structure" in as far as structure is either the origin or the result of the structuration). But as soon as this common moment, the structuration, is not taken into account, the distinction between real and formal structure corresponds to the distinction between factualness and 93

A. Martinet, "art. cit.", p. 298.

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'reality' concerning the system. Advocating the broad Saussurean conception of systematicness, characterized by the irreducible tension of the discursive-syntagmatic and the paradigmatic systematicness in language, space is left for positivity and factualness; structure in this respect is 'real', hence subjected to this non-identical factualness. On the contrary, in the narrow Hjelmslevean conception of system, process is reduced to system and language can only be considered as intrinsic functionality; structure in this respect is 'formal', hence submitting the system, which it ultimately joins in identity. It has become clear how the topic of structure discussed by realism and formalism, as a link presupposes the topic of system and introduces the topic of functionality.

2.2. FUNCTIONALITY

Louis Hjelmslev distinguishes in the Prolegomena between a logico-mathematical (or technical) and an etymological meaning of function: "We shall be able to say that an entity within the text (or within the system) has certain functions, and thereby think, first of all with approximation to the logico-mathematical meaning, that the entity has dependences with other entities, such that certain entities premise others — and secondly, with approximation to the etymological meaning, that the entity functions in a definite way, fulfils a definite role, assumes a definite 'position' in the chain. In a way, we can say that the etymological meaning of the word function is its real definition". 94 We call the function in the etymological sense extrinsic, whereas the function, in the logico-mathematical or technical sense, is called intrinsic,95 This real function 94

OSG, p. 31. Hjelmslev in this same passage writes that his concept of function is found between both: "We have adopted the term function in a sense that lies midway between the logico-mathematical and the etymological sense ... in formal respect nearer to the first but not identical with it. It is precisely such an intermediate and combining concept that we need in linguistics..." But in the same paragraph he claims to remove 'function' in its etymological sense out of the glossematic apparatus of concepts "because it is based on more premisses 95

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— which is solidary with the real structure, examined in the previous paragraph, since both refer to one and the same conception of the linguistic systematicness — is extrinsic because the function in that respect is considered as an activity, a feature, a capacity or a task: hence the entity, bearing the function, refers to the external area, which gives this entity 'content' and constitutes it as positivity and factualness. A factual entity is always function of an external area, because factualness can only extrinsically be attributed to it. An intrinsic definition of function, on the contrary, defines the function as an internal linguistic relation. Indeed, it does not refer to factualness, but is linguistic 'reality'; within this immanent linguistic functionality, the entity is no longer a function of, but it, called term (Saussure) or functive (Hjelmslev), has now function with. "By introducing the technical term function we seek to avoid the ambiguity that lies in the conventional use made of it in science, where it designates both the dependence between two terminals and one or both of these terminals — the latter when one terminal is said to be 'a function of' the other. The introduction of the technical term function serves to avoid this ambiguity...: 'the one functive has a function to the other'". 9 6 Function, in both cases can be said to be the object of the linguistic procedure: structural linguistics has necessarily to be functional. When function is considered as extrinsic, the entity is the positive datum for the analysis (since entity is function), hence an a priori science is built up. But when function is considered as intrinsic, the relation itself is by the analysis constituted to linguistic 'reality', hence an 'empirico'deductive science is brought about. than the given formal definition and turns out to be réductible to it" (p. 31-32). Hjelmslev's 'technical' concept of function undoubtedly does not take in the intermediate position, mentioned here, but it identifies with the logico-mathematical sense of function. He moreover will write later on (in the Introduction to the Acta Linguistica IV, p. VIII) that the functional conception of language is the one "qui voit dans les fonctions (dans le sens logico-mathématique de ce terme), c'est-à-dire dans les dépendances, le véritable objet de la recherche scientifique". In the texts, preceding the OSG (1943), the concept of function is not yet defined unilateral and is regularly used in the etymological sense (cf. in this respect B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 87-90). 96 OSG, p. 32.

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Since 1929 in the famous theses of the Prague school, the functional conception of linguistic system testifies of an extrinsic finalism. "Aussi doit-on...prendre égard au point de vue de la fonction. D e ce point de vue, la langue est un système de moyen d'expressions appropriées à un but" and "Produit de l'activité humaine, la langue partage avec cette activité le caractère de finalité. Lorsqu'on analyse le langage comme expression ou comme communication, l'intention du sujet parlant est l'explication qui se présente le plus aisément et qui est la plus naturelle". 97 It can be noted that the Prague functionalism — which is only partly influenced by the Cours, from which it chiefly isolates the socio-psychological affirmations of Whitneyan origin — explicitly refers to the extra-linguistic area in order to concretize the teleology of language, to quote Troubetzkoy, in its phonic and semantic components. Though the Prague doctrine of function takes into account the Saussurean dichotomy of langue and parole,98 yet 97

This is the first thesis of the Prague manifest (in "Mélanges linguistiques au 1er Congrès des Philologues slaves", in TCLP, 1 (1929), p. 7). We briefly want to deal with some statements of this historic document. In the second paragraph of the first thesis it is stated that, in spite of the Genevan school, the notions of system and function are applicable in diachronic linguistics (p. 8). The second thesis, circumscribing the tasks of linguistics, requires phonology to consider the 'sound' as an element of the functional system; an implicit allusion is made to the sign theorem in "dans ce système, une fonction (est) différentiatrice de signification" (p. 10). Characteristic of the finalistic linguistic conception, upheld by the Prague school, is that the study of the content plane is considered as the analysis of "la dénomination linguistique", hence of the word: "Le mot, considéré du point de vue de la fonction, est le résultat de l'activité linguistique dénominatrice..." (p. 11): semantics is looked upon as the study of "le système particulier de dénomination de chaque langue" (p. 12). The third thesis, finally, treats the different linguistic functions in general and literary and poetic language in particular: "l'étude de la langue exige que l'on tienne rigoureusement compte de la variété des fonctions linguistiques et de leurs modes de réalisation dans le cas considéré...; c'est d'après ces fonctions et ces modes que changent et la structure phonique et la structure grammaticale et la composition lexicale de la langue" (p. 14). In a rather intuitive way, the difference is stated between the 'intellectual' and 'affective' languages, characterized by both the communicative and the poetic function: "dans cette étude, le problème essentiel porte sur la hiérarchie diverse des fonctions dans chaque cas donné" (p. 14), a hierarchy, which will later on be elaborated by R. Jakobson. 98 "Chaque langage fonctionnel a son système de conventions — la langue

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the functions of denomination and communication appeal to a constituting non-linguistic area and consequently to the extrinsic finalism. The psychologizing Biihler scheme — in which the functions of Ausdruck and Appell, which explicitly want to break through the langue-parole dichotomy and which want to place linguistics in the informational order, are added to the Darstellungsfunktion (also called the 'symbolic' function) 99 — fascinates

proprement dite; il est par conséquent erroné d'identifier un langage fonctionnel avec la langue et un autre avec la parole (dans la terminologie de Saussure), par exemple le language intellectuel avec la 'langue' et le langage émotionnel avec la 'parole'" (p. 15 of the Prague theses, op. cit.). 99 K. Bühler, "Die Axiomatik der Sprachwissenschaft", in Kantstudien, 38 (1933), p. 19-90 (to a great extent resumed in the Sprachtheorie of 1933), and the additions in "Das Strukturmodel der Sprache" in TCLP, 6 (1936), p. 3-12, criticizes sharply by means of a psychological analysis of the speech act (Sprechhandlung) not only Saussure's dichotomizing linguistic thought, but also the transcendental 'grammar' as well as the phenomenological sign theory (in Husseri's sense). "Das menschliche Sprechen ist eine Art, eine Modus des Handelns" (p. 48); linguistics has to be "Analyse der konkreten Sprachereignissen" (p. 25). Plato's adage that linguistic sound is an organon "um einer dem andern etwas mitzuteilen über die Dinge" (p. 37) creates the 'structural model of language' with the scheme of the three linguistic functions, which however cannot be inscribed in the Saussurean orthodoxy concerning the linguistic autonomy and the closeness of linguistic universe, since they go back to the socio-psychological or physical reality: i.e. the Ausdruck (of the speaker), the Darstellung (of things), the Appell (of the listener). In connection with this 'structural' model of language it is obvious that not the Gebildestruktur or Sprachgebilde are at stake, but the Struktur einer Sprechhandlung, i.e. "eine psychologische Aufbau einer Rede". Consequently Bühler is able to say, in the essay of TCLP, that: "die Schlussfrage bei der sprachtheoretischen Behandlung solcher Beziehungsgefüge (structure of language) eine Weltanschauungsfrage ist" (p. 10). It is important in connection with the sign nature of language that word and sentence (for they only reach the Darstellung) are privileged as 'signs' whereas in the "Strukturbild der Sprache" the phoneme as Zeichen an Zeichen, and the whole of sentences, are subjected to the primacy of word and sentence. The Bühler scheme incorporates pre-eminently an extrinsic conception of linguistic functionality. A. Nehring's Sprachzeichen und Sprechart, 1963, though criticizing details, directly joins Bühler's 'structural' model; his distinction, on the semantic level, between Bezeichnung, Bedeutung and Sinn, goes back to Bühler's distinction between the function of Ausdruck, Darstellung and Appell; either his criticism on the 'representative' or 'symbolic' character of the Darstellungsfunktion does not alter the fact that he pursues a science, in which the a priori elements of speech are ranged.

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the functional structuralists from Troubetzkoy 100 to Jakobson 101 and to Martinet. Whatever subtilization is carried through within 100

It may be reminded that N. Troubetzkoy explicitly joins the Buhler scheme: "Le schème de K. Buhler reste également valable pour le côté phonique du langage... Nous projetons en quelque sorte les différentes particularités de la parole sur trois plans différents: le plan expressif, le plan appellatif et le plan représentatif. On peut se demander si la phonologie doit étudier ces trois plans. Que le plan représentatif appartienne au domaine de la phonologie, cela est évident dès l'abord ... Moins évidente est l'appartenance à la phonologie du du plan expressif et du plan appellatif. Au premier abord ces plans paraissent se situer exclusivement sur le terrain de l'acte de parole ... Toutefois ... il apparaît que cette manière de voir est fausse. Parmi les impressions phoniques auxquelles nous reconnaissons la personne du sujet parlant et l'influence émotionnelle qu'il a l'intention d'exercer sur l'auditeur, il y en a q u i . . . doivent être rapportées à des normes déterminées, établies dans la langue" (Grundzûge der Phonologie, French translation, p. 16-17). Hence, phonology has to study the "procédés expressifs phonologiques" as well as the "procédés phonologiques d'appel ou de déclenchement". Since both have common features with respect to the Darstellungsfunktion, they constitute the object of the phonostylistics. However, Troubetzkoy's dependence on Bilhler's structural model does not mean that the phonologist falls into psychologism: "Il faut éviter de recourir à la psychologie pour définir le phonème: en effet le phonème est une notion linguistique et pas psychologique" (p. 42). Troubetzkoy, for this reason, gives up, in the Grundzûge, the notions of 'phonic representation', 'phonic intention' and 'linguistic consciousness' applied previously. However, the phonemes are still defined as "les marques distinctes des silhouettes des mots" (p. 38) (Buhler mentioned the phoneme as Zeichen an Zeichen). The phoneme, in Troubetzkoy's and Jakobson's definition, derives its distinctivity or pertinence from the extrinsic function (especially from the three functions of Buhler) of the 'acoustic image', i.e. the word. 101 The extrinsic conception of function is known to prevail in his scheme of six functions (cf. Essais de linguistique, p. 213 ff.). Here too, Jakobson adopts the informational standpoint: "Pour donner une idée de ces fonctions, un aperçu sommaire portant sur les facteurs constitutifs de tout procès linguistique, de tout acte de communication verbale, est nécessaire. Le destinateur envoie un message au destinataire. Pour être opérant, le message requiert d'abord un contexte auquel il renvoie...; ensuite requiert un code commun, en tout ou en partie, au destinateur et au destinataire; enfin, le message requiert un contact, un canal physique et une connexion psychologique entre le destinateur et le destinataire" (p. 213-214). This scheme is explicitly meant by Jakobson as the enlargement of the Buhler scheme (p. 216), hence enriched with three functions. Cf. G. Mounin, "Les fonctions du langage", in Word, 23 (1967), p. 368-418, who delivers a complete survey of all extrinsic functions, ascribed to language by the axiomatically orientated linguists (Troubetzkoy, Buyssens, Revesz, Benveniste, Prieto, Bloomfield, Martinet, Jakobson).

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the extrinsic functionality and whatever the nature of the subfunctions in their hierarchic relation to the main function may be — hence, expressivity and conativity, Jakobson's terms for Ausdruck and Appell always subjected to the Darstellungsfunktion, are specifiable into subfunctions 102 whose referential function undeniably takes the advantage —, an extrinsic specification of functionality necessarily leads to an instrumental definition of language: 103 language is submitted to an external area which transcends its autonomy. At the same time, a definition of language elaborated by means of the extrinsic concept of function is tributary to the informational scheme. Precisely in order to evade an instrumental and informational approach of language, we have tried to enlarge the notion of communication, used extrinsically by Martinet, to the topic of communicability, recuperating the intrinsic as well as extrinsic functionality. 104 Therefore, we will introduce again the topic of communicability. It has first to be remarked that the extrinsic functionality has a stronger connection with the syntagmatic axis than with the paradigm : the linearity of the syn102

Cf. 1.1.2. 103 No linguistic conception, not even the most positivistic, defending an extrinsic concept of functionality can escape the instrumental specification of language. This can be verified in N. Mouloud, "Signification, langage et structure", in Rev. de Philos, de France, February 1967, p. 283-307, whose aim is "de diversifier les formes du langage selon les principales fonctions qu'elles peuvent remplir au service des besoins de l'information et de la communication humaine" (p. 283). The author maintains that "le langage comporte une diversité de structures en rapport avec une diversité de destinations" (p. 285), "le langage est Y outil indispensable de la connaissance..." (p. 284) and "les structures du langage qui se met au service des expressions et des suggestions, et qui s'achève dans les formes de l'art" (p. 287). The linguistic teleology ("les structures du langage en fonction de leur destination" (p. 286)) is always stated clearly: explicit allusions are made to Bühler and Martinet. P. Miclau, "Le signe dans les fonctions du langage", in Zeichen und System der Sprache, 3 (1966), p. 174-193, though following the Hjelmslevean tradition, may also be read. Miclau, besides the 'linguistic' function (differentiation) discerns also the gnoseological (abstraction and generalization), the logical (fixation) and the socio-informational (transfer of the message) function. It is typical that for all these functions — except the 'linguistic' one, which is in fact intrinsic and corresponding to our criterion of communicability — 'grammar' is submitted to logic and to information theory. 104 Cf. 1.1.2.

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tagm offers the positivity, which is necessary in order to describe the linguistic entity as the function of an external and 'substantial' area. It is within this type of functionality that a scientific, affective or literary 'function' of language can be mentioned. The Prague manifest is not mistaken in this connection: "La conception fonctionnelle permet de connaître les connexions réciproques des différentes formes syntagmatiques". 1 0 5 Hence, the extrinsic functionality is discovered in a syntax or a morphology. In the paradigm, the terms can only be extrinsically functional, when they are 'spread out' and acquire in the linearity the positivity of a syntagmatic unit; this is Jakobson's definition of the poetic function, which hence becomes the only extrinsic function, to which the paradigm, even if under the linear form of the syntagm, is directly related. 1 0 6 W e have however to note that the extrinsic functionalism is softened by the authors themselves, mentioned above : the distinctive function, elaborated by all Prague phonologists in connection 105

Op. cit., p. 13, in which a 'functional syntax' is mentioned. Most functionalists share this opinion: "Le sens donné au mot fonction... est celui que lui reconnaissent tous les grammairiens; il désigne une certaine sorte de rapport syntaxique... C'est le sens où l'entendent des linguistes comme Bloomfield et Martinet: il s'agit de la façon d'employer les éléments linguistiques dans le discours. La théorie défendue ici est que toute catégorie grammaticale est essentiellement un fait fonctionnel, c'est-à-dire un fait qui caractérise la façon dont tel élément se combine à d'autres dans le discours" (E. Buyssens, "La conception fonctionnelle des faits linguistiques", in JPs, 43 (1950), p. 46). This quotation has however to be understood rightly: indeed, here function is not the syntactical relation in se but it rather points to the dynamism of the linguistic entity: "La linguistique est à tous moments une discipline fonctionnelle, étudiant le discours en tant qu'activité" (p. 52). Function is still the characteristic of the linguistic entity; the way of functioning constitutes the feature or function of this entity. In as far as the linguistic entity is inserted in the syntagm, mention can be made of its functioning; the syntactic relations, kept by the entity with the other syntagmatic entities are considered as the characteristics or 'functions' of this entity. We also premise this argumentation in connection with the 'phonological function'. In Martinet's statement: "Le linguiste s'intéresse aux faits phoniques dans la mesure ou ils exercent une fonction" (Eléments, p. 63), this function is still a quality of the phoneme. This quality, even expressing a relation and hence supposing the word (or moneme) — Biihler's Zeichen an Zeichen can be reminded here —, still identifies with .he positivity or, in Martinet's terminology, with the vocality of the phoneme. 106 Cf. 1.2.2.

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with the phoneme, belongs already to another level (on the scale 'extrinsic-intrinsic') than the so-called denominative, representative, communicative linguistic functions. 107 For the distinctivity — which is central in Jakobson, Troubetzkoy and Martinet and only peripherically supplied by other subfunctions, as the contrastive and culminative functions — is an intra-linguistic phenomenon; moreover linguistics has reached its own autonomy with respect to the socio-psychological sciences, when establishing the distinctive function of the linguistic entity. These phonologists still define the distinctive function as finalistic: distinctivity as linguistic phenomenon is itself submitted to the extrinsic functions of denomination, communication, representation a.o. Hjelmslev's appreciation of the distinctive function, used by the Prague phonologists, 108 107

E.g. the three 'fundamental functions of the phonic elements' in Martinet's works : the distinctive (or oppositive) function ("lorsque (les éléments phoniques) contribuent à identifier, en un point de la chaîne parlée, un signe par opposition à tous les autres signes qui auraient pu figurer au même point si le message avait été différent"); the contrastive function ("lorsqu'ils contribuent à faciliter, pour l'auditeur, l'analyse de l'énoncé en unités successives"; e.g. the accent); the expressive function ("celle qui renseigne l'auditeur sur l'état d'esprit du locuteur") (Eléments, p. 61-62, n. 3-4; also La linguistique synchronique, the whole chapter I I : La Phonologie, p. 36-76, where the notions of pertinence and distinctivity in functional phonology are clearly guiding Martinet's argumentation). In Troubetzkoy's GrundzUge are distinguished as subfunctions within the extrinsic 'representative' function: the culminative function ("les particularités phoniques qui indiquent combien d'unités sont contenues dans la phrase") ; the delimitative function ("les éléments qui marquent la limite entre deux unités"); the distinctive function ("les éléments qui différencient les unes des autres les diverses unités pourvues de signification"). Whereas the culminative function is hardly dealt with, the study of the distinctive phonic function, under the heading of Diacritique, as well as of the delimitative function, under the heading of Oristique, constitutes the content of this book. A. Martinet did throw light upon the impressionistic, subjectivistic and psychologizing tendency of Troubetzkoy, a fervent supporter of the Biihler scheme (cf. La linguistique synchronique, p. 77-108). Martinet, at the same time, has pointed out that the introduction of these subfunctions partly annihilates this deficiency. We moreover are persuaded that the history of structural phonology is marked by this fight against psychologism, consciously made by Troubetzkoy a.o. ("Il faut éviter de recourir à la psychologie pour définir le phonème" (p. 42)) and from which Martinet himself does not completely escape. F o r the 'psychological reality' is the external area, which the extrinsic linguistic functionality is concerned with. 108 OSG, p. 57-59: "But the Prague Circle is undoubtedly right in holding

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made us discover that distinctivity has not necessarily to be defined as extrinsic, but that it can also be converted into the intrinsic function of 'recognition'. The basic category of communicability as the whole of features with a distinctive character keeps open the possibility of both an extrinsic and intrinsic functionality. If distinctivity is defined as the function of e.g. communication, the distinctive function itself is extrinsic, but if it is defined as 'possibility of recognition', it is intrinsic. Enlarging Martinet's notion of communication into the renewed topic of communicability aimed indeed at broadening the definition of language; language, in this way, becomes intrinsic as well as extrinsic functionality. It is obvious that the linguistic entity is the distinctive function, when its factualness is derived from the external area, to which it is subjected extrinsically — a distinctive entity is nominative, representative, communicative —, whereas the entity has the distinctive function and is even exclusively definable as difference, when the 'empirico'-deductive analysis 'recognizes' the function as a relation, intrinsic to the structure of language. "On décrit une structure, on en découvre le mécanisme en ramenant les dépendances qu'elle comporte à des fonctions" 109 and "les fonctions constituent donc le principe qui est derrière celui de la dépendance, et par conséquent le véritable principe inhérent et constitutif de la structure". The 'empiristic' method in glossematics consists of a dealing with the functions to take them as norm of all classifications : "en face d'une structure, la méthode empirique est la méthode fonctionnelle". 110 A fonction is in the Prolegomena defined as: "a dependence that fullfils the conditions for an analysis".111 Hence the linguistic 'reality' is identified with the intrinsic functionality which in a subtle way and according to an intricate typology of functions is modulated to the structure of language. Hjelmslev does not allow the system to be interpreted fast to the distinctive criterium as the relevant one... The strong assertion of this principle is the chief merit of the Prague Circle" (p. 59). 109 L. Hjelmslev, Essais, p. 114. 110 L. Hjelmslev, Essais, p. 116 and 121. 111 OSG, p. 31 (definition 8).

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'mechanistically': functions in the system order (correlation; disjunction) as well as in the process order (relation ; conjunction) are either unilateral ('determination'), bilateral ('interdependence') or relation between two variables ('constellation'). 112 But all linguistic data have to be defined as functional : not only syntagm, as the Prague school supposed, but also and especially paradigm, which has to be 'deduced' to a hierarchy of functions. Besides functionality of the twofold systematicness — ultimately reduced by Hjelmslev to paradigm itself — there is the semiotic function, i.e. the relation of reciprocity of both sign relata. This last mentioned enlargement crowns the intrinsic functionalism, since not only the syntagmatic systematicness, but also the tension within the sign between reciprocity and systematicness is reduced. Hence, a radical intrinsic functionality leads towards systematism, already revealed as characteristic of the glossematic specification of language. The functives or terms of the function are even described as functions 113 so that language faithful to the most radical form theorem, appears as a hierarchy of relations, etc... Consequently, systemic term continually withdraws from substan112

"Le système linguistique est d ' u n e souplesse plus délicate que la maxime: tout se tient dans le système d'une langue, prise au pied de la lettre, ne le fait supposer: ... cette fameuse maxime ... a été souvent appliquée d ' u n e façon trop rigide, trop mécanique, trop absolue" (Essais, p. 114). We do not dwell upon the typology of functions: cf. B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 74 ff. and W. Nehring's criticism in "Die Glossematik", p. 111-115, in which sharp irony is uttered against the enlargement of the function concept in Hjelmslev's works. 113 Hjelmslev does accept a category of functives which are in fact no functions, namely the 'entity' ( OSG, p. 31); this concept, which is defined as a sum of variants, is more technical than our more general use of 'entity'. Functions and invariants are identifiable with respect to the 'entities' and variants, not registered in the analysis. The passage: "Moreover, it is immediately seen that not only entities, but also functions have variants, so that the distinction between variants and invariants is valid for functives in general" (p. 56), is enigmatic and does not agree with other utterances of Hjelmslev in the OSG; for the criterion of distinctivity introduces the distinction between invariants and variants. Hence, 'constellation' as the relation between two variants is logically n o real function, since both functives are entities, not definable as relations. Saussure also called the paradigm "une constellation de termes"; indeed, linguistic system, defined as 'constellation', has not yet become 'structure'.

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tiation and need to take its factualness from an extrinsic sphere: for term always remains relation or difference. However, what is 'relation'? Is relation as object of analysis definable in selu or can it only be specified as the noematic claim of the analytical principle? "What is universal, however, is the very principle of analysis itself".115 The analytical principle aiming at adequacy and exhaustiveness, deduces and instores the 'object' to which it is related by arbitrariness. The intrinsic functional analysis cannot start as procedure of delimitation and identification, which presuppose their object to be sign as unit, i.e. an entity of the syntagmatic factualness. When glossematics perorates that "the objects of naive realism are nothing but intersections of bundles of such dependences" or that "a totality does not consist of things but of relationships, and that not substance but only its internal of external relationships have scientific existence",116 it becomes obvious that the 'relation' is in se indefinable, but has rather to be reduced to a claim inherent to the scientific or analytical project itself. "The analysis shall lead as nothing but intersection points of bundles of lines of dependences" and "the principle of analysis must, consequently, be a recognition of these dependences". 117 The intrinsic function, recognizable or distinctive, represents the feature of communicability, which is the basic category of the structural definition of language. For 'recognition' is no factual linguistic datum but is constituted by the analytical principle. These problems are epistemological: intrinsic and extrinsic functionality are mutually related as 'reality' and factualness, as to the scientific investigation. The extrinsic function as relation with the external sphere, is a substantial 'feature' or factualness of entity itself, whereas the intrinsic function as structural term of the system, is the relation which linguistic entity has. For entity, in glossematic perspective, is a non-recuperated variant, since 114

"The definition of analysis presupposes only such terms or concepts as are not defined in the specific definition system of linguistic theory, but which we posit as indefinables: description, dependence, uniformity" (OSG, p. 27). 115 OSG, p. 21. 116 OSG. p. 22. 117 OSG, p. 26.

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the 'real' systemic terms are in fact functions or relations, of which the functives are in turn functions .... Is relation within linguistic factualness or is it, as arbitrary condition, linguistic 'reality' itself? The ambiguity of the Cours cannot be completely removed here. 118 The following corresponding utterance: "Le rapport, c'est le phénomène" (II R 64) and "Il n'y a pas une différence radicale en linguistique, entre le phénomène et Vunité" (R 75)119 are enigmatic. Linguistic phenomenality, i.e. the appearance of linguistic 'reality' or of the paradigm in the linguistic factualness or in the syntagm, is the relation. For syntagmatic-discursive process is the specific systematicness of nonisolation, within which the entities are 'opposed' or mutually related as difference (opposition is both difference and connection). Hence, relation ("le rapport"), as to Saussure, could be considered as the dynamism extending the linguistic mechanism, and ultimately as the linguistic phenomenon: "Le rapport, c'est le phénomène" or "Rapport ou phénomène suppose un certain nombre de termes entre lesquels il est produit, entre lesquels il se passe".120 These passages point out that Saussure situates 'relation' within the discursive-syntagmatic productivity; hence, 'relation' could be accomplished through the combination of entities in the linear and productive order of the syntagm. Saussure can be said to link up 'relation' with the appearance of language in the process. This 118

In OSG, p. 22, Hjelmslev explicitly ties on to Saussure's sketch of the 'rapport', interpreting it in a reductive glossematic way. 119 R. Godel, SM, p. 221. "Phénomène" is only used exceptionally by Saussure (according to Godel's Index, twice, in the third Cours, in the expression: "le phénomène synchronique" and "le phénomène diachronique"). We want to take up here another quotation, of which each word bears importance: "... nous parlons de phénomènes qui se passent entre tels ou tels termes, comme si ces termes n'avaient pas plus à être définis que n'importe quel objet visible, n'étaient pas eux-mêmes ce qu'il faudrait définir. C'est une fiction. C'est justement le point le plus délicat de la linguistique que de se rendre compte de ce qui fait l'existence d'un terme quelconque, car aucun ne nous est donné comme un genre d'entité tout clair, si ce n'est par l'illusion que nous procure l'habitude" (N 12 in R. Godel, SM, p. 221; our italics). This, as to us, means that the 'phenomenon', i.e. what occurs between the terms, constitutes the existence of the term. 120 N 11 R 64 in R. Godel, SM, p. 271.

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conception does not appear unambiguously from Saussure's writings. Relation is the linguistic phenomenon and "phénomène devrait être entendu aussi bien d'un état que de Yévénement qui en est la cause, l'un et l'autre étant dans son ordre un phénomène". 121 Both, the status order (system) and the event order (process), through preserving their specificness, introduce the 'phenomenon' or 'relation'. Relation in the first case is a 'static' term of the system and its reality is instored by the analytical principle: it is intrinsic functionality. Relation in the second case is the productive combination between entities drawing its factualness from the positive linguistic units: it is extrinsic linguistic functionality, since the entities take their positivity from a sphere external to language. Saussure's specification of 'rapport', notwithstanding the 'phenomenological' tendency privileging the syntagmatic systematicness, remains within the rewarding ambiguity wherein the intrinsic as well as extrinsic conception of functionality can be inscribed.

2.3.

LINGUISTIC FORM

The attempt to consider language as identity guiding structural thought is incorporated in a continually purifying formalism, which not only aims at being operational but also at defining language itself in its essence. Structural formalism, affording to linguistics self-consistency and coherence, never met before Saussure, wants to overbridge the epistemological breach between linguistic thought and language: language as object of science is only in the objectivity reached within the science of language. Constituting origin and constituted result of the investigation identify to linguistic 'reality'. This reductive aim-limit is logicistic and formalizing: linguistics thinks language as form. Linguistic system with its formal structure of intrinsic functions 122 is a form 121

N 12 in R. Godel, SM, p. 271. The definition components till now appearing in this chapter, are: system opposed to systematicness, formal to real structurality, intrinsic to extrinsic functionality. 122

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and not a substance. This adage occurs twice in the Cours: "la linguistique travaille donc sur le terrain limitrophe où les éléments des deux ordres (both amorphous orders of phone and 'thought') se combinent; cette combinaison produit une forme, non une substance" and "Mais la langue étant ce qu'elle est, de quelque côté qu'on l'aborde, on n'y trouvera rien de simple; partout et toujours ce même équilibre complexe de termes qui se conditionnent réciproquement. Autrement dit, la langue est une forme et non une substance".123 Only by a profound and nuanced interpretation of these statements a conclusion can be formulated as to the form theorem of structural linguistics : 2.3.2. "Language as Form and as Shaping". It first has to be examined what both constitutive structural tendencies (namely formalistic and substantialistic structuralism) mean by 'form', 'substance' and their relation: 2.3.1. "The function of Form and Substance."

2.3.1. The function ofform and substance These passages of the Cours, isolated by many Saussureans from their context, have as such always made possible some radical nostalgia; moreover, they are partially discontinuous to the use of the topics of form and substance occurring in Saussure. 'Form' is neither ascribed to language nor to sign, as in the statements mentioned above, but rather to signifier. This was indeed usual in the pre-Saussurean linguistics and philosophy of language, since form is not opposed to substance but to content ("Stoff"). 124 However, as to the signifier, only the functional syntactic aspect 123

Cours, p. 157 and 169. However, these quotations do not occur in the Sources manuscrites, but they are added by the editors Bally and Sechehaye. 124 Q- x . de Mauro, Corso, p. 350-351, denoting Saussure's affinity with Humboldt, Marty ("Form als das Gestaltgebende, Bestimmende, Wertvollere") and Gabelentz ("Sprache als einheitliche Gesamtheit solcher Ausdruckmittel für jeden beliebigen Gedanken", "als Gesamtkeit derjenigen fähigkeiten und Neigungen, welche die Form derjenigen sachlichen Vorstellungen, welche den Stoff der Rede bestimmen...")- Saussure was indeed acquainted with the Sprachwissenschaft (1891) of Gabelentz.

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is form: grammatical impact shapes the signifier (e.g. by declension and conjugation) to a functional element in the linear 'order' of language. 1 2 5 M o r e emphatically, substance — except in these adages and in some important notes of the Sources manuscrites — is defined as the 'abstract' phonic chain. Thus, Saussure stresses language as 'concrete object', 1 2 6 foreign to sound, which is one of the material or substantial components of linguistic phenomenality: 1 2 7 "dans son essence, (le signifiant linguistique) n'est aucunement phonique, il est incorporel, constitué, n o n par sa substance matérielle, mais uniquement par les différences qui séparent son image acoustique de toutes les autres". 1 2 8 The important dichotomy 125

In this respect three passages of the Cours have to be treated. 'Form' (p. 174) is used as synonym of linguistic phone ("le sens et la forme"); but, it is explicitly stated (p. 186) that "formes et fonctions sont solidaires ... on voit donc qu'au point de vue de la fonction, le fait psychologique peut se confondre avec le fait syntaxique... Tout mot ... ne se distingue pas essentiellement d'un membre de la phrase, d'un fait de syntaxe". Saussure (p. 145) declares that the utterances "forme verbale", "forme nominale" are misleading since they apparently do not appeal to meaning (nor to sign theorem). The latter remark already refers to Saussure's form topic, which we interpret as identical to articulus. It is important to recognize the nuances of these passages: form opposed to semantic content, form as syntactic fact, form as articulated relatum of the sign figure. The orthodox structuralists, mostly without any epistemological care, agree with these three uses; e.g. A. Martinet, who is inclined to the third modality: "Il n'y aura donc aucun 'sens' en linguistique qui ne soit impliqué formellement dans le message phonique; à chaque différence de sens correspond nécessairement une différence de forme quelque part dans le message" (Eléments, n. 2-8, p. 35). Hjelmslev (before 1935) uses the second modality: "La forme fait partie du signifiant et non du signifié. Ce fait est capital. La linguistique même est à ce prix" (p. 116 of Principes de grammaire générale, cited by B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 91); Hjelmslev, moreover, treats the relational form of words situating it on the intersection of morphology and syntax. 129 Cours, p. 32: "La langue n'est pas moins que la parole un objet de nature concrète". 127 Cours, p. 21 : "L'essentiel de la langue est étranger au caractère phonique du signe linguistique", "la formation, c'est-à-dire l'exécution des images acoustiques, n'affecte en rien le système" (cf. the metaphor of the symphony, p. 36): "la phonologie (in Saussurean sense) n'est qu'une discipline auxiliaire et ne relève que de la parole" (p. 56); and especially: "il est impossible que le son, élément matériel, appartienne par lui-même à la langue. Il n'est pour elle qu'une chose secondaire, une matière qu'elle met en œuvre" (p. 164). 128 Cours, p. 128.

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of form and substance can only be achieved when substance is opposed to signifier, which in its grammatical dependence is called a 'form'. 2.3.1.1. The tripartite glossematic form theorem: form, and purport

substance

The topics of form and substance have already been affirmed as the basic categories of the glossematic stratification of language. They on the one hand have been defined as to their relation, which is the selective function, and on the other as to their intralinguistic solidarity before extrinsic purport. The axiomatic interplay of form, substance and purport, though bringing about an ascetic conception of language in glossematics, removes, as to us, from the Saussurean intuitions. Hjelmslev calls Saussure's doctrine, presenting language as the shaping of two amorphous 'masses' (phone and 'thought') a pedagogisch Gedankenexperiment, already surpassed because: "it becomes clear that the substance depends on the form to such a degree that it lives exclusively by its favor and can in no sense be said to have independent existence". 129 Extrinsic to language a datum is functioning, which as principle is common to all languages; it is indeed purport, i.e. 'thought itself' 130 or sound chain, which can be 'analyzed' in the particular languages or according to logical, psychological and other scientific points of view. 131 Form of shaped purport is determined by the intrinsic linguistic functionality; purport only 'exists' as substance, i.e. shaped purport, of some form. Stratification is carried through, when on the level of content and expression and in the sphere of process and system, the independent form and its arbitrary function with the purport, shaped to substance, is recognized. Hjelmslev's 139 OSG, p. 46. This affirmation is a commentary on the adage of the Cours mentioned above, p. 157, which we further on will interpret differently. 130 OSG, p. 47: "the purport, the thought itself". 131 "It is like one and the same handful of sand that is formed in quite patterns, or like the cloud in the heavens that changes shape in Hamlet's view from minute to minute" (p. 48); this quotation is one of the few metaphors in the OSGl

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specification of the sign definition may be reminded here: sign function brings about both functives, i.e. the forms of expression and content achieving their substances (namely shaped purports or phone and 'thought', which are subjected to the structural principle). Now, the hierarchy of linguistic 'reality' is outlined: first, function occurs, in which form takes primacy over substance, since substance is the manifesting term of a selective relation with the form; purport is only definable 'in principle' or negatively, i.e. as substance or shaped purport, on account of an extrinsic function with linguistic 'reality'. These explicit statements from the Prolegomena, notwithstanding their apparent coherence, evoke many axiomatic questions. The glossematic construction — setting aside the problem of the statute of function and functives, discussed in the previous paragraph about the intrinsic functionality 132 — has to be put in question, as follows: what is the specificness of substance before form and purport? Since substance is defined as shaped purport and since it is selectively related to form, it is but linguistic form within the extra-linguistic purport, or purport itself. Hence, no specific statute — in opposition to Hjelmslev's affirmations — can be ascribed to substance as intermediate term between linguistic form and extra-linguistic purport. A twofold tendency is stated in the Prolegomena. Substance is either reduced to form: substance is selectively related to form and as manifesting linguistic form does not obtain linguistic consistency. 133 Or it is reduced to purport: substance is neither linguistically consistent since it is expelled out of language, i.e. out of intrinsic functionality; therefore, Hjelmslev necessarily and frequently confuses substance and purport. Glossematics, using the linking topic of substance, aims at demonstrating the autonomy of language and linguistics: the substance or the so-called 'shaped purport' is taken up in the stratification of language and becomes object of linguistic investigation. 132

Cf. 2.2. The statute of substance is analogous here to the statute of process before system; we have stressed the reduction of process to system, occurring in glossematics (cf. 2.1.1.1.). 133

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Setting aside the glossematics, dominating by an axiomatics of three terms, the problem of the relation between language and non-language, between linguistic 'reality' and factualness, can by means of Saussure's opposition between form and substance (substance, as to Saussure, is the 'dialectized' Hjelmslevean purport) be put more distinctly. Introducing the intermediate term of 'glossematic substance' appears but as an illusory solution, due to the claim for systemic identity. The study of the twofold reductive tendency (from substance to form and to purport), effectively operative in glossematics, will demonstrate that Saussure's form theorem, precisely because of its rewarding ambiguity, can hardly be called a Gedankenexperiment. From substance to form Form is encatalyzed to substance134 as system to process. This catalysis is made possible by the arbitrariness of the form-substance relation: form is not necessarily manifested in a determined substance.135 The structural principle and the 'empiristic'-analytic criterion, resulting from it, do not allow substance to be lifted up to a definition component of language 136 : for substance is neither deducible nor definable exhaustively; substances before one and the same form are reversible and translatable. "The entities of linguistic form are of 'algebraic' nature and have no natural designation".137 The linguistic scheme is not affected by manifestation (or 'linguistic usage'): the selective relation between the form as constant and the manifesting substance as variable only requires 2.3.1.1.1.

134

OSG, p. 86; cf. 2.1.1.1. "In the arbitrariness of the names lies the fact that they do not all involve the manifestation... On the basis of the arbitrary relation between form and substance, one and the same entity of linguistic form may be manifested by quite different substance-forms, as one passes from one language to another; the projection of the form-hierarchy on the substance-hierarchy can differ essentially from language to language" (OSG, p. 86). 136 "Saussure's distinction between form and 'substance' (purport), from which it further follows that 'substance' cannot in itself be a definiens for a language ... The arbitrary relation between linguistic form and purport makes this a logical necessity" (OSG, p. 91). 137 OSG, p. 94. 135

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from the form a capacity of manifestation and not manifestation itself. Linguistic reality is once again the arbitrary condition of linguistic factualness. In the same way as the presence of system in process provides process with 'reality', so linguistic form in substance provides substance with linguistic consistency. Hence, glossematics aims at the suppression of substantial specificness and at its reduction to form. 138 This reduction, denying manifestation all 'reality' to the advantage of the capacity of manifestation, makes it necessary to designate glossematic systematism as formalistic. The criticism of the 'realistic' structuralists on this formalism mainly bears upon the selective function between form and substance. They want to retain the specificness of substance by propounding a function of solidarity, on which form and substance as two functives presuming each other in reciprocity, depend. This recognition of the linguistic consistency of substance — even paradoxically operative in some passages of Hjelmslev's works — prevents the 'glossematic' substance from its reduction to form, but supposes at the same time its conversion into extra-linguistic purport-, only the relation between form and purport is a function of solidarity. The axiomatic consequences of this insight are elucidated by the valuable critical study of F. Hintze about the formsubstance relation in glossematics.139 He, in opposition to Hjelmslev, premises the solidarity between form and substance: "Nicht eine Projektion des sprachlichen Systems auf die amorphe phonische Substanz zwingt dieser seine Form auf, sondern zwischen Form und Substanz besteht ein unauflösliches Wechselverhältnis: 138

Even Hjelmslev's distinction between 'pure form', defined by intrinsic functionality, and 'material form' or the form referring to substance, does not annihilate this reduction tendency, because "la forme matérielle ne veut dire qu'un reflet de la forme pure, projetée sur la substance, se nourrissant de ses bienfaits, et obtenu par une induction surajoutée des significations particulières qui, d'une façon analogue, sont les projections matérielles de variantes offertes par la forme pure" (Essais, p. 108). 139 F. Hintze, "Zum Verhältnis der sprachlichen Form zu Substanz", in Studia Linguistica, 3 (1949), p. 85-105. The form-substance relation is treated here on the expression level only; consequently, also the relation between phonetics and phonology is examined.

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jede der beiden setzt die andere voraus und wirkt auf sie ein...". 140 The reduction of substance to form is the epiphenomenon of the logical interpreting of the systemic relations ; 141 hence, the rewarding distinction between opposition and difference is denied142. Only when language is considered as a 'social act' or, in our terminology, as extrinsic functionality,143 axiomatics can recognize the specificness of substance and affirm the intranslatability or irreversibility of substance before the linguistic scheme. 144 Opposition refers to substantial factualness, and extrinsic functionality to an external and non-linguistic sphere: factualness and externality are essential features of the Hjelmslevean purport. When substance, notwithstanding the formalistic tendency of glossematics, is removed from the reduction to form, the axiomatic value of purport, i.e. externality and factualness (which are extra-linguistic), is affirmed for linguistic investigation. Hence, sign and commutation, linguistic operation pre-eminently allowing delimitation and identification of the units, still resist, to the 'ideal' construction of language as Form. "II parait que la 140

"Art. cit.", p. 101. "Denn der Art der Relationen selbst... ist, da es sich hier um nichtlogischen Relationen (von 'Gegenständen') handelt, eindeutig bestimmt durch die Art oder Kategorie des Substanz, die der jeweiligen Form adäquat ist" ("art. cit.", p. 91). 142 Hintze in this respect interprets an important passage from the Cours (p. 153), in which Saussure states that the classification of the systemic terms has to be based on concrete entities and not on logical categories. Some view of R.S. Wells ("De Saussure's system of linguistics", in Word, 3 (1947), p. 1-37) is quoted here by Hintze: linguistic structuralism has not to deal with the fact that entities differ in the system, but how they differ (i.e. they are not different, but opposed; cf. difference and opposition). 143 " j n (] er Nichtberücksichtigung dieses wesentlichsten Kennzeichens der Sprache, nähmlich ihres sozialen Charakters, scheint mir die eigentliche Ursache der sehr abstrakten Auffassung zu liegen, wie sie Hjelsmlev vertriebt, einer rein formalen Theorie, die nur der kalkülmässigen Seite der geschichtlich und sozial gewordenen Sprache gerecht wird, nicht aber der sprachlichen Ganzheit in ihren phänomenologischen Wirklichkeit" ("art. cit.", p. 103). 144 "... dass es ganz unmöglich ist, die in der Sprache vorhandenen und das eigentliche phonologische System ausmachenden internen Relationen in angemessener Weise in eine nicht-phonische Substanz zu transponieren" ("art. cit.", p. 98). The argument of reversibility of phonic, graphic and other semiological substances, frequently delivered by Hjelmslev, is unacceptable. 141

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commutation, qui est une corrélation...et...les corrélations entre variantes qui... permettent l'identification des éléments, constituent le domaine propre dans lequel le concours de la substance s'impose". 145 When commutation precedes the deduction and when the sign as unit defines the being-term of the sign, substance is connected with the construction of language. Though Hjelmslev maintains that "the postulation of objects as something different from the terms of relationships is a superfluous axiom and consequently a metaphysical hypothesis from which linguistic science will have to be freed", 146 yet he has to accept these terms, which as functives of the function are also called functions or intersections of relations, as entities, i.e. elements of a substantial nature. Hjelmslev of course will object that commutation is only practical or operational and as such does not account for the linguistic consistency of substance; it, pre-analytically or post-analytically, does not affect the deductive construction. But is not reduction from substance to form, bringing about a conception of language as identity, rather an axiomatically unjustified negation of substance? 147 Hjelmslev does not escape the subversive doubt. As soon as the formalistic tendency is capable of reducing the intralinguistic substance to form (or of negating substance), extralinguistic purport obtains an axiomatic statute affirming its irreductibility: linguistic form and purport are mutually dependent and yet irreducible to each other. What is the nature of their relation? 145

L. Hjelmslev, "La stratification du langage", in Essais, p. 46-47. OSG, p. 22. Cf. B. Siertsema, op. cit., p. 99 ff. 147 This troublesome problem leads Hjelmslev to a very radical position; e.g. : "C'est ici que se trouve la frontière essentielle: celle entre la forme pure et la substance, entre l'incorporel et le matériel. Cela revient à dire que la théorie de l'institution se réduit à une théorie du schéma (i.e. the pure form) et que la théorie de l'exécution renferme toute la théorie de la substance" (Essais, p. 79; hence, language is scheme or form, whereas speech is substance!). Hjelmslev now and there approaches the Saussurean solution of the substance problem, e.g. when he agrees with Troubetzkoy and Martinet that not difference as functional fact, but opposition is connected with substance: "l'opposition par contre, considérée en elle-même et abstraction faite de sa suppression possible, reste par définition un fait de substance, et qui se définirait d'une façon toute différente en passant d'une substance à une autre" (Essais, p. 85). 146

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2.3.1.1.2. From substance to purport The Hjelmslevean purport, as principle, is common to all languages; this non-analyzed entity or amorphous mass (of 'thought' and phone) is, notwithstanding its relation with language, irreducible to form: "this factor will be an entity only defined by its having function to the structural principle of language and to all the factors that make languages different from one another"; 148 this function is extrinsic and cannot be taken up in the intrinsic linguistic functionality. The topic of purport inevitably calls up an uneasiness: since purport has an extrinsic function to language — entailing irreducibility as well as relation with language — this axiomatic contribution is but a 'metaphysical hypothesis', of which linguistics, as to Hjelmslev, has to be freed. A closer investigation of this topic affirms the presumption. Indeed, "purport remains, each time, substance for a new form, and has no possible existence except through being substance for one form or an other", 149 i.e. form, arbitrarily related to purport, shapes it to substance. A double question is put here: how is the extrinsic and irreducible character of purport before linguistic form demonstrated in glossematics ? What is axiomatically resulting from the functional connection between purport and form for the specification of the linguistic system? The Hjelmslevean suggestions are brought about by the deductive-analytical nostalgia and by the simplicism, instoring too sharply the dualism between language and non-language. It is stated that "in itself purport is unformed, not in itself subjected to formation but simply susceptible of formation, and of any formation whatsoever; if boundaries should be formal here, they would lie in the formation, not in the purport. The purport is therefore in itself inaccessible to knowledge... (and) can be known only through some formation, and thus has no scientific existence apart from it". The amorphous purport, preceding all languages is a priori and in se unknowable and only negatively, i.e. as principle ("susceptible to formation") definable; yet it as extrinsic and 148

OSG, p. 46-47: "an unanalyzed entity, which is defined only by its external functions". 149 OSG, p. 48.

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irreducible datum has, as to Hjelmslev, function with the linguistic form. The impossibility of conciliating the extrinsic and functional character of purport, marking glossematics, appears from the following formula: "...that language is a form and that outside that form, with function to it, is present a non-linguistic stuff, the purport". 1 5 0 The formative power of linguistic functionality apparently does not affect purport. The datum, effectively shaped in purport is substance or manifestation of form itself. Linguistic substance — at least in this first meaning, appearing intra-linguistically and reducible to form 1 5 1 — is discontinuous to purport. Purport is unshaped; it has no linguistic existence and can only be characterized as non-language. It, notwithstanding Hjelmslev's suggestions, has no function with linguistic form. The debt paid by glossematics, is precisely this dualism between form and purport and ultimately between language and non-language. The following statement, developed in the Prolegomena makes clear that no axiomatic contribution is achieved by the affirmation of the so-called function of purport and form: "While it is the business of linguistics to analyse the linguistic form, it will just as inevitably fall to the lot of other sciences to analyse the purport". 1 5 2 The linguistic analysis of form and the non-linguistic description of purport proceed independently from each other 153 . The sound purport of the expression level and the 'thing purport' of the content level 154 are respectively investigated by 'physics' 150

OSG, p. 69. "It must of course, be expressly emphasized that 'substance' does not enter in opposition with the concept of function, but can only designate a whole that is in itself functional" (OSG, p. 72). 152 OSG, p. 70. 153 "Since the linguistic formation of the purport is arbitrary, i.e. not based on the purport but on the particular principle of t|ie form and the consequent possibilities of realization, these two descriptions — the linguistic and the non-linguistic — must be undertaken independently of each other" (OSG, p. 70). 154 Hjelmslev one time treats 'thought' as content-purport (cf. e.g. p. 46 and 47; p. 69, dealing in this respect with the 'eternal scheme of ideas' and the speculative ontological systems, classifying the content-purport); another time, 'things' as content-purport (cf. e.g. p. 70). These categories are obviously of 151

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(physico-physiology, information theory and phonetics) and 'social anthropology' (sometimes called psychology or phenomenology); all non-linguistic sciences are logically considered for the exhaustive description of the content-purport. Glossematics, science of the linguistic form, "algebra of language", 155 is independent from all other sciences, having the non-linguistic entities or purport as object. And yet glossematics is connected with them: "We are led to a simplification that consist in reducing scientific entities to two fundamental sorts, languages and non-languages, and are led to see a relationship, a function between them",156 The non-linguistic analysis of purport leads through deduction to the construction of a non-linguistic hierarchy, which has a function with the hierarchy reached by linguistic deduction. The function of this non-linguistic with the linguistic hierarchy apparently takes place in the same way as the function of purport with form. Moreover, functionality is as problematic as the dualism between language and non-language, which it cannot overbridge. The function considered here occurs between semiology (linguistics) and metasemiology, as to Hjelmslev, "metasemiology is in practice identical with the so-called description of substance".151 It is remarkable that the ambiguity, marking the entire glossematic no importance and need not be specified, since they are object of other sciences but not of linguistics. 165 OSG, p. 71. 156 OSG, p. 70. 157 OSG, p. 109. We do not develop Hjelmslev's intricate definitions of the different sciences, which serve as superstructure of linguistics. In the conclusion of the Prolegomena a broad though visionary theory of sciences is encatalyzed to linguistics ("Catalysis cn catalysis oblige us to extend the field of vision until all cohesions are exhaustively accounted for" (OSG, p. I l l ) ) ; the immanency of the linguistic theory is but provisional: "Instead of hindering transcendence, immanence has given it a new and better basis; immanence and transcendence are jointed in a higher unity on the basis of immanence. Linguistic theory is led by an inner necessity to recognize not merely the linguistic system... but also man and human society behind language, and all man's sphere of knowledge through language" (OSG, p. 112). The 'metasemiological project' precisely fits in this enlarging perspective. All the ether sciences, having necessarily the linguistic purport as object, are 'encatalyzed' to linguistics; the immanent sciences have through catalysis the methodological chancs of transcending in broader wholes.

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form theorem, is maintained here by the designation of purport as substance. It is obvious that a metasemiological description intends linguistic purport: "The task of metasemiology is to undertake a self-consistent, exhaustive, and simplest possible analysis of the things which appeared for semiology as irreducible individuals (or localized entities) of content and of the sounds (or written marks, etc.) which appeared for semiology as irreducible individuals (or localized entities) of expression". 158 The material residue irreducible to language and not recuperated by an exhaustive 'semiology' is the whole of 'ultimate variants' or 'individuals', which can only be approached metasemiologically. It is true that semiology and metasemiology are directed by one and the same analytical principle, characterized by self-consistency, exhaustiveness and 'simplicity' — basic principle of all scientific activity 159 —, but the 'object' deduced in both sciences is not identical. This is the meaning of the following utterance: "... this difference has proved to be in reality a difference between two forms within different hierarchies. A functive in a language can be viewed as a linguistic form or as a purport-form; from these two different ways of viewing things there arise two different objects, which yet may also be said in a certain sense to be identical since only the point of view from which they are seen is different". 160 It cannot be perceived that 158

And also: "the task of metasemiology is consequently to subject the minimal signs of semiology, whose content is identical with the ultimate content of expression-variants of the object semiotic (language), to a relational analysis according to the same procedure as is generally prescribed for the textual analysis (i.e. linguistic or semiological analysis of the process)" (OSG, p. 108). Both important aspects of the metasemiological problem are touched: metasemiology is the analytical science of the linguistic variants, i.e. the linguistic purport. 159 Hence, also metasemiology leads to a recognition of form, which is not the linguistic form, but the purport-form. "But the non-linguistic analysis of the purport, which is undertaken by the non-linguistic sciences, also leads by the very nature of the matter to the recognition of a 'form' essentially of the same sort as the linguistic 'form', although of non-linguistic nature. We think it possible to suppose that several of the general principles which we are led to set up in the initial stages of linguistics theory are valid not merely for linguistics, but for all science..." (OSG, p. 72). 160 OSG, p. 108.

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both objects are 'in a certain sense' identical, for only the analytical principle deducing both forms is identical. The absence of functionality of both irreducible objects is certain since purport-form is not linguistic form. Metasemiology and semiology have only their analytic-deductive character in common and not the deduced object. 161 The dualism between language and non-language is apparent; it illustrates the unbridgeable irreducibility of form and purport. Functionality is the immanent linguistic form; it a priori excludes all extrinsic function with the independent factualness of a purport, foreign to language. Glossematics offers, in the bulk of axiomatic writings of structural linguistics, the most ambitious and general form theory. From our critical study of the Hjelmslevean interpretation of the structural form theorem, it appears that a formalistic' structuralism is at stake: linguistic form is the intrinsic linguistic functionality and it does not keep a function of solidarity with any sphere external to form. The double focusing statute of substance is characteristic in this respect. The originality of Hjelmslev's form theorem — with its remarkable repercussion on the glossematic sign definition — precisely existed in the operational and axiomatic tripartite interplay of form, substance and purport. Since form is encatalyzed to substance, producing a selective function, a formalistic reductionism is operative: manifestation has no statute of reality, or substance is reduced to form. But substance, when object of metasemiology or when only shaped as principle, ambiguously means purport. However, the analytical reduction and the dualism between language and non-language are, in their contradictory attempts, based on one and the same weakness, inherent to each 161

Yet the definition of 'science of purport' as metasemiology is meaningful. We have applied a criterion of 'translatability' to distinguish linguistics from semiology (cf. 1.2.3.); a suchlike hierarchy can also be drafted of semiology and metasemiology. The form perfectness' of the linguistic and semiological language ultimately makes possible the translatability of all deductive objects to linguistic form. Metasemiology or all sciences of purport are considered as the enlargement or superstructure of linguistics and semiology; hence they are marked by a meta-character with respect to the science of pure form, i.e. of linguistic form.

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formalistic structuralism, namely that the binary function of form and purport or of 'reality' and factualness, cannot be thought in an adequate dialectical way. 2.3.1.2. The binary Saussurean form shaping

theorem: shapelessness and

Some commentators explicitly put the question in how far the glossematic form theory corresponds to the Saussurean intuition ; 162 going back to the form topic of the Cours is rewarding, since glossematic radicalism is questioned now. "La langue est une forme, non une substance" appears in the Cours in connection with the sign definition and the characterization of the 'grammatical' fact (the systemic term) as entity of a system of oppositions, i.e. as unit.163 Saussure in this respect refers to the central adage: "La linguistique travaille donc sur le terrain limitrophe où les éléments des deux ordres se combinent, cette combinaison produit une forme, non une substance".164 This is the key-text for the interpretation of Saussure's form theorem. Not only the context of this adage has to be analyzed, but also the related topics of factualness and reality have to be localized before this form conception. "Prise en elle-même, la pensée est comme une nébuleuse où rien n'est nécessairement délimité. Il n'y a pas d'idées préétablies, et rien n'est distinct avant l'apparition de la langue". 165 Not only thought is an 'amorphous and undivided mass' but also phonic 102

Cf. especially B. Siertsema, op. cit., Introduction, and A. Nehring, "art. cit.", p. 121 ff. Hjelmslev himself discusses his relationship with Saussure's doctrine in "Structural Analysis of Language", in Essais, p. 30-34. 163 Cours, p. 169; this statement concludes § 4: "Le signe considéré dans sa totalité" of Chapter IV: "La valeur linguistique". Linguistic form is treated in connection with the sign definition and with the definition of language as an "algèbre qui n'aurait que des termes complexes" (p. 168). Also R. Godel directly connects 'complex term' with the sign as unit. In the same paragraph the following statement occurs: "un fait de grammaire répond en dernière analyse à la définition de Vunité, car il exprime toujours une opposition de termes". 164 Cours, p. 157. 165 Cours, p. 155.

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substance does not provide previously defined entities. Language or the 'linguisticfact' joins thought and phone "dans des conditions telles que leur union aboutit nécessairement à des délimitations réciproques d'unités";166 language, interpreted as the whole of forms, can be considered as the contiguous series of units, constituted through the contact between two amorphous masses. The 'mysterious fact' ("fait en quelque sorte mystérieux") which is language, is but the form produced by the combination of both substantial orders. Saussure in the same context writes: "On pourrait appeler la langue le domaine des articulations...Chaque terme linguistique est un petit membre, un articulus, où une idée se fixe dans un son et où un son devient le signe (i.e. the signifier) d'une idée". 187 Hence, language is the field of articuli, achieved by the linguistic mechanism, which shapes 'thought' and phone to a contiguous series of units. Shaping and articulation, form and articulus refer to the sign as unit on the contiguous linear axis (sometimes called 'spatiality' by Saussure) of language: articulation is the linguistic mechanism, supposing the combination of the substantial orders as well as the contiguity of syntagmatic factualness. Therefore, mention is made in the Cours of the produced linguistic forms as the whole constituting the linguistic field, rather than of language as form : "la langue est une forme" is an addition of the editors, justifiable through its analogy with and its reference to: "la combinaison produit une forme". 'Thought' or phone is amorphous or substantial, if considered abstractly, i.e. as independent both from the concrete factualness of the combination within the sign and from the contiguity of the series of units. 168 166

Cours, p. 156. Cours, p. 156. Cf. p. 26: "... en matière de langage, l'articulation peut désigner ... la subdivision de la chaîne des significations en unités significatives; c'est dans ce sens qu'on dit en allemand gegliederte Sprache... Ce n'est pas le langage parlé qui est naturel à l'homme, mais la faculté de constituer une langue, c'est-à-dire un système de signes (in the sense of signifiers) distincts correspondant à des idées distinctes". Also R. Godel, SM, p. 214-215. 168 This is affirmed by Saussure about phone and 'thought'. "Il résulte de ce caractère de la langue que le côté matériel du signe est un côté amorphe, qui n'a pas de forme en soi" (II R 37) and "Que sont nos idées, psychologiquement, 167

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Shapelessness or substance is the natural datum in its abstract existence, independent from "l'opération de l'esprit" or linguistic mechanism: there is no substance in language itself, since each substance is subjected to its shaping in the sign : "Le fait linguistique... réclame, pour exister, une corrélation (i.e. the sign reciprocity), à aucun moment une substance ni deux substances". 169 Hence, the known metaphor: "Son et pensée ne peuvent se combiner que par ces unités. Comparaison de deux masses amorphes : l'eau et l'air. Si la pression atmosphérique change, la surface de l'eau se décompose en une succession d'unités: la vague (chaîne intermédiaire qui ne forme pas substance)".170 These affirmations, found in the Cours, point to a nuanced and rich form conception. Apparently, form theorem is integrally subjected to sign theorem. Saussurean linguistics once again testifies in this respect of their semiological origin. The tension within the sign between reciprocity and systematicness retain its constituting value; however the primacy of sign over form implies a parallel primacy of reciprocity over systematicness. Shaping is precisely the mutual relating of both substantial orders and hence the performance of reciprocity in the sign. Sign is not completely reducible to systemic term, since it stays tributary to the specificness of the relata; for not isomorphism between both relata levels but only a parallelism of participation between the relata of the sign system can be upheld. Though linguistic system is form and not substance, yet shaping is affected by the substantial specificness. Saussure's si on fait abstraction de la langue? Elles n'existent qu'à l'état amorphe" (D 176). Cf. R. Godel, SM, p. 253-254. 169 N j4 a ; n r Godel, SM, p. 277. Saussure mentions the 'phonic substance' supposes only implicitly the 'substance of thought'. This is not surprising since form theorem as to him, is closely related to the shaping of the phone by thought. The identification between form and articulus testifies of the phonological origin of the Saussurean form theorem. A rewarding dissymmetry which is however lifted up in glossematics, is discovered in the Cours; precisely because of this dissymmetry structural formalism can be avoided. Moreover, it is only in the third Cours that an opposite notion to articulus is provided for the content level, namely value. 170 II R 38. In SM, p. 277; Cours, p. 156-157. Cf. T. de Mauro, Corso, p. 435, n. 227.

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form theorem does not conceive substance and form, but shapelessness and shaping as a dialectical opposition. Indeed, he does not allow the recuperation of the so-called semiotic function, i.e. the relation between both sign relata, by the global systematicness, as occurring in glossematics : for this relation of reciprocity is basically privileged and of another nature than the intrinsic systemic functionality. Reciprocity is the 'aspect' of linguistic phenomenality resisting to systematicness, to which it is dichotomically related. Within the sign and form conception, upheld in the Cours, in which sign reciprocity and systematicness constitute the inherent and irreducible tension — opposed to glossematics, identifying reciprocity with a function deduced from system — form and function do not coincide. Sign theorem has primacy over form theorem, when reciprocity is not abolished in the global systematicness. A close reading of Saussure affirms this statement: form is specifically 'linguistic' since it is shaping, operative semiologically, i.e. constituting linguistic sign. On the contrary, the glossematic form loses its linguistic specificness and, as claim of the analytical principle peculiar to scientific activity as such, it is of an algebraic nature. Hjelmslev himself specifies that, when the dichotomy between expression and content in the stratification of language is only applicable to the 'semiotic sphere', the opposition formsubstance belongs to the methodology of all sciences. 171 The 171

"La distinction des plans (i.e. of expression and content) s'applique à la seule sphère sémiotique — elle est spécifique à la sémiotique au point même de la définir — alors que la distinction entre 'forme' et 'substance' paraît être d'une application beaucoup plus générale: il semble s'agir tout simplement de l'abstraction qui est la rançon de toute analyse scientifique" (Essais, p. 48). Hjelmslev moreover writes: "Il est probable que toute analyse scientifique, de n'importe quel objet (considéré dès lors comme une classe dans notre sens de ce mot) implique par nécessité la distinction entre deux strata, ou hiérarchies, que l'on peut identifier à la forme et la substance dans l'acceptation saussurienne (mais générale) de ces termes" (Essais, p. 47). This going back to the Saussurean notion of form and substance seems us to be wrong. Also linguistic functionality is reduced by Hjelmslev to a general scientific pattern : "We think it possible to suppose that several of the general principles which we are led to set up in the initial stages of linguistic theory are valid not merely for linguistics, but for all science, and not least the principle of the exclusive relevance of functions for analysis" (OSG, p. 72).

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axiomatic value of the sign theorem provides the criterion to solve the tension between linguistic and algebraic form. If sign theorem keeps up before form theorem and if sign is not loosened from the semiological specification of its reciprocity, mention can be made of the submission of form to sign: for sign is the linguistic shaping of both amorphous or substantial orders. But form theorem has a primacy over sign theorem when sign is reduced to term, i.e.when it is only specified in its systematicness: sign is but function or form — form and function coincide in the glossematic perspective — of two forms, namely expression and content form. In the second case 'shaping' and 'shapelessness' are out of question, since sign itself is the function of both forms; form becomes a purely algebraic category, corresponding to the claim of the analytic-deductive principle. Hence, the Saussurean form theorem cannot be inserted in a symmetric stratified conception of language. Form is articulus here, i.e. linguistic unit, delimitated by the interference of the concept in the linear phonic chain. Sign form is necessarily a quality of the signifier. Dissymmetry indicates the 'articulated' character of form and the priority of the expression level. The operation of delimitating units occurs on the linearity of the phonic chain; 'articulation' is but the shaping of the phonic substance. Since form cannot be ascribed to content, stratification of language is not symmetric: content level in se is not a stratified level, hence not a field of 'articuli'. Moreover, form is a feature of the signifier and not of the phone. Form is only brought about in the sign figure or the articulus is always a signifying unit: for 'concept' shapes phone to a contiguous series of signifiers.172 It can be concluded that Saussure's form theorem is not only semiologically but also phonologically inspired. Form, as to Saussure, is not only opposed to substance, but also to content;173 this twofold focusing, in our opinion, is constitutive for Saussurean axiomatics. The 172 c f . T. de Mauro, Corso, p. 477, n. 204, where 1692-7B Engler is quoted: "Si nous prenons la suite de sons, n'est linguistique que si elle est le support matériel de l'idée... Le concept devient une qualité de la substance phonique". 173

Cf. the beginning of 2.3.1.2.

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Cours moves on the limit between dissymmetric and symmetric form theorem. Though the form conception testifies of its phonological orientation, it is not untrue to point symmetry as the Saussurean attempt-,174 the radical reduction to the symmetric sign is, as already demonstrated, carried through by glossematics. Many central texts of the Cours resist obstinately to this reduction. An important passage, preventing each logicistic interpretation of the Saussurean form theorem, may be cited. "Qu'est-ce qu'une réalité synchronique (or: linguistique)? Quels éléments concrets ou abstraits de la langue peut-on appeler ainsi ? Soit par exemple la distinction des parties du discours ...: se fait-elle au nom d'un principe purement logique, extra-linguistique, appliqué du dehors sur la grammaire comme les degrés de longitude et de latitude sur le globe terrestre? ... 175 Pour échapper aux illusions, il faut d'abord se convaincre que les entités concrètes de la langue ne se présentent pas elles-mêmes à notre observation. Qu'on cherche à les saisir, et l'on prend contact avec le réel; partant de là, on pourra élaborer tous les classements dont la linguistique a besoin pour ordonner les faits de son ressort. D'autre part, fonder ces classements sur autre chose que des entités concrètes — dire, par exemple, que les parties du discours sont les facteurs de la langue simplement parce qu'elles correspondent à des catégories logiques — c'est oublier 174

1 693-1697F Engler proceeds with the text, cited in ( 1 7 2 ): "Il faut dire la même chose de la face spirituelle du signe linguistique... Il faut que le concept ne soit que la valeur d'une image acoustique pour faire partie de l'ordre linguistique... Le concept devient une qualité de la substance acoustique comme la sonorité devient une qualité de la substance conceptuelle". This Saussurean statement has made possible L. Prieto's criticism on the Hjelmslevean commutation (cf. 1.1.3.1.) and, moreover, clearly puts that the dissymmetric form conception does not diminish the reciprocity of sign! Dissymmetry of form and reciprocity of sign do not exclude each other; on the contrary, a symmetric form conception is made possible by the abolition of reciprocity before systematicness. 175 This logical principle is evidently the glossematic form. Hjelmslev, notwithstanding his opposed intention, uses in OSG a similar image: "And by virtue of the content-form and the expression-form, and only by virtue of them, exist respectively the content-substance and the expression-substance, which appear by the forms being projected on to the purport, just as an open net casts its shadow down on an undivided surface". Cf. also, O. Ducrot, op. cit., p. 52.

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qu'il n'y a pas de faits linguistiques indépendants d'une matière phonique découpée en éléments significatifs".176 This text ascribes linguistic reality to sign value in as far as sign is a concrete entity, i.e. a unit achieved through delimitation in the global discourse. Sign as unit, articulus or form is in a double way the linguistic fact pre-eminently: it on the one hand introduces the shaping of both abstract, amorphous and substantial orders 177 bringing about the concrete linguistic fact, but it on the other goes back to the syntagmatic-discursive factualness as linear whole of a contiguous series of signifiers. A third definition element can now be added to the Saussurean form theorem : form not only shows a semiological and phonological but also a syntagmatic focusing178. This ascertainment is important since it suggests the mutual determination of syntagmatic mechanism and shaping or articulation: linguistic mechanism promotes the substantial orders to the factualness of the contiguous series of signs. Saussure's form theorem consisting of the semiological, phonological and syntagmatic definition components, is moreover conceived dialectically. A static point of view, incapable of formulating decisively the mutual dependence between form and substance, is not upheld in the Cours. On the contrary, a dynamic form conception is recognized and a dialectical dichotomy between shapelessness and shaping is 176

Cours, p. 153. This passage is so important that we have to add 1802D Engler: "Il faut toujours dans le langage une matière phonique; celle-ci étant linéaire, il faudra toujours la découper. C'est ainsi que s'affirment les unités (significatives). Mais il faut insister sur le terme: unité ... autrement, on est exposé à se faire une idée fausse et à croire qu'il y a des mots existant comme unités et auxquels s'ajoute une signification. C'est au contraire la signification que délimite les mots dans la pensée" (T. de Mauro, Corso, p. 432, n. 221). 177 "Non seulement les deux domaines réunis par le fait linguistique sont confus et amorphes, mais le choix du lien entre les deux, le mariage entre les deux, est parfaitement arbitraire" ( D 276-277 in R. Godel, SM, p. 242-243). 178 It has to be reminded that Saussure's conception of systematicness supposes the associative (paradigmatic) as well as the syntagmatic axis. The production of articulus is connected with the selection of the term from paradigm. We maintain here that form, as to Saussure, on account of its dynamic factual character, does not coincide with the paradigmatic and static systematicness, as in Hjelmslev's conception: hence, form does not identify with the entire linguistic systematicness.

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instored. 1 7 9 On the linear or 'spatial' axis of continuous linguistic entities (syntagm), the combination of both substantial orders (sign) produces the articulus (signifier of a linguistic unit). The topics of linguistic reality and factualness are conciliated in the form conception, which defines shaping as productive articulation. Form is the linguistic fact pre-eminently and its factualness is of a twofold nature: as sign, it combines both substantial orders, and as unit, it is articulus in a syntagmatic whole. Linguistic fact is also 'real', since it is object of linguistics; this object is in fact not deduced from system as identity but is given as factualness. Far from identifying factualness and reality — this tension remains inherent to each scientific activity — Saussurism formulates a form theorem allowing a dialectical definition of language as non-identity. 2.3.2. Language as form and as shaping Conclusively, we do not aim at enlarging our discussion to the problem of empiricism versus formalism, or mechanism versus morphologism. But we perceive that a form theorem, which cannot be defined unambiguously, is operative in strucutral linguistics of Saussurean tradition. Tensions in the different axiomatic spheres are inherent to and constitutive for the global structural project. The following disposition of the poles of tensions marking this project, can be drafted: "La langue est une forme" and "cette combinaison produit une forme", or: language as form is opposed to the production of the linguistic forms, as the static conception of language to the dynamic. A static structuralism is formalistic, because process is reduced to system and substance to f o r m ; this reduction, entailing the dualizing position of an irreducible purport, which as extra-linguistic 'principle' remains micunshaped, results from the empiric-analytical deduction. Language occurs as 179

This dynamism is expressed by Saussure himself in the following unnoticed passage: "il est impossible que le son, élément matériel, appartienne par luimême à la langue. Il n'est pour elle une chose secondaire, une matière qu'elle met en œuvre" (Cours, p. 164).

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form and all not-form is excluded from linguistic reality since "la forme ... se définit comme l'ensemble total, mais exclusif, des marques qui, selon l'axiomatique choisie, sont constitutives des définitions".180 Linguistic identity is only reached within this conception of language as form, since linguistic 'reality' — dualistically opposed to factualness — is the noematic claim of deduction itself. The ideal construction of language as form refers to intrinsic functionality: because none of the functives is a positive entity, but always a function itself, systemic terms have not to be guaranteed through an external sphere of positivity. Hence, these functives are only systemic terms since they are drafted as difference or negativity and not as opposition or positivity. The systemic structure is 'formal' because not governed by the 'features' of the structural entities. It can be reminded that the formalistic form theorem submits sign so that reciprocity is absorbed by systematicness (itself reduced to paradigm); the twofold specification of sign has become impossible now, whereas sign loses its quality of linguistic unit. Reductionism, statism, systematism and formalism result from an ascetic temptation, marking the radical structural project. The other constitutive tendency represents the dynamic point of view: for language is production of forms or shaping of the amorphous substances. The form theorem is tributary to sign since reciprocity or mutual relationship between the sign relata makes possible shaping. Form is articulus, supposing both sign as unit and syntagmatic contiguity. Articulation, shaping and syntagmatic mechanism refer to a broader systematicness, within which not only paradigm as constructivistic Form but also the specificness of the syntagmatic-discursive 'arrangement' as process of shaping is taken up. Since form and function in this conception of systematicness do not coincide, systemic structure can only be real, i.e. defined by structured factualness. Process and substance, irreducible to form, are yet dialectically related with it: language recuperates in the syntagmatic systematicness the specificness of process and amorphous substances. Hence, the whole of these 180

L. Hjelmslev, Essais, p. 47.

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'linguistic forms' is related to the shaping 'articulation' as paradigm to syntagm, as linguistic construction to mechanism. These relations are neither constellations nor selections, but functions of solidarity: for both terms of polarity are constants calling up each other in their irreducibility. This is indeed the ambiguous form theorem which can be elucidated by a close exegesis of the Cours. The famous structural claim for immanence of linguistics and the axiom of closeness of the linguistic universe essentially go back to an algebraic form theorem: intrinsic functionality is only reached in a linguistic conception where form and function coincide. Does not precisely the submission of factualness to the so-called linguistic 'reality' mean the appealing to a sphere of the algebraic form, foreign to linguistic phenomenality ? Hence, language, by formalistic structuralism, would be considered paradoxically as extrinsically functional to the algebraic sphere. And since the linguistic substances are object of metasemiological sciences (physicophysiology for sound substance and 'anthropology' for content substance) linguistics itself would not own its object: for substance is induced and form deduced from a sphere foreign to language. Language can only be specified extrinsically functional, notwithstanding all basic axiomatic affirmations upheld since Saussure about the immanence and closeness of linguistic universe. This uncertain statute of linguistics between metasemiology and 'algebra* or between substance and form characterize each structural project arising from the Cours. The dichotomic nature of Saussurean axiomatics either leads to dualism between form and purport (in glossematics) or to external dialectics between shapelessness and shaping (in our exegesis of the Cours). The richness of Saussure's thought lies in the double focusing of his form theorem: indeed it makes possible both the logicistic definition of language asform, at the same time origin and result of the 'empiric'-analytical deduction, and the definition of language as shaping, affecting the substantial specificness. Since we only aim at the axiomatizing of the Saussurean form intuition and its logicistic and 'linguistic' interpretation, we do not situate form theorem in a larger framework. When function

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of form and substance is considered dialectically, becoming a dynamic relation between shaping and shapelessness, a valuable contribution for the solution of the traditional yvyavTOndxia 181 of substantialists and formalists is provided. However, the socalled 'linguistic' or dialectical, no more than the logicistic or dualistic form interpretation gives an undivided satisfaction. 1 8 2 W e are convinced that language — notwithstanding the explicit affirmations of some structuralists — is only extrinsically (metasemiologically or algebraically) definable. Indeed, dialectics instored by Saussure between form and substance remains external: form still results from shaping and linguistic construction is achieved by linguistic mechanism. The relation between form and shaping has to be thought internally dialectical.183 Another philosophical and linguistic tradition, from Humboldt to Chomsky, precisely intends a point of view, which is at the same time generative (shaping) and grammatical (form). Axiomatically (and abstracting 181

This well-known term, used by Plato, is quoted on p. 113 of E. Cassirer, "Structuralism in modern linguistics", in Word, 1 (1945), p. 99-120. 182 Some authors appealing to the Cours always slide back into fatal psychologism and extravagant speculation. Ch. Bally and more recently the philosopher H.I. Pos, who conceals too easily a psychologizing phenomenology with structural thought, can be quoted here. Hence in "Perspectives du structuralisme", in TCLP, 8 (1939), p. 71-78: "La généralité, admise mais non pas légitimée par le nominalisme enregistreur, manifeste sa pleine signification aussitôt que le son est rattaché à ses bases psychologiques... Donc le structuralisme a rétabli /'introspection dans ses droits. L'analyse de cette conscience, qui est inaccessible à l'observation intérieure, révèle le caractère intentionné du son parlé..." (p. 73). "C'est ainsi que la phonologie a sauvé le caractère général des phénomènes phoniques: celui-ci dérive directement de l'activité du sujet parlant" (p. 74). H.I. Pos, belonging to the 'realistic' structuralists (p. 77), proclaims "un réalisme de la généralité" as well as a "métaphysique de l'entente humaine". We have attended to these speculations because they appeal to the Saussurean form theorem. Hence, the dialectical rendering of form can fall back into psychologism of introspection! 183 Some authors, among others O. Funke, "Form and Bedeutung in der Sprachstruktur", in Festschrift A. Debrunner, p. 141-150, mention the dependence of Saussure's form concept on the Humboldtian innere Sprachform. This dependence nowhere analyzed exhaustively, seems us rather improbable. Humboldt's form conception has many features common with the Chomskyan form theorem, which is brought about as reaction against classical taxonomic structuralism.

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from the annoying anachronism), the transcendental, deductive and logical form becomes dynamic in the Humboldtian thought; moreover, shaping is dematerialized (Chomsky's suspicion before all linguistic empiricism has to be noted).184 Form here is shaping or competence; form is faculty of language or the possibility (not a transcendent condition separated from linguistic factualness, but language itself as 'mental' competence) of an unlimited number of linguistic utterances. An investigation of the relationship between the transformational-generative and structural form theorem falls beyond the framework of this axiomatics of structural linguistics, notwithstanding its importance for the questioning concerning the statute of discourse.

184 Precisely because shaping or form constitutes the deep structure, which achieves the 'empirical' surface structure by means of a series of transformations. This deep structure or innere Sprachform becomes object of linguistics. Chomsky himself stresses the resemblance of his linguistic thought with Humboldt's idealistic philosophy of language (cf. Cartesian linguistics, New York, 1966). The linguists of the Weisgerberschool and P. Hartmann follow Humboldt explicitly. The latter's important article "Offene Form, Leere Form und Struktur", in Sprache, Schlüssel der Welt, Festschrift Weisgerber, p. 146157, is characterized by an anti-saussurism, also found back in Chomsky. Cf. also E. Cassirer, "art. cit.", p. 110 ff.

3 LANGUAGE AND MEANING

On first sight, no specific meaning theorem occurs in the axiomatics of structural linguistics: indeed, meaning is apparently but the content level of the linguistic sign. Hence, semantics in a structuralism proclaiming the parallelism between the sign relata, is tributary to the same axiomatic claims as phonology: for the semantic and phonological level testifies of the same systematicness. However this point of view has not yet proved to be rewarding. Also because the problem of the linguistic meaning is pre-eminently important for philosophy of language, the questioning of the mutual relation between sign, form and meaning in structural linguistics elucidates the axiomatics unfolded here. First, the hierarchy attributed to the three theorems which are constitutive for axiomatics, has to be specified (3.1. "Sign, Form and Meaning"). Next, the most representative semantic projects can be situated before the structural meaning theorem (3.2. "Situational, contextual, systematic and semiotic Meaning").

3.1.

SIGN, FORM AND MEANING

To define more precisely the originality of the Saussurean meaning topic (3.1.2. "Value and meaning"), we first analyze the consequences of a symmetric and asymmetric sign specification for the definition of linguistic meaning. Though the parallelism between the sign relata is non-isomorph, yet Hjelmslev's stratification of

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language is dominated by a purely symmetric sign conception,1 entailing the primacy of sign over meaning. On the contrary, the other component of the tension constitutive for axiomatics privileges meaning before form and sign; this component represented in Prieto's noology, appeals to the asymmetric sign specification (3.1.1. "Symmetric and asymmetric participation of meaning in the sign"). 3.1.1. Symmetric and asymmetric participation of meaning in the sign 3.1.1.1. Symmetry substance

of sign and dualism of signified and content

Sign is traditionally defined by its meaning: bearing an autonomous meaning, sign is motivated by this meaning as by its origin. On the contrary, meaning, in structural perspective, has to be specified through the sign : for meaning is constituted as the content of the sign function and this signified ("signifié") has but a linguistic consistence, i.e. it participates in the sign systematicness. This reversal, leading to the closeness of the linguistic universe on account of the constitution of signified by the linguistic entity preeminently, namely sign, is only possible if the sign content as form, in a subtle stratification of language (drafted by Saussure and specified by Hjelmslev), is differentiated from the content substance. Hjelmslevean semantics is formalistic, since sign is defined as the function of the expression and content form: only the form of the content relatum is object of linguistic investigation, whereas the substance of this sign content is reserved to metasemiological science. The dualism of form and substance (or of semiology and metasemiology) can also be applied to the meaning definition: signified as form of the content relatum is arbitrary before the global meaning which is driven in the stratum of content 1

Cf. 1.1.2.2. For the criticism of English linguistic-analytical tradition on the Hjelmslevean meaning theorem, cf. N.E. Christensen, On the Nature of Meaning. A Philosophical Analysis, Copenhagen, 1961, especially p. 179-191.

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substance. The dualism of meaning form and content substance supposes sign symmetry: signified as well as signifier are brought about as relata of the sign function. This conception, most clearly formulated in glossematics and already providing an interpretation of the Saussurean intuitions, contains two definition elements: 1. The reduction of substance to form, or of meaning to signified, is connected with the narrowing of the structural notion of systematicness. The signified inherent to language constitutes the content level of the linguisticform, which is the paradigmatic systematicness of language;2 for the discursive-syntagmatic meaning whole is reduced to the paradigm of signified. 2. The content substance has an internal structure, which is not linguistic but metasemiological: since this substance is only a manifestation term and hence arbitrary before the linguistic form, the substantial meaning is not linguistic. 1. Hjelmslev's formale Redeweisez rejects the topic of meaning as not operative and not axiomatic.4 The affirmation that sign 'signifies' (bears meaning) or that language as sign system 'signifies', appeals to the extrinsic functionality, belonging to a sphere, preceding and foreign to language: hence, form 'signifies' substance. Indeed, in classical linguistic thought, language is the reflection of a founding and specific meaning sphere. On the contrary, glossematics defines sign, in the light of linguistic arbitrariness,5 as a function, in which expression and content are related in symmetric reciprocity. There is a content level in language, which participates in the sign systematicness. Reciprocity and systematicness are necessarily connected here: on the one hand, a third 2 Cf. 2.3.1.1.1. A.J. Greimas' essays in Du Sens, Essais sémiotiques, and especially "La structure sémantique", p. 39-48, which explicitly goes back to the Hjelmslevean stratification of language to frame the linguistic meaning notion, can be read as illustration of the formalistic meaning conception. 3 OSG, p. 98 (is opposed to: inhaltliche Redeweise). 4 OSG, p. 41 : "This is not changed by the fact that meaning in the traditional sense is a vague concept that we shall not retain in the long run without closer analysis". 5 Cf. 1.2.1.

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level is introduced between language as expression system (of signifiers) and meaning substance, namely the level of the intralinguistic content form or of signified, and on the other, the systematicness of signified results from their participation in linguistic form. Considering the 'meaning' of an entity as a systemic term, the classical linguistic conception is already escaped: "In suggesting so far-reaching an analysis on a conventional basis, we should perhaps draw attention to the fact that the 'meaning' which each such minimal entity can be said to bear must be understood as being a purely contextual meaning",6 The signified participate in linguistic form because the content stratum is in the linguistic system related to the expression stratum of signifiers in symmetric (but non-isomorph) reciprocity: "In absolute isolation no sign has any meaning";7 beyond the system there is neither signified nor sign constituting meaning. Meaning does not represent a privileged sphere, preceding sign, but is the content stratum which participates symmetrically with the expression stratum in linguistic form. Instead of stating the 'contextuality' of the signified, glossematics has rather to specify paradigmatically the systemic dependence of signified.8 6

OSG, p. 41. And further: "... But from the basic point of view we have assumed, there exist no other perceivable meanings than contextual meanings; any entity, and thus also any sign, is defined relatively, not absolutely, and only by its place in the context". 7 OSG, p. 41. 8 B. Sierstema, op. cit., p. 131 ff. ascertains that the Hjelmslevean use of 'context' is inaccurate: "glossematics includes in its context what is ordinarily called the sign system" and "... but this paradigmatic glossematic conception of the 'context' reveals the curious fact that the glossematic 'content-form' and the traditional 'lexical-meaning', which just as the content-form may also be realized in different contextual meanings in the ordinary sense, cover the same ground" (p. 133). In the passages of the OSG (p. 40-43) analyzed here, Hjelmslev not only mixes up context and system but also situation and context, since he inexactly writes about a 'situational and explicit context', though he wants to lift up the traditional distinction between 'meaningful' and 'meaningless' linguistic entities (e.g. substantial and morphological or prepositional linguistic elements) on account of their 'contextuality', yet each semantic project, developed by Hjelmslev is lexical and explicitly paradigmatic (cf. the colour-spectre). Cf. Essais, "Pour une sémantique structurale", p. 97 ff. However lexicalism of the structural semantics does not only occurs with Hjelmslev but it is also typical of almost all semanticists following Saussure.

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2. 'Meaning' as dealt with in classical linguistic thought, is in a glossematic perspective only the manifestation term of the content form. We have treated the inconsistent and double focused statute of this manifestation term: 9 for substance is reducible either to form or to purport; but it by no means has a function of solidarity with the linguistic form, hence lacking linguistic autonomy. 10 Hjelmslev attributes an internal structure, only framed metasemiologically, to the manifestation term: though content form is manifested through different substances, yet a hierarchy of the structural constitutive levels of meaning substance can be drafted. This structuration based, as to Hjelmslev, on "ontological and phenomenological premises",11 is extra-linguistic and is mainly intuitionally reached. Its principle goes back to Saussure's sociopsychological nostalgia: the nature of the content substance in Hjelmslev's stratification of language refers to the 'conceptual' nature of the Saussurean underlying sign relatum and to the extrinsic sign specification12 where language is presupposed as a socio-semiological institution. Indeed, the most immediate descriptive level of the substance structure concerns the social or collective evaluation and appreciation.13 Hence, a socio-anthropoIogical metasemiology has to account for meaning phenomena,

9

Cf. 2.3.1.1. We already know the following passage of OSG : "From the point of view adopted here we must conclude that, just as the various special, non-linguistic sciences can and must undertake an analysis of the linguistic purport without considering the linguistic form, so linguistics can and must undertake an analysis of the linguistic form without considering the purport that can be ordered to it in both planes" (p. 71). 11 OSG, p. 71. 12 Cf. 1.1.1.1. 13 Hjelmslev deals with this substance structure in two passages of his works : in "La stratification du langage" (Essais, p. 51-61) and in "Pour une sémantique structurale" (Essais, p. 109-110). "De toute évidence c'est la description par évaluation qui pour la substance du contenu s'impose immédiatement ..."; "... il n'en reste pas moins que la substance immédiate du contenu semble consister en des éléments d'appréciation ; on peut même dire que, grâce à cette analyse formelle, le niveau immédiat de la substance se réduira à plus forte raison à n'être que d'une nature nettement appréciative ..."; "... à l'intérieur 10

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as e.g. the metaphor, till now treated in semantics.14 However, an exhaustive description of the content substance has to appeal to secondary explicative patterns as the 'socio-biological' and 'physical' ones. Those categories, vaguely defined by Hjelmslev, mainly refer on the one hand, to the informational or situational meaning (i.e. the aspect of the meaning substance, tributary to the circumstances in which the transfer of message is achieved) and, on the other, to the referential meaning (i.e. the aspect of the meaning substance, which results from the intentional character of language and its referential focusing). The hierarchy of explicative patterns, allowing the internal structuration of the meaning substance, also provides the metasemiological possibility of approaching unambiguously whatever substantial stratum, even the stratum of the expression substance. Hence, not only signifier and signified as forms of expression and content are taken up within the symmetry of linguistic sign, but also the substances of expression and content are symmetrically participating in a metasemiological substance structure. The symmetries of forms and substances are discontinuous, since they are founded on structures of a different nature. Whereas the structure of the form strata is only dependent on the intrinsic functional and systemic features of language, the structure of the substance strata is dependent on the factualness of linguistic phenomenality. The internal substance structure is a posteriori and does not come up to the analytic-deductive aim of the linguistic project. Hence, Hjelmslev's doctrine about the internal substance structure is inconsequent and paradoxical. "Il paraît que les niveaux constituent, sans égard à la substance considérée, un système universel

de cette substance le niveau primaire, immédiat... est un niveau A'appréciation sociale" (p. 52 and 53). It has to be reminded that when Hjelmslev treats substance, purport is meant (cf. p. 50). 14 "... la méthode qui consiste à décrire le niveau d'appréciation sociale présente l'avantage... de pouvoir rendre suffisamment compte des 'métaphores' ... qui le plus souvent proviennent justement d'une telle appréciation collective" (Essais, p. 53; cf. also p. 109).

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(pour lequel il faut prévoir, naturellement, des lacunes possibles dans les réalisations concrètes)": 15 the structure of substance is universal, so that its character of factualness is necessarily denied. Taking into account the glossematic dualism of form and substance, of linguistics and metasemiology, no universal substance structure can be framed, to which content substance or 'meaning' would be subjected. Hence, the description of the universal and metasemiological substance structure is the most intuitional and hypothetic moment of Hjelmslev's stratification. In opposition to the explicit Hjelmslevean statements but in correspondence with the glossematic systemic conception, the topic of symmetry is better reserved to the participation in sign, of signifier and signified: not substances (namely content substance and expression substance), but forms testify of a symmetric and universal structurally. 16 Whatever possibilities are available for the structuration of the content substance, yet structural semantics does not move on the level of metasemiology: meaning escapes the semiological (sign) and structural (form) theorems and has no function with the signified. However, the statute ascribed to signified by glossematics, calls up many problems. Since signified is constituted by the sign function and since it is symmetrically related to the signifier, Hjelmslev does not escape phonologism marking the structural sign theorem; also the content relatum of the linguistic sign system tends to a close structure. "Une description structurale ne pourra s'effectuer qu'à condition de pouvoir réduire les classes ouvertes à des classes fermées. Dans la description structurale du plan de l'expression on a réussi à opérer cette réduction en concevant les signes comme composés d'éléments dont un effectif relativement bas suffit pour accomplir la description. Il s'agira d'utiliser un 15

Essais, p. 56-57. An adequate and profound criticism on the glossematic meaning theorem is not found anywhere. Some indications occur in L. Hermodsson, "Zur glossematischen Bedeutungsforschung", in Studia neophilologica, 37 (1953), p. 35-57, in S.M. Lamb, "Epilegomena to a theory of language", in Romance Philology, 19 (1966), p. 531-573 (especially, p. 567-573) and in A. Martinet, "Au sujet des fondements de la théorie linguistique de L. Hjelmslev", in Bull, de Soc. de Ling., 42 (1946), p. 38 ff. 16

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procédé analogue pour la description du contenu". 17 However it can be objected that the criterion of pertinence, turning the phonological system to a close structure, cannot be applied to the meaning universe; indeed, all signified, whatever the nature is of the structure of the semantic field, have to be 'recognizable' in their distinctivity. This is not accepted by glossematics, since the doctrine of figurae18 explicitly offers a close system of pertinent elements of the signified reducing the open lexical classes to close structures. The failure of this aim results from the symmetric and phonological focusing of the glossematic statute of signified. This tendency overlooks the fact that, in opposition to the expression system, the differences between signified have to be 'recognizable' but not pertinent: "C'est que les langues naturelles, à la différence des codes auxquels les phonologues les comparent, sont sémantiquement ouvertes: non seulement le champ des significations, mais celui du signifié î ' j donnent pour illimités".19 Hence structural semantics is never a reversal of phonology. The closeness of the semantic structure can only be stated, when the investigation is drafted within the syntactic framework: for then the possibility of a non-isomorph symmetry of the phonological and semantic structure is created. This is moreover the way followed by the socalled 'lexicalistically' orientated Hjelmslevean semantics. We do not perceive that syntactic categories can indeed be used for the structuration of the content stratum. Does not meaning effectively exceed the syntactic shaping and cannot one and the same signified be reached within different syntactic categories ? Does the specific semantic structure always coincide with a close syntactic structure? The symmetry of the content and expression stratum subjects the semantic to the morphologic-syntactic structure on account of its closeness. On the contrary, the structure of signified, as to us, does not coincide with this morphologic-syntactic structure; even from a purely structural viewpoint on the signified, neither the 17

Essais, p. 110. Cf. also OSG, p. 41 ff. Cf. 1.1.2.2. 19 O. Ducrot, "Le structuralisme en linguistique", in Qu'est-ce que le structuralisme ?, p. 67. 18

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closeness of the semantic structure nor the symmetric participation of the signified in the sign can be argued. Hence, the meaning theorem does acquire an axiomatic specificness which offers a necessary amplification and shading for the semiological and formal components (sign and form theorem) of structural axiomatics. Therefore semantic structure has to be withdrawn from the grammatical or syntactic impact and considered as open; moreover the relation between the expression and content strata of language has to be defined asymmetrically. 3.1.1.2. Asymmetry of sign and openness of semantic structure The symmetry of the sign is achieved when the sign function is defined as the relation between the expression and content form. On the contrary an asymmetric sign specification, as defended by noology, is based upon a stratification of language where form and substance of both relata do not coincide with signifier and signified on the one hand and with phone and 'meaning' on the other. Hence, signified is not related to 'meaning' as content form to content substance, since there is no dualism between two entities of a different nature. The interpretation of the signified as a class of meaning aims at restoring the continuity lost in glossematics by the severe stratified distinction between form and substance (as purport). We have explained20 that the commutation of both sign relata occurs asymmetrically so that the signified is brought about when phone and 'meaning' are commutated. The relation within the sign between expression and content can no longer be defined as a (formal) function in Hjelmslevean sense, since both strata include the concrete factualness as well as the 'abstract' classes. Whether the noological project, as worked out by Luis Prieto, is faithful to the semiological and functional-systematic standpoint of structural axiomatics will be elucidated further on. We first examine how the signified can be specified in noological perspective.21 20 21

Cf. 1.1.2.1. Cf. especially L. Prieto, Principes de noologie, p. 36-47 and L. Prieto,

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Language, defined in its extrinsic function of social institution, has meaning transfer as its finality; only meaning and phone belong to the concrete linguistic factualness. The constitution of linguistic meaning depends first of all on the 'situation' in which meaning transfer occurs. This situation is specified by Prieto as "l'ensemble des faits connus par le récepteur au moment où l'acte de parole a lieu et indépendamment de celui-ci. On peut dire, en termes naïfs, qu'elle est constituée par ce dont il faut être au courant pour comprendre ce que dit quelqu'un". 2 2 This 'whole of facts' is partly linguistic since a determined type of phone, i.e. a particular language is used, 23 and partly non-linguistic and indeed going back to the physic-psychological 'circumstances' in which transfer is achieved. However, meaning constitution not only depends on 'situation' but also on phone; phone admits but a class of meanings, namely the signified (of the sign), excluding all the others. This 'selection' develops in two stages and proceeds, from the informational viewpoint, as follows: phone admits a class of meanings and, within this class, the meaning which is suggested by the 'situation' is attributed to the phone. Citing Prieto, the interplay between phone (hence signified) and 'situation' for the constitution

Messages et signaux, p. 41-48. It is obvious that not only noology premises the openness of semantic structure. A long tradition going back to some psychologizing meaning theories as e.g. of C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards (The Meaning of Meaning) accepts the extra-linguistic reality as constitutive term of the semantic model. These attempts are only then an axiomatic contribution, if this constitutive term of the model is described as mediatized by linguistic factualness. Cf. K. Heger, "L'analyse sémantique du signe linguistique", in Langue française, 4 (1969), p. 44-66. We indeed are convinced that only Prieto's noology disposes of the theoretizing capacity to account for a semantic theory of the open type. 22 Principes de noôlogie, p. 36. 23 Prieto in this connection introduces the notion of 'noetic field', which denotes the 'universe of discourse', taking up the globality of meanings: "Le champs noétique de la langue à laquelle appartient une phonie est l'univers de discours, c'est-à-dire l'ensemble des sens pris initialement en considération et par rapport auquel la classe de sens qui constitue le signifié de cette phonie est ce qu'elle est" (Principes de noôlogie, p. 45); "... le champs noétique est en effet forcément le même, du moment où il s'agit de phonies appartenant à une même langue" (p. 47).

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of meaning consists of : "Le rôle de la phonie consiste à indiquer au récepteur une classe de sens à laquelle appartient le sens que l'émetteur cherche à établir: cette classe ... est celle que forment les sens admis par la phonie. Les circonstances en favorisant les sens qui composent la classe indiquée par la phonie, permettent au récepteur de reconnaître quel est en définitive, de ces sens, celui que l'émetteur cherche à établir". 24 Hence, the noological definition of signified is framed thus: the signified (of a phone) is the class of meaning, to which belongs the meaning whose transfer is reached by means of a phone, in fact its material (or 'linguistic') side; "la contribution de la phonie à l'établissement du sens dépend donc de son signifié". 25 The noological meaning topic is difficult to situate in the whole of our axiomatic problematics. Noology comes up to the primordial claim of structural axiomatics: the spheres of phone and meaning are mediatized by an intermediate semiological construction, namely of signifier and signified. This mediatizing sign system is considered as a twofold level (of content and expression) of classes, 'abstractions' of linguistic factualness. The asymmetry of the noological sign appears clearly: not the signifier but the phone bears the signified; 26 in this way the abstract content class is subjected to the factualness of expression. In noology, the openness 24

Op. cit., p. 42-43. Op. cit., p. 43. O. Ducrot, borrowing L. Prieto's statements for the most part, provides the following definitions: "On appellera signification les messages dont le signal peut être chargé ... et le mot signifié sera restreint aux renseignements directement apportés par le signal, et qui servent à repérer le message" (Ducrot with 'signal' means phone) ("Le structuralisme en linguistique", in op. cit., p. 63). Language, globally, refers to meaning and has signified ("l'objet particulier visé à chaque emploi est donc indiqué à l'aide de certaines de ses propriétés, celles qui composent le signifié du message", p. 64). 26 The asymmetry can also be framed in another direction : the relation phone — signified (or meaning class) finds it counterpart in the relation signifier (or 'phonic class') — enouncement (or meaning): "Tout comme le sens d'un acte de parole l'est par rapport au signifié, la phonie est le représentant, la 'réalisation' concrète d'une entité linguistique abstraite, appelée 'signifiant', et constituée par une classe de phonies. D'autre part, le signifiant que représente la phonie d'un acte de parole forme, ensemble avec le signifié que représente le sens, une entité 'à deux faces' appelée 'énoncé'" (Principes de noologie, p. 79). However we maintain that this construction is artificial. 25

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of the semantic structure results from the fact that the structure of the signified (or meaning classes) is not universal and syntactic, hence only organizing the terms of the content form; but structure is tributary to the factualness of the expression relatum, providing a whole of rulesfor the constitution of meaning classes. This structure is open since meaning manifests or realizes the meaning class; the manifested meaning, in opposition to the glossematic conception, is not of another nature than the content form or the meaning classes: meaning is the meaning class whose effective possibilities are realized in a 'situation'. The openness of the semantic structure is not reached by the inexhaustibility of the substantial meaning, but it offers a priori the modalities and virtualities, which are delineated and concretized by a 'situation': signified (or meaning class) contains meaning as a virtuality constituted to effective meaning in the 'situation'. We already ascertained that meaning constitution occurs when phone and its signified combine with a 'situation'. Noological class is not identical to glossematic form: signified as class is only 'abstract' in as far as meaning is not yet realized, i.e. not yet delineated by a 'situation'. Meaning class and meaning have one and the same nature, whose continuity is not disconnected by the dualistic hierarchy of form and substance, of linguistics and metasemiology. The meaning class is as substantial as the meaning, or: meaning is as formal as meaning class. In as far as the grammatical-syntactic impact is represented by form, the form-substance dichotomy crosses meaning as well as meaning class. Does this meaning theory still fit in the semiological and functional-systematic standpoint of structural axiomatics ? The implication of linguistic factualness and 'abstract' classes on each stratum of the sign relata, reduces the semiological sign construction to its mediatizing role. Sign is mediation between phone and meaning, with which it is asymmetrically connected: for the signified is carried by the factualness of expression and not by the signifier. Two Saussurean acquisitions are distinctly reinterpreted here, namely the statements of primacy of language on speech and of reciprocity of the sign relata. Noology appeals to the informational scheme or to the "circuit de la parole"; speech act is characterized

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by an irreversible and quasi temporal structure whose moments are the phone, the signified (or meaning class) and the meaning. Meaning transfer dominates the mechanism of speech as well as of language itself: "La seule raison d'être des systèmes phonologique et plérologique (ou sémantique) est de servir à la relation de signification, c'est-à-dire pour le système phonologique, de différencier ou d'identifier les signifiés; pour le système plérologique, d'être différencié ou identifié par les signifiants". 27 Language is thought here in its extrinsic functionality or as mediatizing construction for the communication of meaning; hence, linguistic functionality is finalistic and linguistics is, to quote Hjelmslev, built up by means of the 'phenomenological premise'. 28 Meaning theorem, in noological perspective, not only obtains a specific place in structural linguistics, but also submits sign and form theorem. Notwithstanding Prieto's explicit aim, 29 sign asymmetry moreover achieves the abolition of the reciprocity in the sign, since asymmetry is thought finalistically depriving the expression relatum from self-consistence. The introduction of linguistic factualness in the sign value supposes a conception of language as extrinsic functionality and brings about the abolition of the sign reciprocity. For language as communication is always language as meaning transfer: in this way, not only the expression relatum of the sign, but even the global sign becomes the mediatizing construction to actualize meaning. The attribution of a specific theorematic statute to meaning leads to the questioning of the structural sign definition, as is also demonstrated by our study of the noological commutation. 30 Indeed, noology provides a theory of signified and not of meaning; 3 1 hence, it is not a Hjelmslevean metasemiology, but a science 27

L. Prieto, "Signe articulé et signe propositionnel", in Bull, de la Soc. Ling., 50 (1954), p. 135. 28 OSG, p. 71. 29 Cf. Principes de noôlogie, p. 34-35 and 79 and "art. cit.", p. 142: "le signifié est une fin en soi"! 30 Cf. 1.1.3.1. 31 The sub-title of Prieto's most important work is indeed: Fondements de la théorie fonctionnelle du signifié.

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of semantic structure, even if this structure is open and related to the factualness of phone and meaning. What is the nature of functionality in noology, what is an open linguistic structure, or shortly, what is the form of a linguistic 'object' in an axiomatics, dominated by a privileged meaning theorem? The paradigmatic and mainly lexical orientation of noology does not offers a distinctive criterion with a semantics, turned semiotically, as by S. Ullmann, or formally, as by L. Hjelmslev, even their meaning analysis is practically lexical and theoretically paradigmatic. Based on an extrinsic specification of language, the noological functionality of signified can only refer to linguistic factualness ; hence, the openness of the semantic structure results from the solidarity function between 'meaning' and signified. Functionality consists of the double movement from concrete factualness of expression to the 'abstract class' or signified, and from this class to the concrete factualness of content. Functional indeed is the achieving of the class. Since class is no linguistic form, the operation, constituting class, cannot be reductive; hence, no dualism of signified and meaning can be drafted. Therefore, the structure of meaning classes (or the semantic structure) has to contain each meaning, which can be manifested in a 'situation'; class is the whole of possibilities of meaning allowed by phone. 32 Hence, the relativity of the class is of a double nature : first, it functions relative to linguistic factualness and next it is on the level of the structure of meaning classes resulting from this functioning, a 'relative' and by no means absolute entity. Prieto writes in connection with the structural relativity of the class: "Or, une classe n'est pas une entité absolue: elle n'est ce qu'elle est par rapport à une autre classe, appelée son complément, laquelle est constituée par tous les objets pris en considération qui n'appartiennent pas à la classe en question" ; 3 3 class is relative to its com32

Messages et signaux, p. 18: "... l'indication d'une classe: l'indice indique toujours une classe de possibilités, à laquelle appartient la possibilité qui se réalise et qui se compose, naturellement, des possibilités que l'indice n'élimine pas". 33 Messages et signaux, p. 28. We do not enter into the characteristics of Prieto's topic of class as term of a structure.

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plement so that the semantic structure can only be described as the whole of relations of identity, restriction (or inclusion), intersection ("empiétement") or opposition. 34 Hence, the openness of the noological structure refers to a twofold relativity: of meaning class to meaning and within the semantic structure, of the classes mutually. Here, form is not a specific theorematic sphere as in glossematics but is subjected to the meaning theorem on account of this double 'relativity' and of the finalistic conception of language: for linguistic form is but a 'functional' and a posteriori arrangement of meaning. Noology subjects both form and sign to meaning. Noological meaning class and meaning do not coincide with glossematic content form and substance. Content form, as to Hjelmslev, is the semantic reality: for the substantial factualness belongs to the metasemiological order. In noological perspective, the semantic (or linguistic) order represents the virtuality as well as the factualness of meaning. The dualism of signified (or semiological content form) and content substance on the one hand and the openness of the semantic structure on the other, respectively referring to the symmetric and asymmetric sign specifications, are terms of an opposition which is constitutive for structural axiomatics, already revealed on other theorematical levels. The investigation developed concerning the relation between meaning and sign provides new descriptive elements for this constitutive axiomatic tension. As sign and form theorem cannot be abolished in their specificness, so meaning theorem also has a specificness brought about by submitting sign and form: linguistic meaning is either, in the stratification of language, content relatum, connected in reciprocity with expression relatum, or the extrinsic telos of language. When meaning is the linguistic telos, language can only be specified as a mediatizing construction not drawing its capacity of signifying from the autonomy of the sign system (as semiologicalformal datum) but from its origin and aim, namely the meaning sphere, extrinsic and foreign to language. This statement entailing 34

We mean that this typology of relations is not of a direct importance for our problematics. Cf. Principes de noôlogie, p. 47-58.

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important philosophical insights, can be connected with the question concerning the possibility of an autonomous semantics. It has been stressed 35 that even the ascetic glossematic form can be considered as extrinsically functional to the 'algebraic sphere'. The structure of signified or of the linguistic content level is a so-called immanent algebra. Form perfectness of the semantic structure is of a mathematical nature or is based on a linguistic interpretation defining language as extrinsically functional to the perfect form; in this conception semantic structure becomes grammatical-syntactic. The noological operation, accomplishing the class in a functional way from linguistic factualness, is diametrically opposed to this formalistic conception: the grammatical-syntactic or 'algebraic' meaning constitution is completely lost for the nonreductive logical operation which brings about classes.36 We maintain that each linguistics and also each semantics is necessarily related to an extrinsic sphere. And yet the relationship of meaning with Form does not derogate the Hjelmslevean autonomy of language and linguistics. The constitutive tension within structural axiomatics appears again in connection with this 'extrinsic' functionality, operative in semantics. When language is considered as ideal Form or structure of signified as content form of language, semantics is an 'algebraic' grammar. On the contrary, when language is considered as the implication of linguistic virtuality and factualness, or semantic structure as the result of class constitution, is a 'logic' of linguistic operations. The immanent algebra and logical 35

Cf. 2.3.2. About the logical origin of Prieto's notion of class, cf. Messages et signaux, p. 19-21. Without taking into account the nature of the important relation between linguistics and logic, we define a logical operation as a systematic ordering of a given factualness; on the contrary, we define an 'algebraic structure' as the ideal form, which itself instores the terms of the structure. Each valuable substantialistic semantics undoubtedly appeals to the logical 'model', as is explicitly illustrated with L. Prieto. An extremely fascinating study object is the turn, taken by the relation linguistics — logic in transformational grammar. In as far as generative grammar exceeds the constitutive opposition of linguistic 'reality' (ideal form of language) and factualness, the formal analysis carried through here, is tributary to an extrinsic sphere which is logical as well as algebraic.

36

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operation, respectively realized in glossematics and noology, are in the meaning theorem the terms of the tension constitutive for structural axiomatics. The topics of 'algebra' and 'logic', lacking technical value here, respectively refer to the immanency of the linguistic content form and to the double relativity of the semantic structure. The glossematic and noological conception of the linguistic meaning can be considered as interpretations of Saussure's meaning doctrine. It will prove very rewarding to concentrate on the Saussurean intuitions about meaning and to examine how the ambiguous form theorem is connected in the Cours with the meaning theorem. 3.1.2. Value and meaning The epistemological problem dominating this axiomatics, appears distinctly in the linguistic meaning theorem. Whereas a formalalgebraic conception of language supposes an unbridgeable dualism of 'reality' and factualness and subjects ascetically linguistic phenomenality to the ideal Form, the logical-operational linguistics states the implication of possibility and factualness and instores the finalistic primacy of meaning. How can this epistemological problem most adequately be stated ? Prieto as well as Hjelmslev admit that a reference to Saussure is needed here. Hence, Prieto writes: "Nous avons affaire ... à une classe de faits concrets d'une part, et à un fait concret appartenant à cette classe d'autre part. La nette distinction de ces deux sortes d'entités, qui pose de façon peut-être le plus aiguë que nulle part ailleurs le problème des rapports entre Y abstrait et le concret, est une des grandes acquisitions de la linguistique moderne ... Le besoin de cette distinction fut signalé pour la première fois de façon claire par Ferdinand de Saussure ...". 3 7 Hjelmslev also appeals to the meaning doctrine of the Cours: 37

L. Prieto, Messages et signaux, p. 41. Taking into account our interpretation about the noological project, it can be understood that Prieto's distinction between 'abstract' and 'concrete' is not dualistic. A. Martinet also finds in the Cours the argumentation for the autonomy of language and linguistic meaning: "C'est au lecteur (of the Cours) à découvrir que l'attribution 'arbitraire' de tel signifiant à tel signifié n'est qu'un aspect d'une autonomie linguistique dont une

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"Introduire la notion de structure dans l'étude sémantique et y introduire la notion de valeur à coté de celle de signification, selon la méthode qui a été exposée d'une façon nette et fondamentale dans le fameux chapitre du Cours... qui réunit, comme dans le foyer d'une lentille, les idées constitutives de la linguistique analytique. C'est en tirant les conséquences logiques de ces idées ... que l'on arrive à établir le principe d'une sémantique structurale". 38 Moreover, all structural semantic theories are based upon the Saussurean meaning doctrine, however it mostly accentuates one aspect to the detriment of other adduced suggestions. As substantialistic semantics attributes less importance to the value concept, so formalistic semantics, as glossematics, identifies signified and value without more ado. We again rely on the Sources manuscrites for the analysis of one of the most intricate topics of the Cours. What is meaning, in the Cours? Three ways of approaching meaning can be perceived in Saussure's work; however only the third can be restrained as irreducible, provided both other applications still call up the ambiguity of the 'meaning' notion. 1. "Signifier veut dire aussi bien revêtir un signe d'une idée que revêtir une idée d'un signe"39 or to signify is constituting the sign in reciprocity. Meaning becomes here an internal feature of sign. R. Engler comments on this in the following way: "On voit le sens actif, dynamique qu'a signifier ici et qui sera attribuable aussi à signification. Du même coup est expliqué pourquoi le schéma signifiant-signifié se trouve à un moment donné avec une double flèche de haut en bas et de bas en haut.... La signification est le rapport dynamique autre face comporte le choix et la délimitation des signifiés. En fait, l'indépendance de la langue vis-à-vis de la réalité non-linguistique se manifeste, plus encore que par le choix des signifiants, dans la façon dont elle interprète en ses propres termes cette réalité, établissant en consultation avec elle sans doute, mais souverainement, ce qu'on appelait ses concepts et que nous nommerions plutôt ses oppositions" (La linguistique synchronique, p. 34). This conception necessarily leads to a substantialistic semantics, even if functional and structural. Important for us is only that Martinet and Prieto find their argumentation in the Cours. 38 L. Hjelmslev, Essais, p. 102. 39 N 15, quoted by R. Engler, "Remarques sur Saussure, son système et sa terminologie", in Cah. Ferd. de Saussure, 22 (1966), p. 35.

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entre le signifiant et le signifié: elle forme avec ceux-ci un groupe de trois membres". 40 We hesitate to maintain this appropriation occurring especially in the second Cours,41 because Saussure himself sometimes explicitly connects 'meaning' as result of the capacity of signifying, called "la significativité", with the synchronic fact or the signifying difference brought about by the system. 42 Hence, the dynamic appropriation never found again later on, seems either superfluous (since meaning as well as sign can be considered as resulting from signifying) or purely operational (i.e. the delimitation of the relata of the systemic term by commutation). 2. This indication of sign reciprocity gets lost when 'meaning' tends to identify with the underlying sign relatum: as sign identifies with signifier, so 'meaning' in most passages of Saussure 's work, is identical to signified.13 However, this shifting testifies of a remarkable continuity with the original appropriation of meaning. Indeed, the meaning of a sign can be considered as the highest degree of "significativité", which a linguistic unit has or which is expressible within the autonomy of the sign scheme; "significativité" is accomplished in a system of differences or oppositions. As soon as "significativité" is invested in the underlying sign relatum only and as soon as the identification of meaning and signified is reached, sign systematicness loses all its value. Though this shifting is continuous and nearly imperceptible, yet it is extremely important: the removing of the reciprocity of 'signifying' is necessarily connected with a meaning finalism and with the abolition of the 40

"art. cit.", p. 37. R. Godel, SM, p. 223-224. 42 "Tout fait statique est, par opposition aux faits diachroniques, accompagné de signification" ( N 12); "Il est identique de parler de choses synchroniques ou de parler de choses significatives. Cette synonymie est prouvée par le fait qu'il n'y a rien de synchronique qui ne soit significatif" (II R 89); also D 240 and R. Godel, SM, p. 276 and 233, where a number of examples is quoted, as in connection with the alternation : "Cette signification est une opposition qui se fonde sur une différence, et une différence qui devient plus ou moins régulière. Ce n'est plus qu'une question de degré: il y a une significativité attachée à cette différence" (II R 67) and "le phénomène synchronique, dont l'essence est un certain degré de significativité qu'on attache à la différence créée par le phénomène diachronique" (II R 71). 43 Cf. R. Godel, SM, Index, and T. de Mauro, Corso, Index.

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closeness of linguistic universe; this tendency can only be corrected by the introduction of the value topic. The identification of signified and meaning prevents that the relation of sign to meaning is mediatized by a linguistic content stratum. Moreover, signifier and meaning become the poles of a one-way relation, or: the signifier ''signifies' the meaning.44 This finalistic conception of meaning directly appeals to the extrinsic specification of language: language is not related to the collectivity as a system of communicability, but the social consecration concerns the attribution of a signifier to an autonomous 'meaning'. This meaning finalism attending the identification of the meaning with the underlying sign relatum, abolishes the structural-axiomatic sign reciprocity: meaning finalism, if effectively operative in the Cours, would have unheard philosophical consequences. It will become obvious — indeed nearly all commentators make the following step45 — that the interpretation of meaning as underlying sign relatum is rather a terminological problem;46 this question is neutralized by the doc44

Cf. D. 260: "La flèche marque la signification comme contrepartie de l'image auditive. Dans cette vue, la signification est la contrepartie de l'image auditive. Le mot est pris comme un ensemble isolé et absolu. Intérieurement, il contient l'image auditive, ayant pour contrepartie un concept". concept image auditive 45

Typical in this connection is E. Buyssens' resistance. "Si l'on considère à présent, non plus les déclarations théoriques de Saussure, mais la méthode qu'il a effectivement appliquée, on constate qu'il n'a pas adopté le système comme principe conducteur mais la signification" ("Origine de la linguistique synchronique", in Cah. Ferd. de Saussure, 18 (1961), p. 29). The fact that passages which in the first framed definition tendency including sign reciprocity, ate used to justify the second definition tendency, results from an impure conception of synchrony, always meant by Saussure when he denotes meaning as "significativité". Hence, Buyssens writes : "Tel est effectivement le point de vue qui caractérise fondamentalement la synchronie: le fait synchronique de base, c'est l'acte de communication, la phrase par laquelle est suscité une signification chez l'auditeur" ("art. cit.", p. 29-30). This definition of synchrony, also presupposed in Merleau-Ponty's interpretation of Saussure in connection with synchrony and speech, deviates, as to us, from structural orthodoxy. This meaning leads to a substantialistic semantics of the Prieto-type: for functionality is purely extrinsic here. 46 Cf. R. Godel, SM, p. 276. As e.g. : "Il faut invoquer la partie invisible du

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trine of value and by the new shifting in the notional content of 'meaning'. 3. This second shift occurs when meaning and signified are distinguished. Though this distinction has been interpreted in many ways by the post-Saussureans, yet most expel the meaning out of linguistic sphere. In this respect, a small number of texts where Saussure defines meaning as 'abstract Idea', i.e. the 'concept' as it appears beyond the sign, is relied upon. Hence, he insinuates that the study of the identity of meaning belongs to pure psychology47 since meaning escapes the systemic identity of language. Only a negative definition of meaning as 'abstract' before the concrete linguistic fact, which are the sign and the relata dominated by sign systematicness, is found in the Cours. All Saussurean structuralists accept the distinction, fundamental for semantics, between signified (and value) and meaning, which Charles Bally already considered as parallel with the dichotomy of language and speech. However, we do not agree with Bally that value is identical to signified which he considers as the virtual concept belonging to language, nor that meaning is the "reflet linguistique de la représentation sensorielle actuelle", 48 hence situated in speech. The psychologizing way of defining meaning (cf. the sensorial representation) and value (the 'concept' has an 'associative field': "un halo qui entoure le signe et dont les franges extérieurs se confondent avec leur ambiance"!) does not diminish the sharpness of the dichotomy which he framed. 49 The epistemological problem, dominating the mot, celle du sens, signification, idée, valeur" (Morph. R 1-2) or "La signification seule permet de délimiter les unités dans la masse parlée" (II R 42). 47 Cf. R. Godel, SM, p. 241 and 276. As e.g.: "Si par exemple on n'avait choisi au début que deux signes, toutes les significations se seraient réparties sur ces deux signes" (II R 21). 48 Ch. Bally, "L'arbitraire du signe — Valeur et Signification", in Le Français moderne, 8 (1940), p. 193-194. 49 "Art. cit.", p. 195: "Il n'est pas moins vrai que chaque communauté linguistique dans son ensemble, attache aux signes de la langue, certaines valeurs qui ont ce triple caractère: d'exister à l'état latent chez tous les sujets, de ne pas correspondre exactement aux données de la réalité (c'est-à-dire à la signification), enfin, par voie de conséquence, de différer en quelque manière

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whole meaning theorem can also be settled here. R. Godel's affirmation that for linguistic investigation in Saussurean perspective "l'inutilité des mots sens, signification saute aux yeux... le dilemme posé par la signification s'évanouit avec le mot lui-même, enfin abandonné, tandis que la notion de valeur s'éclaire tout à fait" 50 necessarily leads to the dualizing Hjelmslevean stratification. On the contrary, the Saussure-reading of A. Burger makes possible the implicative relation of meaning to signified (or value) as supposed in Prieto's noology: "Or si signifié et signification s'identifiaient, nous aurions un nombre donné de significations à chacune desquelles s'accolerait un signifiant comme une simple étiquette; on ne pourrait parler que d'un système de classement, non d'un système de valeurs se déterminant réciproquement. Mais si la langue est un système de valeurs, si c'est de la valeur que dépend le sens, cela signifie que c'est la valeur, entité purement virtuelle, qui permet la manifestation, dans le discours, de significations diverses mais qui dépendent des rapports qu'elle entretient avec les autres valeurs du système. D'une valeur donnée peut découler un nombre indéterminé de significations: c'est l'ensemble des significations qui se manifestent dans le discours qui représentent le signifié". 51 This valuable commentary on the Cours does not state that meaning is either identical with the signified or value, or linguistically superfluous. The identification of signified with meaning, suggested by Saussure himself in the second appropriation of the meaning topic, described above, would not only reduce language to a nomend'un idiome à l'autre par la désignation de notions objectives identiques". However, Bally is apparently not able to formulate the relation of meaning to value: "Provisoirement, il faut se fonder sur l'écart relatif qui sépare la valeur de la signification" and "puisque la valeur repose en partie sur un choix opéré parmi les caractères objectifs de la réalité, il conviendra de distinguer entre le choix imposé et le choix librement consenti" (p. 196); "on entrevoit ainsi l'existence possible d'une science générale de valeurs parallèle à une science générale des significations" (p. 201). 60 R. Godei, SM, p. 242 ; in "De la théorie du signe aux termes du système", in Cah. Ferd. de Saussure, 22 (1966), p. 53-68, Godei admits that Burger thinks in the Saussurean line. 51 A . Burger, "Significations et valeurs du suffixe verbal français -e", in Cah. Ferd. de Saussure, 18 (1961), p. 7 (Italics mine).

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clature, but also introduce the meaning finalism, developing beyond all linguistic and mediatizing systematicness. In opposition to the glossematic Saussure-reading, meaning is not considered by A. Burger and L. Prieto, as linguistically superfluous, since signified or value as virtuality and meaning as manifestation imply each other. This phase reveals Saussure's definitive conception ; however, no positive definition of meaning nor distinct utterance about the epistemological question concerning the dualism or implication of the intra-linguistic or systematic meaning and the extra-linguistic or 'abstract' meaning, is found anywhere. Even if the Saussureinterpretation falls apart in the epistemological polarity, constitutive for structural axiomatics, yet the formalizing (cf. R. Godel and the glossematics) and substantialistic linguists (cf. A. Burger and L. Prieto) are at one to situate meaning in the enouncement or discourse. Burger's opinion, cited above, is agreed upon by Godel in the following way : "II est exact que, dans la parole, les signifiés s'accordent à la réalité du moment, et il y a peut-être avantage à appeler signification ce qui résulte de cet accord ... La signification ...est d'abord une propriété de Vénoncé'".52 This position, in fact going back to Bally53 and perhaps to Saussure himself, does by no means solve our epistemological problem, but shifts it on a more global level: how are discourse and speech related? Has discourse besides meaning also a signified ? These questions already point to the specific problematics of a translinguistics. Leaving this aside, Saussure maintains the ambiguity on the level of the intralinguistic meaning theorem; but the ambiguity becomes more subtle when the really intricate and by most authors (as Burger and Prieto) neglected distinction between signified and value is drafted. 54 52

R. Godel, "art. cit.", p. 55-56. Cf. T. de Mauro, Corso, p. 436-437 (n. 231). Ch. Bally, "art. cit.", p. 194-195. 54 Saussure himself is aware of the special difficulty of this distinction:" ... En quoi cette valeur diffère-t-elle de ce qu'on appelle la signification (still identified with signifié)? Ces deux mots seraient-ils synonymes? Nous ne le croyons pas, bien que la confusion soit facile, d'autant qu'elle est provoquée, moins par l'analogie des termes que par la délicatesse de la distinction qu'ils marquent. La valeur, prise dans son aspect conceptuel, est sans doute un 53

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Not only reciprocity, but also and especially systematicness specifies the sign. Sign, as term of a system of oppositions, is an articulus in as far as signifier participates in systematicness and it is value in as far as signified is tributary to the same systematicness.55 When defining value, we agreed with Godel's interpretation: "La valeur, c'est le signe envisagé par le coté du signifié, et en conséquence, comme terme d'une opposition. De même que signe peut dénoter le signifiant en tant que tel, valeur peut s'entendre du signifié en tant que signifié".56 The topic of value, though it is sometimes identified in the Cours with sign and term57 on the one hand and with signified (and 'meaning' in its second appropriation) on the other, does not appear superfluous. These intangling identifications are continually questioned because: "la valeur, ce n'est pas la signification"58 and "la valeur est bien un élément du sens. Mais il importe de ne pas prendre le sens, d'abord, autrement que comme une valeur. Il est très difficile de voir comment le sens reste dépendant, et cependant, distinct de la

élément de la signification, et il est très difficile de savoir comment celle-ci s'en distingue tout en étant sous sa dépendance" ( Cours, p. 158). 55 Language, defined as a "système de valeurs pures" (Cours, p. 155) and a "domaine des articulations" (p. 156), is the sign system, considered in its respectively semantic and phonological possibilities. Hence, 'articulation' and 'value' specify in a certain sense the term character of the sign, since they relate the systematicness respectively to the content and expression relatum. 56 The editors of the Cours, and especially A. Sechehaye, have by adding the titles of Chapter IV brought about the confusion that, besides the 'conceptual aspect of value' also a 'material aspect of value', namely the signifier as value, would exist. R. Engler, "Remarques sur Saussure, son système et se terminologie", in Cah. Ferd. de Saussure, 22 (1966), p. 37-38, is still victim of this confusion : "La notion de valeur elle-même doit être élargie, elle est la chose comparable et échangeable, elle désigne le signe, le signifié mais aussi le signifiant. Le signifié est une valeur du signifiant et vice-versa...". However no authentic passages can be indicated in Saussure for this conception. On the contrary, Godel's interpretation is important because it conciliates the apparent contradictions of different fragments; it moreover is completely consequent to the prevailing f o r m theorem. Cf. also A. Burger, "art. cit.", p. 6. 57 The value topic is almost always used in connection with system or solidarity of the terms. " L à où il y a des termes, il y a des valeurs. L'idée de valeur est toujours impliquée dans celle de termes" (D 270 in R . Godel, SM, p. 236). 58 R. Godel, SM, p. 236-237.

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valeur ... mais cela est nécessaire, si on n'en reste pas à la conception de la langue comme une nomenclature".59 The ambiguity of the linguistic notion of meaning obviously results from the double focused statute of the signified, which is both the content relatum or the 'concept' connected in reciprocity with the expression relatum, and the value, deduced from linguistic systematicness. We already noticed that the sign content, taken 'abstractly' (i.e. beyond language or systemic impact) is meaning, hence sign signifies meaning. However, signified is meaning also besides a value of the sign system. When sign is no more defined as an isolated and absolute entity but as a systemic term, meaning becomes content relatum of language and the signified acquires it double focused statute;60 meaning is signified when connected with value. Saussure resumes this as follows: "Le sens d'un terme dépend de la présence ou de l'absence d'un terme voisin. Depuis le système, nous arrivons à l'idée de la valeur, non de sens. Le système conduit au terme. Alors, on s'apercevra que la signification est déterminée par ce qui entoure",61 and especially: "Le mot n'existe pas sans un signifié et un signifiant; mais le signifié n'est que le résumé de la valeur linguistique supposant le jeu des termes entre eux".62 69

R. Godel, SM, p. 236. Bally and Sechehaye formulate this passage in the edition of the Cours as follows : "La valeur, prise dans son aspect conceptuel, est sans doute un élément de la signification, et il est très difficile de savoir comment celle-ci s'en distingue tout en étant sous sa dépendance. Pourtant il est nécessaire de tirer au clair cette question, sous peine de réduire la langue à une souple nomenclature" (Cours, p. 158). R. Godel remarks that élément is not the combining part, but "facteur (ce qui produit), source (ce dont procède quelqu'un)" (p. 236): for value constitutes meaning. Saussure himself continually questions the identification of value and meaning; also: "Faisant partie d ' u n système, (le contenu) est revêtu non seulement d'une signification, mais aussi et surtout d'une valeur, et c'est tout autre chose" (Cours, p. 160). 60 The scheme f (" ' — ~ ) where the ellipsis illustrates the isolation of the entity and the one-way arrow the meaning finalism (sign signifies meaning), has to be replaced by the scheme I

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