The Saussurean Analysis

Piotrowski, David

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-89848-3_5

David Piotrowski³

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Morphogenesis ((LECTMORPH))

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Abstract

The “semiological” definition of language, which can be found in the third chapter of the introduction to the Course—that is that “[language] is a system of signs in which the only essential thing is the union of meanings and sound-images”—is of particular interest to us in that, as we will immediately see, it promptly makes the dimensions of objectivity and of phenomenality coincide, thus anticipating the result towards which we will progressively advance (cf. 1.2.2).

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Notes

1.
CLG/B, p. 15.
2.
“It seems impossible in practice to give priority to any particular truth in linguistics so as to make it the key starting point. However, there are five or six basic truths which are so interrelated that it is equally possible to use any one as the starting point, and to arrive logically at all the others and at every minute ramification of the consequences, starting from any one of them” (Saussure 2006, p. 3). “[G]eneral linguistics appears to me as a system of geometry. We arrive at theorems which need to be demonstrated. However, we observe that theorem 12 is, in another form, the same as theorem 33” (Godel 1969, p. 30).
3.
CLG/B, p. 113.
4.
Or, furthermore “On the contrary, one must start from <the system>, the interconnected whole; this may be decomposed into particular terms” (Saussure 1993, p. 134a).
5.
“[I]n semiological systems like language […] the notion of identity blends with that of value and vice versa. In a word, that is why the notion of value envelopes the notions of unit, concrete entity, and reality. […] there is no fundamental difference between these diverse notions […]. Whether we try to define the unit, reality, concrete entity, or value, we always come back to the [same] central question that dominates all of static linguistics” (CLG/B, pp. 110–111).
6.
The “[p]rinciple [of arbitrariness] dominates all the linguistics of language; its consequences are numberless” (CLG/B, p. 68), or: “The hierarchical position of this truth is at the very top” (Saussure in Amacker 1975, p. 52). This axiomatic status conferred to the principle of arbitrariness defined a school of thought. For example, De Mauro states that: “The arbitrariness of the sign is first in the order of things: It is the foundation upon which rest the edifice of language as a form” (De Mauro in Amacker 1975, p. 85).
7.
CLG/B, p. 118.
8.
We will note that the sentence preceding this excerpt even attributes primacy to the regime of differentiation: “[I]t is evident, even a priori, that a segment of language can never in the final analysis be based on anything except its noncoincidence with the rest” (CLG/B, p. 118).
9.
CLG/B, p. 117.
10.
Merleau-Ponty (1993, p. 82).
11.
PW, p 32.
12.
Consciousness of the repetition of a same sign which is variable in its material characteristics: acoustic or psychological, cf. Amacker (1975, p. 30).
13.
CLG/B, p. 106.
14.
CLG/B, p. 102.
15.
Cf. Kant (1944 (1781/1787), p. 53).
16.
CLG/B, pp. 114–115.
17.
In short, following the terms of M.-P., how to understand “the lateral liaison of sign to sign as the foundation of an ultimate relation of sign to meaning” (Merleau-Ponty 1993, p. 77).
18.
Godel (1969, p 240).
19.
Thus, in the Course, the definition of value is introduced with the words “[t]o resolve the issue” (CLG/B, p. 115)—this question being precisely that of the equivalence of relations external and internal to the sign.
20.
Godel (1969, p. 238).
21.
CLG/B, p. 115.
22.
Saussure (2006, p. 240).
23.
As a reminder: “[T]here are no linguistic facts apart from the phonic substance cut into significant elements” CLG/B, p. 110) or “concrete […] signifies that the idea has its unity in the acoustic medium” (Saussure in Godel 1969, p. 211).
24.
“Formalist dichotomy, which opposes form and matter and which defines them by antithetic characters, is not imposed on him by the nature of things, but by the accidental choice which he made in a domain where form alone survives” (Lévi-Strauss 1983, p. 131).
25.
Lévi-Strauss (1983, p. 131).
26.
Lévi-Strauss (1983, p. 115).
27.
“The Saussurean notion of opposition thus implies both difference and relations (III 142)” (Godel 1969, p. 197).
28.
Godel (1969, p. 200).
29.
Godel (1969, p. 200) based on Saussure in Godel (1969, (Cours II, note 74) p. 72 & (Cours III, note 142) p. 89).
30.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 193).
31.
CLG/B, p. 120.
32.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 197).
33.
CLG/B, p. 118.
34.
CLG/B, p. 117.
35.
CLG/B, p. 120.
36.
Merleau-Ponty (1993, p. 76).
37.
Itkonen (1991, pp. 298–299).
38.
“Be it as it may regarding the justification or origin of identity judgments which enable speaking subjects to recognize, for example, in always physically differing concrete utterances, that they are perceiving occurrences of a same word, such identity judgments are observable” (Amacker 1975, p. 30).
39.
Amacker (1975, p. 64).
40.
Godel (1969, p. 197).
41.
Merleau-Ponty (1993, p. 76).
42.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 193, our emphasis).
43.
CLG/B, p. 121.
44.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 92).
45.
Cours III, p. 288.
46.
CLG/B, p. 102.
47.
Cours III, p. 229.
48.
Saussure (1993, p. 79a).
49.
cf. Petitot (1985b, p. 62 sq.).
50.
CLG/B, p. 112.
51.
CLG/B, p. 116.
52.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 199).
53.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 196).
54.
Godel (1969, p. 198).
55.
CLG/B, p. 119.
56.
CLG/B, p. 114.
57.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 259).
58.
Ibid.
59.
CLG/B, p. 112.
60.
Cours III, p. 286.
61.
Godel (1969, p. 198).
62.
Godel (1969, p. 199), our emphasis.
63.
“This pedagogical experiment is meaningless, as well designed as it may be, and Saussure must have thought so himself” (Hjelmslev 1971, p. 68).
64.
Specifically: categorical perception of phonemes.
65.
Godel (1969, p. 210).
66.
Godel (1969, p. 157).
67.
Godel (1969, p. 210).
68.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 233).
69.
Godel (1969, p. 210).
70.
Saussure in (Godel 1969, p. 211).
71.
CLG/B, p. 104.
72.
Godel (1969, p. 217).
73.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 140).
74.
Cours III, p. 224, our emphasis.
75.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 211), our emphasis.
76.
CLG/B, p. 104.
77.
Ibid., p. 70.
78.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 211).
79.
Ibid.
80.
Godel (1969, p. 211).
81.
Conception defended by (Benveniste 1966, p. 50 sq.).
82.
Godel (1969, p. 207).
83.
Saussure in Godel (1969, p. 211).
84.
Amacker (1975, p. 160).
85.
CLG/B, p. 115.
86.
Saussure (2006, pp. 239–240).
87.
Cf. notably Godel (1969, p. 231).
88.
Saussure in Amacker (1975, p. 159).
89.
Amacker (1975, p. 160).
90.
Ibid., p. 159.
91.
Godel (1969), p. 237, our emphasis.
92.
Ibid., p. 239.
93.
In other words: “[M]eaning, that is the evocation of sense by means of the word” or “the word carries a meaning which adds itself to syllables” (Godel 1969, p. 237).
94.
Saussure (1993, p. 135a).
95.
Ibid.
96.
Ibid.
97.
Godel (1969, p. 241).
98.
Ibid., p. 240.
99.
Ibid., p. 236.
100.
Ibid., p. 244.
101.
“[T]he word does not exist without a signifier and a signified; but the signified is but the summary of the linguistic value which assumes a play of terms between themselves” (Saussure in Godel 1969, p. 237).
102.
Godel (1969, p. 246).
103.
Ibid., p. 240.
104.
Ibid., p. 241.
105.
CLG/B, p. 115, our emphasis.
106.
Ibid.
107.
Ibid.
108.
RL1, p. 56.
109.
Ibid., p. 47.
110.
Ibid., p. 43.
111.
CLG/B, p. 112.
112.
Saussure, Course III, in Godel (1969, p. 203).
113.
CLG/B, p. 123.
114.
Ibid.
115.
Ibid.
116.
Ibid., p. 125.
117.
Jakobson and Halle (2002, p. 72).
118.
Ibid., p. 73.
119.
Ibid., p. 74.
120.
Benveniste (1971, p. 102).
121.
CLG/B, p. 123.
122.
Ibid.
123.
Benveniste (1971, p. 102).
124.
Jakobson and Halle (2002, p. 72).
125.
Godel (1969, p. 207).
126.
Syntagmatic/Paradigmatic.
127.
In Saussure’s sense.
128.
CLG/B, p. 123.
129.
Rastier (1982, p. 11).
130.
Ducrot (1968, p. 60).
131.
Ibid.
132.
Benveniste (1971, p. 102).
133.
Dictionnary Trésor de la langue française.
134.
Cf. Al (1975).
135.
RL4/F, p. 62.
136.
Soutet (1997, p. 182).
137.
Samain (2000), personal communication.
138.
Milner (1989, p. 54).
139.
“[…] every normative […] discipline rests on one or more theoretical disciplines, inasmuch as its rules must have a theoretical content separable from the notion of normativity […]” (Husserl 2001, p. 33).
140.
RL4/F, p. 67.
141.
Ibid.
142.
RL1/F, p. 202.
143.
RL4/F, p. 67.
144.
Ibid., p. 68.

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Piotrowski, D. (2018). The Saussurean Analysis. In: Morphogenesis of the Sign. Lecture Notes in Morphogenesis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89848-3_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89848-3_5
Published: 12 April 2018
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