1、The original French version, under the title Problemes de linguistique generale, was published in Paris. Editions Gallimard, 1966 Copyright 1971 by University of Miami Press Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 77-102692 SBN 87024-I32-X All rights reserved, including rights of reproduction and use i
2、n any fonn or by any means, including the making of copies by any photo process, or by electronic or mechanical device, printed or written or oral, or recording for sound or visual reproduc tion or for use in any knowledge or retrieval system or device, unless permission in writing is obtained from
3、the copyright proprietors. Designed by Mary Lipson Manufactured in the United States of America Foreword vii Translators Note ix Publishers Note x Changes in Linguistics Contents I Recent Trends in General Linguistics 3 2 A Look at the Development of Linguistics 17 3 Saussure after Half a Century 29
4、 Communication 4 The Nature of the Linguistic Sign 43 5 Animal Communication and Human Language 49 6 Categories of Thought and Language 55 7 Remarks on the Function of Language in Freudian Theory 65 Structures and Analyses 8 “Structure“ in Linguistics 79 9 The Classification of Languages 85 10 The L
5、evels of Linguistic Analysis 101 I I The Sub logical System of Prepositions in Latin I 13 12 Toward an Analysis of Case Functions: The Latin Genitive 121 Syntactic Functions 13 The Nominal Sentence 131 14 Active and Middle Voice in the Verb 145 15 The Passive Construction of the Transitive Perfect 1
6、53 16 The Linguistic Functions of “To Be“ and “To Have“ 163 17 The Relative Clause, a Problem of General Syntax 181 Man and Language 18 Relationships of Person in the Verb 195 19 The Correlations of Tense in the French Verb 205 vi Contents 20 The Nature of Pronouns 217 21 Subjectivity in Language 22
7、3 22 Analytical Philosophy and Language 231 23 Delocutive Verbs 239 Lexicon and Culture 24 Semantic Problems in Reconstruction 249 25 Euphemisms Ancient and Modern 265 26 Gift and Exchange in the Indo-European Vocabulary 271 27 The Notion of “Rhythm“ in its Linguistic Expression 281 28 Civilization:
8、 A Contribution to the History of the Word 289 Abbreviations 297 Notes 297 Index 315 Foreword THE STUDIES COLLECTED in this volume were chosen from among many others of a more technical nature which the author has published during the last few years. If they are here presented as “problems,“ it is b
9、ecause individually and as a group they make a contribution to the broad general problem of language as revealed in the principal topics taken up; we have considered the relations between the biological and the cultural, subjectivity and sociality, sign and object, and symbol and thought, as well as
10、 problems of intra linguistic analysis. Those who are discovering the importance of language in other areas will thus see how a linguist approaches some of the questions they have been led to ask themselves, and they will perceive how the con figuration of language patterns all semiotic systems. To
11、some readers, certain pages may seem difficult. They should be con vinced that language is indeed a difficult subject and that the analysis of linguistic data is achieved by arduous paths. Like the other sciences, lin guistics advances in direct proportion to the complexity which it recognizes in th
12、ings; the stages of its development are the stages of this awareness. Moreover, one must bear in mind the truth that reflection on language is fruitful only if it deals first of all with real languages. The study of those empirical, historical organisms which actual languages are remains the only po
13、ssible access to the understanding of the general mechanisms and function ing of language. In the first chapters we outline the trends in recent research in the theory of language and the prospects which have been opened up. We then go to the central problem of communication and its modalities: the
14、nature of the lin guistic sign, the distinctive characteristics of human langmJ1e, relations viii Foreword between linguistic categories and categories of thought, and the role of language in the exploration of the unconscious. Notions of structure and function are the topics of the following essays
15、, which deal successively with the variations of structure in languages and with the intralinguistic mani festations of some functions; among others, the connections between form and meaning are related to the levels of analysis. A separate series is devoted to syntactical phenomena: here we look fo
16、r syntactic constants in very diver sified linguistic types and set up specific models of certain sentence types to be recognized as universals: the nominal sentence and the relative clause. “Man and Language“ is the title of the following part; here it is the mark of man upon language, defined by t
17、he linguistic forms of “subjectivity“ and the categories of person, pronouns, and tense. In contrast, in the last chapters, it is the role of meaning and culture which is emphasized; there we study methods of semantic reconstruction as well as the origin of some terms of importance in modern culture
18、. The unity and coherence of the whole will emerge from this survey. We have purposefully refrained from bringing in any later material, whether in the presentation or in the conclusions of the various chapters. Otherwise it would have been necessary to add an extended postscript to each of them, ei
19、ther with regard to the state of studies (for example, to indicate the most recent developments in theoretical research), or as the historian of our own research-the latter in order to give an account of the reception of these articles and to point out that “The Nature of the Linguistic Sign“ (p. 43
20、) provoked a lively controversy and brought forth a long series of articles, and that our pages on tense in the French verb (p. 205) were taken up and con firmed in the statistics of H. Yvon on the use of tense in modern writers, etc. But this would have been to initiate a new investigation each tim
21、e. Other occasions will occur for coming back to these important questions and treating them anew. I should like to express my appreciation here to Messrs. P. Verstraeten and N. Ruwet for their part in the preparation of this volume. E. B. Translators Note The few changes or additions to the text ne
22、cessitated by shifting from a French to an English frame of reference have been placed in square brackets. I wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Samuel N. Rosenberg for his kindness in reading over the translation and for his helpful criticism and advice. M. E. M. Publishers Note This translation wa
23、s thoroughly checked and in some instances revised by the author. Certain editorial changes were also made in organization (such as placing all of the notes at the end of the volume) and in styling. Permissions to quote were generously granted by: University of Illinois Press, for material from G. J
24、. Warnock, “Perform ative-Constative,“ in Philosophy and Ordinary Language, copyright 1963; North-Holland Publishing Company, for material in A. W. Groots “Classifi cation of the Uses of a Case Illustrated on the Genitive in Latin,“ in Lingua 6 (1956-1957); Diogene, for English translation of Emile
25、Benvenistes article, “Animal Communication and Human Language,“ Diogenes, no. 1 (1952). Changes in Linguistics ONE Recent Trends in General Linguistics DURING THE COURSE of the last decades, linguistics has developed so rapidly and extended its domain so far that even a cursory summary of the proble
26、ms which it takes up would have to assume the proportions of a major work or else be condensed into a dry enumeration of individual efforts. It would take pages simply to sum up what has been learned and even then an essential development might be missing. The huge increase of productivity in lin gu
27、istics is such that a thick volume is not enough to contain all the annual bibliography. The major countries now have their own publications, their collections, and also their methods. Efforts at description have been pursued and extended throughout the whole world; the recent edition of Les Langues
28、 du monde gives an idea of the work that has been accomplished and of the even greater amount that remains to be done. Linguistic atlases and dictio naries have multiplied. In all areas the accumulation of information produces works of ever increasing bulk: a description of the language of children
29、in four volumes (W. F. Leopold), a description of French in seven volumes (Damourette and Pichon) are typical examples. It is possible today for an important review to be devoted exclusively to the languages of the American Indians. In Africa, in Australia, and in Oceania, research is being under ta
30、ken which is enriching considerably the inventory of linguistic forms. Parallel to this is the systematic exploration of the linguistic past of man kind. A whole group of ancient languages in Asia Minor has been brought within the province of Indo-European and this modifies the theory. The gradual r
31、econstruction of proto-Chinese, common Malay-Polynesian, and of certain Amerindian prototypes will perhaps permit new genetic groupings, etc. But even if a much more detailed enumeration of research could be given, it would show that the work is proceeding very unevenly; here studies are continued w
32、hich would have been the same in 1910, there even the term “linguistics“ is rejected as being out of date, and elsewhere whole books are devoted just to the idea of the “phoneme.“ This multiplication of effort does not immediately reveal, but rather conceals, the profound changes which the 4 PROBLEM
33、S IN GENERAL LINGUISTICS methodology and spirit of linguistics have undergone in past decades, and the conflicts which divide it today. When one has opened his eyes to the importance of what is at stake and to the consequences which the current discussions might have for other disciplines, one is te
34、mpted to think that discussions about questions of methodology in linguistics may be only the prelude to a revision which will finally include all the sciences dealing with man. That is why we shall lay special stress, in nontechnical terms, on the problems which are today at the center of research
35、in general linguistics, on the idea of their subject which linguists are developing and on the direction in which they are moving. Moreover, even as early as 1933, the volume published by the Journal de Psychologie under the title of Psychologie du langage demonstrated a remark able burgeoning of th
36、eories and assertions of doctrine. There one could read the first expositions of principles which, like those concerning “phonology,“ are now taught everywhere. There also one could see the emergence of con flicts which have since led to reorganizations, such as the distinction between the synchroni
37、c and diachronic approaches and between phonetics and pho nology, conflicts that disappeared when the terms were better defined. Certain convergences reconciled independent theories. When, for instance, Sapir brought to light the psychological reality of phonemes, he discovered on his own an idea wh
38、ich Trubetskoy and Jakobson had been working to establish. But one could not then foresee that in an ever broadening section of lin guistics, research would, in appearance at least, run counter to the aims which linguistics had pursued up to then. I t has often been noted that the approach which cha
39、racterized linguistics during the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth was exclusively historical. History as the necessary perspective and successivity as the principle of explanation, the splitting up of language into isolated elements and the investigation of the laws of evolu
40、tion peculiar to each one of them-these were the dominant characteristics of linguistic doctrine. It was admitted, to be sure, that some principles of a completely different nature, like analogy, could disturb the regularity of the evolution. But in ordinary practice, the grammar of a language consi
41、sted of a presentation of the origin of each sound and of each form. This was the result both of the pervasiveness of evolutionism in all branches of learning and of the conditions under which linguistics came into existence. The novelty of the Saussurian point of view-one of those which has had the
42、 most profound effect-was to realize that language in itself does not admit of any historical dimension, that it consists of synchrony and structure, and that it only functions by virtue of its symbolic nature. It is not so much the historical point of view which is thus condemned as a certain way o
43、f “atomizing“ language and of Recent Trends in General Linguistics 5 making history mechanical. Time is not the agent of evolution; it is only its framework. The reason for the change that affects a certain element of a language lies, on the one hand, in the nature of the elements of which it is mad
44、e up at a given moment, and on the other hand, in the structural relation ships among those elements. The mere observation of the change and the formula of correspondence that sums it up make way for a comparative analysis of two successive states and of the different arrangements that charac terize
45、 them. The legitimacy of diachrony, considered as a succession of synchronies, is thus reestablished. This brings out the prime importance of the idea of system and of the reestablislunent of interdependence among all the elements of a language. These views are today classic and were anticipated thr
46、oughout the work of Meillet, and although they are not always applied, one would no longer find anyone to dispute them. If, from here on, the direction in which lin guistics seems to be extending them today could be characterized in one word, it could be said that they mark the beginning of linguist
47、ics conceived of as a science, on account of its cohesiveness, its autonomy, and the aims which are assigned to it. This trend is indicated above all by the fact that certain types of problems have been abandoned. No one now seriously raises the question of the mono genesis or polygenesis of languag
48、es, or, in a general way, that of absolute origins. One no longer yields as easily as formerly to the temptation to erect the individual characteristics of a language or a linguistic type into universal qualities. The horizon of linguists has expanded. All types of languages have acquired equal righ
49、ts to represent language in general. At no moment of the past and in no form of the present can one come upon anything “primor dia1.“ The exploration of the most ancient attested languages shows them to be just as complete and no less complex than those of today; the analysis of “primitive“ languages reveals a highly individualized and systematic organ ization in them. Far from constituting a norm, the Indo-European type appears instead to be rather the exception. All the more reason for turning away from research on a specific category recurring in most or all languages and believed
