Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand Mongin de Saussurewas a Swiss linguist and semiotician. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments both in linguistics and semiology in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the founders of 20th-century linguistics and one of two major foundersof semiotics/semiology...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth26 November 1857
CountrySwitzerland
tasks language study
The business, task or object of the scientific study of languages will if possible be 1) to trace the history of all known languages. Naturally this is possible only to a very limited extent and for very few languages.
study range interest
It is only since linguistics has become more aware of its object of study, i.e. perceives the whole extent of it, that it is evident that this science can make a contribution to a range of studies that will be of interest to almost anyone.
study language grammar
Henceforth, language studies were no longer directed merely towards correcting grammar.
would-be study language
In the lives of individuals and societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other. For the study of language to remain solely the business of a handful of specialists would be a quite unacceptable state of affairs.
greek history involves language period share
Before Latin, there is a period which Greek and Slavic share in common. So this involves the history of language families, as and when relevant.
case dealing eradicate natural nature opposed whitney
Whitney wanted to eradicate the idea that in the case of a language we are dealing with a natural faculty; in fact, social institutions stand opposed to natural institutions.
aware evident extent interest object perceives range science since studies
It is only since linguistics has become more aware of its object of study, i.e. perceives the whole extent of it, that it is evident that this science can make a contribution to a range of studies that will be of interest to almost anyone.
attempting history language obliged oneself soon trace
In attempting to trace the history of a language, one will very soon find oneself obliged to trace the history of a language family.
law branches language
Linguistics will have to recognise laws operating universally in language, and in a strictly rational manner, separating general phenomena from those restricted to one branch of languages or another.
philosophical views greek
The first of these phases is that of grammar, invented by the Greeks and carried on unchanged by the French. It never had any philosophical view of a language as such.
games connections different
In fact, from then on scholars engaged in a kind of game of comparing different Indo-European languages with one another, and eventually they could not fail to wonder what exactly these connections showed, and how they should be interpreted in concrete terms.
language individual organs
A language presupposes that all the individual users possess the organs.
independent rely-upon psychology
It is one of the aims of linguistics to define itself, to recognise what belongs within its domain. In those cases where it relies upon psychology, it will do so indirectly, remaining independent.
able different language
It is useful to the historian, among others, to be able to see the commonest forms of different phenomena, whether phonetic, morphological or other, and how language lives, carries on and changes over time.