Historical Roots of Linguistic Theories

HISTORICAL ROOTS OF LINGUISTIC THEORIES
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND

HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E. F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)
Series III - STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE SCIENCES
Advisory Editorial Board
Sylvain Auroux (Paris); Ranko Bugarski (Belgrade)

H. H. Christmann (Tübingen); Rudolf Engler (Bern)
Hans-Josef Niederehe (Trier); R. H. Robins (London)
Rosane Rocher (Philadelphia); Vivian Salmon (Oxford)
Aldo Scaglione (New York); Kees Versteegh (Nijmegen)
Volume 74
Lia Formigari and Daniele Gambarara (eds)
Historical Roots of Linguistic Theories

HISTORICAL ROOTS
OF
LINGUISTIC THEORIES
Edited by
LIAFORMIGARI
University of Rome
DANIELE GAMBARARA
University of Calabria
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY

AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
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Historical roots of linguistic theories / edited by Lia Formigari, Daniele Gambarara.
p. cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series
III, Studies in the history of the language sciences, ISSN 0304-0720; v. 74)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Linguistics—Historiography--Congresses. 2. Linguistics--France--Congresses. 3. Lin
guistics—Italy--Congresses. I. Gambarara, Daniele. II. Series.
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© Copyright 1995 - John Benjamins B.V.
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Contents
Foreword vii
Linguistic Historiography between Linguistics and Philosophy of
Language 1
Lia Formigari
On the Origins of Historical Linguistics. Materials and proposals
for the Italian case 11
Daniel Droixhe
The Legacy of Classical Rhetorics 31
Marie-Claude Capt-Artaud
Mechanical Models and the Language Sciences in the 18th Century 45
Jean-Pierre Sens
The Beginnings of Psycholinguistics. Natural and artificial signs in
the treatment of language disorders 85
Antonino Pennisi
The Theory of Interjections in Vico and Rousseau 115
Annabella D'Atri
The French Sources of Leopardi's Linguistics 129
Claudia Stancati
Intellectual History, History of Ideas, History of Linguistic Ideas.
The case of Condillac 141
Franco Crispini
The 'Imperfect' Language. Notes on Alessandro Manzoni's linguistic
ideas 151
Stefano Gensini
Old Debates and Current Problems. 'Völkerpsychologie' and the
question of the individual and the social in language 171
Giorgio Graffi
VI Contents
The Question of the Significatum. A problem raised and solved 185

Frédéric Nef
The Embarassment of Communication from Mandeville to Grice 203
Francesco Aqueci
The Semiological Sources of Semantics 221
Sylvain Auroux
The Language-User in Saussure (and after) 233
Raffaele Simone
The Analysis of French between the two World Wars (1914-1940) 251
Jean-Claude Chevalier
Forms of Imperfect Augustinianism 269
Sebastiano Vecchio
The Convention of Geneva. History of linguistic ideas and history of
communicative practices 279
Daniele Gambarara
Index of Authors 295
Index of Subjects and Terms 305
Foreword
On the 17-18 September 1992 an International Conference was held at the
Department of Philosophy of the University of Calabria (Rende, Cosenza).
Organised by the Universities of Calabria and Rome, in collaboration with
U.R.A. 381 of the French C.N.R.S., the Conference included about twenty
speakers: from Italian universities (Cagliari: S. Gensini; Messina: F. Aqueci,
A. Pennisi; Palermo: F. Lo Piparo, S. Vecchio; Pavia: G. Graffi; Rome I: L.
Formigari; Rome III: R. Simone; Calabria: A. D'Atri, F. Crispini, D.
Gambarara, C. Stancati), from Belgian universities (U.L. Brussels: D.
Droixhe), from French universities (Paris I: J.-P. Séris; Paris VII: S. Auroux;
Paris VIII: J.-C. Chevalier; Rennes: F. Nef) and from Swiss universities
(Geneva: L. Prieto, M.-C. Capt-Artaud).
In the field of the history of linguistic ideas there are, in fact, close links
of scientific co-operation between Italian scholars and scholars from the
French-speaking world. The Conference was held in the framework of a joint
research project undertaken for the Italian C.N.R. and the French C.N.R.S.
The volume itself has been made possible by financial support from the
Consiglio Nazionale dette Ricerche.
One of the points that the papers collected in this volume have in
common is their theme: they concentrate, though not exclusively, on the
history of linguistic ideas in France and Italy in the modern period (from the
Renaissance to the present day). Some of them are specifically focused on the
links between the two traditions of reflection on language. They also have a
common methodological outlook. The scholars who took part in the Confer
ence do not believe that the history of linguistic ideas is a separate activity
from research on language or that it is marginal with respect to the latter. On
the contrary, they share the conviction that in contemporary research into
language we can still discern the influence — positive or negative as this may
be — of factors deriving from the (sometimes distant) past. A historical
analysis of these factors — whether it rejects them as superseded, or redefines
them in order to elicit the fruitful suggestions they may still contain — has a
contribution to make to the progress of theory and the field of linguistics
viíi Foreword
generally. The theme of the Conference was chosen with special attention to
the situation of research in Italy, where linguistics in the narrow sense is less
interested in the history of ideas, whereas philosophy is strongly orientated
towards the reconstruction of its own past. The result is that many scholars
concerned with exploring history and theory together today find their work
labelled 'philosophy of language', a term whose meaning is often quite
different from that ascribed to it in English-speaking countries.
This collection includes all the papers which have been submitted to the
Editors in their final form. The editors regret that the papers by Franco Lo
Piparo (The Notion of Symbol and the Theory of Sign) and Luis Prieto (On the
Viewpoint in Linguistics) delivered at the meeting have not been resubmitted
for publication. Some of the papers take the specific form of 'case-studies'
("the Italian case", "the case of Condillac", "the case of Rousseau", "the case
of Vico" ...). All reflect the inspiration of the Conference: they highlight
particular aspects of the current theoretical debate and attempt, in so far as the
present state of research permits, to uncover their historical roots.
Rome, June 1994 Lia Formigari

Daniele Gambarara
Linguistic Historiography between
Linguistics and Philosophy of Language
Lia Formigari
University of Rome I
1. There is an episode which is often mentioned as an example of the rift

existing between philosophy and science within modern culture. It concerns
the publication of Hegel's dissertation De orbitis planetarum (August 1801),
in which, among other things, he demonstrated "a priori" the impossibility
that a planet existed, situated in an intermediate position between Mars and
Jupiter. When the news spread that an astronomer by the name of Piazzi, in
Palermo, had already discovered a planet, which had been named Ceres, in
precisely that position, some six months earlier, the duke Ernest of Gotha
commented on Hegel's speculations in a lapidary sentence: Monumentum
insaniae saeculi decimi noni! It seemed, as Hegel's disciple Karl Rosenkranz
wrote, as if the planet had been discovered "to spite" Hegel, and the incident
was hailed by the philosopher's adversaries (again according to Rosenkranz)
with "sadistic joy"; it aroused (in the words of Kuno Fischer, another of
Hegel's followers) "laughter and endless mirth".
Hegel's opponents (precisely because they were his opponents and thus
presumably championed an anti-speculative philosophy) ought to have greeted
the circumstance with consternation rather than joy. It was yet another proof of
the fracture developing within European culture between a philosophy which,
with increasing determination, arrogated to itself the competence relating to the
speculative essence of totality, and the empirical sciences which, on the basis
of specialized research, were building their encyclopaedia a posteriori instead.
I don't know whether in the history of relations between philosophy and
linguistics there have ever been such sensational incidents as the one in which
Hegel was involved. Yet the "manifestos" which, more or less at the time of
2 Lia Formigari
Hegel's mishap, were suggesting that the apriori method (that is, the only true
philosophical method) be applied also to linguistics, are certainly an aspect of
the attitude shown by the new philosophy towards the sciences. Particularly if
one considers that these manifestos were published at the debut of that great
undertaking of empirical linguistic research known as Comparativism.
It is during those years that the alternative between empiricism and
idealism in the language sciences emerged, an alternative which has contin
ued to present itself in various forms, crystallizing in the irreducible alterna
tive between empirical and philosophical linguistics. The latter has entirely
given up investigating linguistic practices, confining itself to pure specula
tion.
A recent volume on the historical roots of the cognitive sciences has
attempted among other things to explain the genesis of this split between
philosophy and the empirical sciences. According to its author, Theo .
Meyering, the split begins with the "Kantian demarcation" between scientific
and philosophical knowledge: a demarcation which has made philosophy into
an independent discipline that is entitled to something of a final verdict
regarding the study of man's cognitive and perceptual structures. It is a
discipline which possesses privileged access to those structures, thanks to its
special a priori method (Meyering 1989:XV-XVI).
Kant's demarcation would certainly not have had such consequences if it
had not given theoretical expression to a process of specialisation of the fields
of knowledge which was just beginning to get under way in scientific institu
tions and research at that time. As regards the theoretical nucleus of this
demarcation, and its consequences in relation to the cognitive sciences in
general and to language theories in particular, I believe there is no text where
the impact of Kant's transcendental method is better summed up than the
passage in the Critique of Pure Reason (§ 13) in which Kant distinguishes
between quid iuris and quid facti questions. He subsequently explains that
questions concerning the cognitive structures of the subject fall under the first
heading, since in their case must a necessary deduction be made, that is, a
transcendental one: they must be in a position to show a completely different
'birth certificate' from that which attests a derivation from experience. This
text of Kant's prefigures the later destiny of the cognitive sciences to some
extent, the split between "philosophy of knowledge" on the one hand and
empirical philosophy on the other, with little or no communication between
the two.
Linguistic Historiography and Philosophy of Language 3
It is true that the division of intellectual labour prescribed by Kant did not
actually prevent the development of empirical psychology and psycho-physi
ology during the nineteenth century. In a sense, Kant's philosophy fostered a
new interest in those cognitive structures of the subject which could not be
immediately referred back to the history of the individual and to his personal
experiences. In particular the distinction made by Kant between the matter
and the form of knowledge ultimately drew the attention of psychologists to
the phylogenetic conditions of perception and knowledge. This positive im
pact represented by the interest in the formal aspect of knowledge explains
how — despite Kant's restraint towards physiological psychology — empiri
cal psychology and psycho-physiology both came about and developed dur
ing the first half of the nineteenth century, in Germany, at least till the time of
Helmoltz, under the banner of a professed, even if ambiguous, Kantian
allegiance.
Thus, in the course of development of 19th-century German science,
Kant came to be seen as one of the founding fathers of physiology. Re
interpreting the transcendental point of view as a theory of the necessary
participation of the human mind and its psycho-physiological structures in all
epistemic processes, nineteenth century physiologists could appeal to Kant's
approach as a stimulating and congenial theoretical procedure (Meyering
1989:116).
2. By defining themselves as Kant's disciples in spite of everything, 19th

century German psychologists revealed their profound vocation, namely to
unite the two epistemic spheres rigorously separated by Kant and to re
interpret Kant's notion of apriori in a physio-psychological sense. In this
undertaking they had a great though forgotten predecessor in Herder, the
author of Metakritik.
Such was the situation in the sphere of cognitive theories, whereas within
the language sciences the Split between quaestio iuris and quaestio facti
remained a radical one and was consecrated within the academic institutions.
Even comparativists of thefirstgeneration, which was the one most affected by
contemporary philosophies of nature, paid purely formal tribute to the notion
of language as an organic body enunciated by contemporary philosophy; in
their specific historical-empirical research they proceeded in an entirely
autonomous fashion. The philosophers were thus left with the quaestio iuris,
4 Lia Formigari
that is, in the case of linguistic theory, the transcendental deduction of language,
its a priori explanation, as their exclusive task. This division of labour coincides
with the idealistic turning point in the philosophy of language (cf. Formigari
1988), of which the most important manifestos appear near the end of the
eighteenth century and in the first three decades of the nineteenth: the manifes
tos of the a priori method which I have already mentioned. Among these is the
essay Von der Sprachfähigkeit und dem Ursprung der Sprache (1795) in which
Fichte explains how it is necessary to "deduce the necessity of the invention [of
language]", to replace the empirical description with an "apriori history of
language", starting from the discovery of the idea of language. Another
manifesto is the Anfangsgründe der Sprachwissenschaft (1805) in which a
follower of Fichte, August Ferdinand Bernhardi, sets the historical point of
view, which has to describe the empirical reality of language, against the
philosophical point of view, which has to show the necessity of language, that
is, to justify linguistic forms by means of transcendental forms. A third text of
a programmatic kind which may be mentioned here is the System der Sprach
wissenschaft(1856) by one of Hegel's followers, Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Heyse.
Using Hegel's notion ofAufhebung, Heyse predicts that the philosophical point
of view within language sciences will supersede the historical-empirical
research, just as the latter superseded the previous tradition of general gram
mar. The dualism of method originating in Kant's duplication between quaestio
iuris and quaestio facti also receives various applications. First among these in
terms of importance and success is Friedrich Schlegel's essay Ueber die
Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808): here the twofold method is applied to
the study of the two basic types of languages, the uninflected (for which the
empirical-naturalistic method is sufficient) and the inflected languages (to
which a different principle of explanation or, in Kant's terminology, "deduc
tion" must be applied). The same dualism of method may be found also in
Humboldt's philosophy, in its persistent separation of the historical-empirical
point of view from the speculative one. Moreover, the combined influence of
Hegel and Humboldt seemed to justify the search for a third level in addition
to those of general grammar and historical linguistics — a level at which it
would be possible to grasp intuitively, by means of a hermeneutical act, the
essence of language and its necessary conditions. The outcome of this search
has been described by Karl Otto Apel as the fundamental shift in twentieth
century philosophy of language. This no longer limits itself "to a systematiza
tion of the factual sphere of the empirical science of language or to synthesizing
[...] its results [...]". Rather, it rises to the role of prima philosophia, taking
language as "a transcendental entity as understood by Kant" (Apel 1963:22).
The rift between linguistics and philosophy of language, therefore, al
ready looked like a fundamental theoretical alternative even before the pro
fessional and institutional separation between linguistics and philosophy of
language took place. Although Kant himself had never been really concerned
with language, the impact of his transcendental argument upon linguistic
theories had to be taken into account and evaluated.
A possible option was to give up instrumental conceptions of language
and define it not as an analytical tool with which the subject relates to the
world, but rather as an autonomous force, unconditioned either by the biologi
cal structures of the subject or by the objective structure of the world, and
conditioning both the subject and the world. This is the idealistic option,
which is tied above all to the name of Humboldt and to the linguistic debate of
the Romantik.
Another option, which might be defined as materialistic, was to identify
the "transcendental" element (that is, the constitutive, as opposed to the
arbitrary element of linguistic forms) with the organic structure of man. This
is the choice implicitly made by authors such as Condillac. It is made explicit
by Herder in his Metakritik, under the pressure of the controversy over Kant's
transcendentalism. As early as 1778, in his essay Vom Erkennen und Empfin
den, Herder had laid the foundations of his physiology of the mind, attempting
to single out the physiological and anatomical pre-conditions of thought and
language, and had stated that a psychology which was not at once a physiol
ogy could not exist. The 'materialist' option was to play a minor role within a
philosophical tradition in which corporeity was destined to disappear or to be
reduced to an epiphenomenon of the spirit.
It is the predominance of the first of these theoretical options in early
nineteenth century European culture which sanctions the split between a
speculative approach and an empirical approach to language. Since then this
separation has on the one hand served to justify the claim made by speculative
philosophy to pass judgement on the nature or essence of language without
the mediation of the empirical sciences; on the other hand, it has motivated
the opposite and complementary persuasion of linguistics, namely that it has
achieved scientific status precisely because of its departure from the tradi
tional matrix of philosophy.
The second claim is attested until very recently in histories of linguistic
ideas, which used to date the birth of scientific linguistics from the first
6 Lia Formigari
decades of the nineteenth century. The work carried out by linguistic histori
ography over the last twenty years has now practically superseded this
stereotype. Yet the claim of philosophy to confront language directly as one
of its own speculative objects, after having imposed in hegemonic fashion its
model from Humboldt to Heidegger, still makes itself widely felt in contem
porary philosophical-linguistic debate. Only a profound revision of the theo
retical and institutional role of philosophy would be able to bridge the gap
between the speculative and the positive approach and lead philosophers back
to the study of natural languages, learning processes, procedures of pre-
verbal categorization, behavioural boundaries between man and the other
animal species, and other topics and data deriving from the empirical sci
ences.
3. One may ask what the task of linguistic historiography should be in this
perspective. I would like to suggest a possible answer by taking what could be
called the "Humboldt case" as my example. It has become something of a
commonplace to point out, often disapprovingly, that Humboldt's theories
had no real impact on nineteenth century Sprachwissenschaft, and to contrast
this nineteenth century neglect with the current 'Humboldt renaissance'.
When we talk of the neglect of Humboldt's theory it is clearly in order to point
to the gulf existing between this theory and the practice of professional
linguists. There are several explanation for this, and what they have in
common is the tendency to emphasise the contrast between the strongly
speculative character of Humboldt's 'linguistics' and the no less markedly
positive character of the comparativist research project. On the one hand the
linguists of the great historical-comparative tradition took their distance from
Humboldt's philosophy, or at most payed formal homage to the greatness of
the philosopher without allowing the contents and method of his 'linguistics'
to have any real effect upon their scientific output. On the other, even among
the professional philosophers, the spell of Humboldt's theories began to
dwindle after the 1860s, with the crisis of the great tradition of classical
German philosophy from which they had sprung and to which they belonged.
Yet the professional linguists were largely absent even from the Humboldt
renaissance, and this is true not only of the first phase of the revival — that of
neo-idealism in Italy and Germany (Croce, Vossler) and of so-called neo-
Humboldtism in Germany — but also of the second phase, inaugurated by
Chomsky's interpretation and the debate this aroused. In each case we have a
philosophical Humboldt renaissance, yet in spite of this Humboldt's theses
fail to achieve currency in the linguistics of our century. To discuss the case of
Humboldt is thus a way of enquiring into the role and tasks of language
philosophy as a branch of learning with its own approach to language: an
approach that claims logical precedence over the empirical approach of
linguistics as such, and is in antithesis to it.
In 1969, a scholar of the stature of Etienne Gilson felt the need to write a
book on Linguistique et philosophie in order to reassert the autonomy of the
philosophical domain in response to the incursions of the linguists. He
claimed that language by its very nature has "philosophical constants" which
fall within the sphere of competence of philosophers and not of linguists. In
1972 Erich Heintel (1986:97) traced a sharp dividing line between philosophy
of language and psycholinguistics and between both these disciplines and
empirical linguistics. The first, he argued, must study language as energeia,
the second language as dynamis, and the third language as ergon. Today the
interdisciplinary boundaries are far less distinct, and the capacity of philoso
phy of language to produce concrete research strategies for natural languages
has been discussed from various standpoints (Auroux & Kouloughli 1991,
1993). To return to Humboldt: the task of the historian in this perspective is to
bring the specifically linguistic dimension of Humboldt's work to the surface;
in other words, to unearth materials proving that he was an active researcher
in the field of empirical linguistics. This would allow us to test which of the
following two hypotheses is the more accurate.
The first hypothesis is that Humboldt's philosophy of language, an
organic development of the classical German philosophy, may have shared
the latter's destiny of obsolescence and subsequent revival, the revival being
fostered by a general re-awakening of idealism in the early twentieth century
and by the crisis of 'strong' models of rationality in more recent years. In this
hypothesis, it was unable to provide an epistemology of linguistics in the
nineteenth century for the obvious reason that linguistics came into being as a
scientific research programme by devising a methodology of its own which
owed nothing to the transcendental method of post-Kantian philosophy. Even
in our century — for reasons which deserve investigation — the professional
category of linguists has never really drawn on Humboldt for its methodol
ogy; the vigorous revival in Humboldt studies today is largely the work of
philosophically-oriented historians. On the strength of our first hypothesis,
8 Lia Formigari
we might well conclude that Humboldt's philosophy of language is a monu

mental example of what Sylvain Auroux calls a "philosophie restreinte"
(1990:15Iff.), a free "prise de parole", which could not and cannot transform
itself into a philosophy of linguistic research.
The second hypothesis is that Humboldt's philosophy of language could
have provided, or might still provide, a strategy for linguistic research. In this
case we need to explain i) why Humboldt's philosophy did not become the
philosophy of comparative linguistic research at the time; ii) what potentials it
possessed for becoming it, and iii) whether and how some of its methodologi
cal principles at least may be used today for the construction of a philosophy
of linguistic research.
In order to carry out a historiographical project of this kind, the work of
philosophically-trained or philosophically-oriented historians will have to
interact more thoroughly than it has done so far with the work of linguists.
Attention will have to be shifted more resolutely to Humboldt's linguistic
practice, to his work as a linguist, which has hitherto been left somewhat in
the shadow. At least this will enable us to ascertain whether Humboldt's
philosophical-linguistic categories actually had methodological implications,
to what extent and in what way they were applied in his own investigations of
natural languages, and whether, as a result, these take a different shape from
other linguistic investigations of his time.
This is only one of several cases in which a theory-oriented linguistic
historiography could weave anew the web of what was once a unitary disci
pline, showing how some threads have broken or grown thin or changed
colours, and tying others back together again. Looking over the conspicuous
amount of work carried out in this field over the last few decades, we might
say that the best of linguistic historiography appears in fact to be directed
towards this work of reconstruction. It is hardly surprising that the seven
teenth and eighteenth centuries have in some respects been the privileged
object of recent historiography, since they were centuries in which philoso
phy and the empirical sciences were most closely yoked together in research
on the theory of mind and into the mind-body relationships.
Just as that period was drawing to a close, realising the risks that Kant's
demarcation between philosophy and empirical science represented for the
unity of knowledge which his generation had so industriously pursued, Destutt
de Tracy wrote:
On ne sera jamais idéologiste sans être auparavant physiologiste, et par

conséquent physicien et chimiste; sans connoître plusieurs langues, et
nommément celle particulière aux idées de quantité, et sans en démêler la
théorie et la génération, c'est à dire sans être grammairien et algébriste
philosophe. (Destutt de Tracy, La métaphysique de Kant, 1802:604)
(Translated by Marina Chellini)
REFERENCES
Apel, Karl Otto. 1963. Die Idee der Sprache in der Tradition des Humanismus von Dante
bis Vico (= Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 8). Bonn: Bouvier.
Auroux, Sylvain. 1990. Barbarie et philosophie. Paris: PUF.
. & Kouloughli, Djamel.1991. "Why is there no 'true' philosophy of linguistics?".
Language and Communication 11/3. 151-63.
. & Kouloughli, Djamel.1993. "Why is there no 'true' philosophy of linguistics?".
Linguistics and Philosophy. The controversial Interface, ed. by R. Harré and R.
Harris, Oxford & New York: Pergamon Press. 21-41.
Formigari, Lia. 1988. "De l'idéalisme dans les théories du langage. Histoire d'une
transition". In Stratégies théoriques (= Histoire Epistémologie Langage X/l). 59-80.
. 1993. «Noch einmal über Humboldt». Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprach
wissenschaft 3. 1993. 187-195 (review article on P. Schmitter (ed.). Multum — non
multa? Studien zur "'Einheit der Reflexion" im Werk Wilhelm von Humboldts. 1991).
Gilson, Etienne. [1969] 1982. Linguistique et Philosophie. Essai sur les constantes
philosophiques du langage. Paris: Vrin.
Heintel, Erich. [1972] 1986. Einführung in der Sprachphilosophie. Darmstadt: Wissen
schaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Meyering, Theo C. 1989. Historical Roots of Cognitive Science. The rise of a cognitive
theory of perception from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Dordrecht: Kluwer
(=Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, 208).
SOMMARIO
La demarcazione kantiana tra scienza e filosofía, la successiva rivendicazione

alla filosofía di un suo specifico metodo diverso dal metodo delle scienze
empiriche, hanno accompagnato e sancito, a partire dai primi deU'Ottocento,
la separazione istituzionale trafilosofíae scienze del linguaggio. Fino a tempi
molto recenti questa separazione è stata largamente accettata sia nelle storie
delia linguistica che datavano la nascita delia linguistica scientifica proprio alla
sua separazione dallafilosofía,sia dalla storiografia filosofica che rivendicava
10 Lia Formigari
orgogliosamente alla filosofía del linguaggio una sua specificità e incomuni-

cabilità con la linguistica empirica. Le strategie di una storiografía linguistica
teoricamente orientata devono essere invece finalizzate alla ricerca dei punti di
intersezione e reciproca integrazione fra filosofía e scienze empiriche.
RESUME
La démarcation kantienne entre science et philosophie, puis la revendication

de la part de la philosophie d'une méthode spécifique, différente de celle des
sciences empiriques, ont accompagné et sanctionné à partir du début du XIXe
siècle la séparation institutionnelle entre la philosophie et les sciences du
langage. Cette démarcation a été amplement acceptée jusqu'à une époque fort
récente, et ce aussi bien du côté de l'histoire de la linguistique qui datait
justement la naissance de la linguistique de ce moment de scission, que du
côté de l'histoire de la philosophie qui revendiquait avec orgueil pour la
philosophie du langage une particulière spécificité et une incommunicabilité
de fond vis à vis de la linguistique empirique. Une histoire de la linguistique
d'orientation théorique doit au contraire se donner comme objectif straté
gique de rechercher les points d'intersection et d'intégration réciproque entre
la philosophie et les sciences empiriques.
On the Origins of Historical Linguistics
Materials and proposals for the Italian case
Daniel Droixhe
Universités de Bruxelles et de Liège
0. In 1953-54 Giuliano Bonfante offered a critical account concerning the

Italian contribution to the ancient investigations on the history and kinship of
European languages.1 After mentioning Dante's contribution and the obser
vations due to the "distinguished Filippo Sassetti", Bonfante raised the fol
lowing question (p. 683):
Since the Italians, especially in those times, showed marvellous intelligence
and curiosity in all fields of learning, we might well wonder why they left
for six centuries and a half the almost exclusive leadership in this field to
the Northern nations, especially Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and
Flanders, and contributed practically nothing to such fascinating investiga
tions.
His explanation referred to some "special conditions" which deserve to be

recalled:
- the central interest in the "questione della lingua", which "prompted many
important discoveries in the field of historical linguistics, of phonetic
change, of dialectalization", etc., but which also relegated to the back
ground some topics opening onto wider prospects;
- the focus on classical Antiquity, which "showed little interest for problems
of linguistic kinship or historical linguistics and was concerned with
languages almost exclusively as means of literary expression";
- correlatively, the nationalist perpetuation of Greek and Roman attitudes
towards barbarous languages.
To complete the report, we have to note that Bonfante also mentions a writer
"over whose glory Italy and France can perpetually vie with one another", that
12 Daniel Droixhe
is to say Joseph Juste Scaliger — whose disapproval of the hectic search for
cognationes is well-known. Born in Agen, teaching in Leiden, Scaliger the
Young is the only scholar of southern origin quoted by G. Metcalf in his article
of the Studies in the history of linguistics: traditions and paradigms, which
constituted, in its time, a second important synthesis on the subject (but see also,
now, Hiersche 1985, Muller 1986 and especially Marazzini 1991, for Italy).
Following the practice adopted by M. Tavoni, we shall not separate
historical and comparative linguistics. Both domains are united by solidarities
depending on common conceptions of time and space, or resting upon a
confusion between linguistic borrowing and kinship. The latter feature is
particularly present in the Italian thought of the Renaissance. The thesis of the
Greek origins of Latin — mixing genetic filiation and borrowing — fre
quently obscured facts pertaining to a common source. An example will show
how elements of a comparative approach could be induced by that predomi
nantly derivative practice.
In his Floris italicae linguae libri of 1604, Angelo Monosini illustrates to
some extent the theory of Greek origins. Like his contemporary Ascanio
Persio, whose conceptions are rather similar, he points at true hellenisms in
Latin and Italian: agonia coming from Gr. agônia, of course, but also It.
maccheroni coming from makaria "barley soup". In the same manner, gamba
"leg" is referred to Gr. kampê "articulation", and scheggia "splinter" to Gr.
schiza "id.". But the linking can also join more distant words and enter a
comparative process, like when Monosini puts on the same line as the rela
tionship agônia / agonia the couple Gr. balios "dappled, speckled" / It. vaio
"(like) squirrel fur", which evidently — as we may grasp from Monosini's
notice — has something to do with Lat. varius, a form rather different from
balios.
With its laconic lexical gathering, Monosini's work does not manifest a
clear consciousness of wider historical problems. It gives an idea of the
general limitations of Italian linguistics of the time, which perhaps appear
even more clearly when a meteoric personality steps forwards from the ranks.
1. Biblical Patterns
We may take as a starting point an observation due to the Siena philosopher

Bartolomeo Benvoglienti, whose De analogía huius nominis 'verbum' of
1482-85 has been justly praised by M. Tavoni.
On the Origins of Historical Linguistics 13
On the background of humanist tradition, we find (in Benvoglienti) strongly

innovative elements, rooted in theological motivations: a strictly diachronic
approach of linguistic facts; the laying of a comparative framework equally
involving classical languages and the raciest varieties of vernacular; the
search for rules allowing to recognize and to treat rationally the intra- or
interlinguistic affinities and derivations. (Tavoni 1990:218)
Tavoni stresses the "reference to the myth of Babel". On the one hand, the
topos gives impulse, through the idea of the "corruptibility inherent to any
language", to a "sense of diachrony", a feeling for the evolutive process,
which were missing in Latin grammar and its humanist adaptations, domi
nated by a static and prescriptive conception of speech. On the other hand, the
Bible had fixed the "monogenetic and genealogical pattern" upon which the
whole "pre-comparativism" will work, before it progressively frees itself
from the ethnic catalogues of the Genesis.
We have to read carefully one passage from Benvoglienti to appreciate at
the same time his readiness and the programmatic weight of an orthodox
consensus (Tavoni 1984:104). Benvoglienti contends against the idea accord
ing to which Greek would be more ancient than Latin. He points at various
words which are "common" in both languages and Italian. "Some say hen,
duô, tria, hex, hepta, oktô, ennea, deka; we say unum, duo, tria, sex, septem,
octo, novem, decern". In the same way, the Italians pronounce "noi for nôi,
voi instead of sphôi". But these correspondences do not mean that the Latins
have borrowed the names of the figures from the Greeks. The former were
able to discover by themselves how to calculate, as they did not wait for
anybody else when they had to name the ox, even if the Lat. bos seems very
close to Gr. boûs (and even more to Dorian bos). To think that the Roman
peasant had no word for such a familiar animal "before the Latins were
acquainted with Greek letters" is a real "piece of stupidity".
But where are these analogies coming from? Vel origine, vel naturali
significatione. Between those possibilities, the choice can be difficult. It is
well illustrated by the example under discussion. Italian children say babbo
for "daddy". The word seems to belong to the most spontaneous expression,
as natural as the decimal way of counting, attributed by Aristotle to the
number of the fingers. However, babbo could also "be born from the Hebrew
or Syriac abba, which means father".
To what extent did the theory of Hebrew mother-tongue bear on Italian
linguistic speculations, in comparison with its treatment in other countries? It
is always difficult to appreciate, in a context of formal orthodoxy, what can
14 Daniel Droixhe
introduce an element of distantiation or even of rupture (cf. Simone 1990:

328-29; Droixhe 1992). Was Campanella in real contradiction with the tradi
tional view, when he designated Chaldaic, the source of Hebrew, or an older
form of Hebrew, as the lingua primigenial Sometimes the challenge between
Hebrew and other Semitic idioms took a more aggressive character. Mariano
Vittori, bishop of Rieti, could be ranked among dissidents and non-con
formists when he vindicated the superior antiquity of Ethiopian.
An author who would deserve to be more precisely studied, especially
from the point of view of his reception, is Thomas de Vio, better known as the
cardinal Cajetano (1469-1534). He is rather frequently mentioned, in the
ancient literature, among those dissidents who tended to shake Biblical evi
dences. But his commentaries show far more moderation than expected
(1639:2, 53-58, 66). The tetragrammatic name of God, in Hebrew, appears to
be an irrefutable mark of its original character. The names Babel and
Babylon, "designating that city according to the Hebrew language", would
have been maintained among all the nations. Cajetano rejects the interpreta
tion of the name Hebrew by a Semitic expression meaning "who crossed the
Euphrates", an explanation which, opposed to the relationship established
between the Hebrews and Heber, opened the door to the most unorthodox
attempts against traditional monogenetism. We have shown elsewhere how
the polemics concerning the etymology of Hebrew gave rise, from Joseph
Scaliger to Grotius and Vossius, to the theory of a radical vanishing of the
original language.
Cajetano discusses at length the Babelic division. If he rejects the obliga
tion of an "absolute rigour" applied to the reading of the Biblical passage, and
if he could naturalize the process of fragmentation when he understood the
previous unity of human "lip" as a common "manner of uttering", there is
really nothing, in his commentary, that offers a serious and blatant contradic
tion with the ordinary understanding of the myth, at least in some of its
rational developments. For his contemporaries, the thesis according to which
Noah would have had other children than Sem, Cham and Japhet seems to
have been more provocative. The idea is methodically repeated by Cajetano.
It implied that unknown races and nations could disturb and even blast the
genealogical pattern of the Genesis. It brought the untolerable element of
doubt, of possible but unwritten truth, that will be amplified in the seventeenth
century by La Peyrère and his shameful Pre-Adamites.
In that century, some Flemish and German scholars led against the
Hebraic monogenetism a struggle which sometimes took the shape of an
ultra-nationalist claim. It would be a very difficult question to put on the table:

whether the absence of such a patriotic, anti-Hebraic contestation in Italy, at
the same time, reflects something of a more general attitude towards the Jews.
It has been suggested (Droixhe 1989a, 1992) that ideological and even
financial considerations could have played some part, in the northern coun
tries. Let us quote, concerning Italy, an appreciation due to Léon Poliakov
which is just presented here as a possible element of the context.
As in other Christian countries, the popular feeling about the unfaithful Jew,
a feeling fostered by a secular brainwashing falling from the pulpit, came
out in Italy in the form of spontaneous violence as well as through very
diverse statutory provisions, which aimed at stressing the humiliation of the
sons of Israël, and at excluding them from the Christian society [...] But it is
a fact that, at least before the Counter-Reformation, the social and legal
condition of the Jews in Italy did not reach the state of degradation to which
they were reduced in other countries. And it can be said that their daily
relations with the Christians were often stamped with a heartiness that the
Jewish historians of the past willingly attributed to the gentle complexion of
the Italians or to their superior civilization. (Poliakov 1970:336)
In Reformed countries, the scholarly virulence directed against Hebrew

— associated with the "merchants of Venice" and their financial activity? —
produced new models of linguistic genealogy. We may suppose that the
contestation can be understood in a wider movement of symbolic reappro
priation applied to material and cultural values which were particularly
expressive of national wealth. It is probably not by chance that a new-born
state like Netherlands provided the most inventive reconquest of national
identity in the field of language. Those positive, or positivist, effects seem to
be lacking beyond the Alps. But the reference to Hebrew and Hebraic
grammar could also produce, on the other hand, fruitful applications to the
European linguistic domain, as it is demonstrated, for Italy, by the example of
Angelo Canini. The location in the paradigm of Hebraic priority works
according to the epistemological rule of the pro and contra.
2. Canini: Methodical transfer and Phonetics
Angelo Canini (born in Anghiari, near Arezzo, in 1521) is mentioned in the

history of linguistics for having proposed "the embryo of an authentic com-
parativism, even if it remains most crude and informal", by spreading in
16 Daniel Droixhe
Europe "the idea of the kinship uniting the Semitic languages, already well
recognized by the Arabs and Jews of the Middle Ages" (Mounin 1967:122).
Canini published in 1554 his Institutiones linguae syriacae, assyriacae atque
thalmudicae, una cum aethiopicae atque arabicae collatione. The Dizionario
biografico degli Italiani hails this work as "one of the first (if not the first)
printed grammars of oriental languages". It also pins in Canini "the ingenuous
theory of primitive Hebrew", which is repeated in another work, the Hellenis-
mos, edited in 1555.
It is a fact that Canini, in the Hellenismos, calls any attempt against the
traditional theory an "impious crime". We could believe that he himself
somewhat diminishes the radiance of the sacred language, when he stresses
that the idiom used by Christ and the apostles "for giving to the world the
happy news of the Gospel" was the Syriac, and not Hebrew, which had almost
disappeared during the captivity in Babylon. In this town, the Jews had
"imperceptibly began forgetting their language, as the elderly people disap
peared and the children became imbued with Babylonian", that is to say with
the Syriac (in the terminology of the time). But the holiness of Hebrew
anyway remains an article of faith. To deny that it "has been the most ancient
language", it is to deny that Moses was "really inspired and divine" (1578:
a3r° and ff.).
If Canini's approach to the European languages is marked by orthodoxy
— and it will be remembered by later etymologists, when they quote his
references to Hebraic roots — he kept, from his acquaintance with Jewish
grammarians, two lessons which have already been put forward by W. Keith
Percival (1984) concerning other orientalists of the Renaissance, viz. Reuchlin
De rudimentis hebraïcis, 1506) and Bibliander (De ratione communi omnium
linguarum, 1548). Canini first learns from the Jews the articulatory classifica
tion of consonants. And he gains some confidence in the fact that "letters do
not change blindly", but according to "natural reasons". This is valid, he
specifies, "for every language". He knows that phonetic change sometimes
results from an "error" made by the "ignorant multitude". But it does not
prevent him from trusting in some rationality, at work in those alterations: a
view that was not, for sure, so common during the sixteenth century, when
linguistic change was mostly seen as a permanent and anarchical run of
"revolutions".
Canini is sharply — touchingly — aware that his proposals and the rules
which are to be found could upset routine-minded persons. The cases he will
expose in the Hellenismos may "seem a bit harsh". But the studious reader,
who wants to understand things, "as it is suitable for a real man" (humaniter),
will recognize the truth of those "novelties". Percival, writing about Bi-
bliander, has stressed that he borrowed from the Semitic family a model of
kinship which allowed him to maintain that all the languages of the world lend
themselves to a uniform grammatical treatment according to the Hebraic
system, from where it followed that they could be compared to each other.
Trying to establish the rules which govern the Greek dialectal varieties,
Canini extended his inquiry towards Latin. As far as a traditional belief
derived the latter from the former, some of Canini's examples must be rather
classical — if not most of them. They give us the opportunity to point briefly
at a general defect of comparativism during the Renaissance and after. It has
often been noticed that ancient scholars did not organize and distribute
linguistic facts according to any real chronology or diachronic stages. Having
spent several years of his life in Spain and France, Canini willingly mentions
words from those countries, where he finds materials to confirm such and
such a rule. If he has to show that the Greek d often "changes" into Latin b, a
correlation illustrated by the prefixes dis- and bis-, he will bring together, as if
they pertained to the same level, the Greek rabdos "rod" and the Spanish rabo
"tail" (on the basis of a formal analogy).
To that first occultation of a chronological distribution, corresponds
another one on the axis of syntagmatic linearity. For sure, it was far more
difficult, for a grammarian of his time, to conceive the influence exerted by
the situation and environment of definite linguistic sounds upon their evolu
tion. Without the idea of such a relationship, how could the best mind explain
that the Greek ƒ in nephelê changed into Latin b in nebula, while the Greek b
of bremo "rumble" had inversely given the sound ƒ in firemo? Which un-
suspectable principle could provide something like a compass, in a daedalus
attesting every given correspondence and its contrary?
However, among those obscure traps of historical phonetics, a calculus
upon sounds takes shape, leading to less and less naive errors. Vossius will
retain from Canini an hypothesis which is typical, from that point of view.
Isidorus of Sevilla considered the Lat. tenebrae as a word composed with
tenere: "because men, in the tenebrae, do not dare to move freely, as if they
were retained". Relying on the fact that Greekf can change into Latin b — the
pattern nephelê / nebula — the Hellenismos links tenebrae with Gr. dnopheros
"dark", which is erroneous. But another aspect of the argument, here, lies in the
18 Daniel Droixhe
attempt of a reconstructed form of transition, between Greek and Latin: "quasi

denefrae". We have noted elsewhere that the etymological research of the
seventeenth century, confronted with enigmatical but irrefutable analogies
between far removed languages (as German and Persian), did not engage into
the awaited flowering of prototypical reconstructions, as if a privilege of textual
truth prevented the scholarly imagination, in the absence of philological
support, from entering the uncertain domain of pure orality (Droixhe 1989a).
Did the faith in the written document leave to idle speculation, far behind
science, the scribbles of modern reality and their undemonstrable hesitations,
abandoned to the voice of the "ignorants" and illiterati?
3. Persio: Cultural Transfer and Dialects
In his Discorso intorno alla conformità delia lingua italiana con le più nobili
antiche lingue e principalmente con la greca, published in 1592, Ascanio
Persio announces the observation of many "similarities between our language
and some others", which "put together" would form a "big volume" (cf.
Bolelli 1967 and Tavoni 1990:223). To tell the truth, many "similarities" are
given to the reader in a very rough way and often deserve the severe judgment
applied to Poggio Bracciolini, whose linguistic observations, "unsystematic,
always miss the important aspects of the object" (Tavoni 1984:113).
The first feature that we shall retain from his general manner of etymolo
gizing could be called dialectal vertigo. It happens that regional languages
foster a good linking (which may look purely natural or be absolutely classi
cal) between Greek and Latin. The Venetian lagare "let" is mentioned to
confirm the true relationship between Gr. lagassein " let go", Lat. laxare and
Italian lasciare (20ff.). But in many other cases, the profusion of dialectal
variants constitutes an unlimited invitation to wandering. Here it is the word
pontico "rat", from Bologna, which seems to certify the filiation Gr. pontikos
(mus) "mouse of the Pontus, the Black Sea; weasel, stoat" > It. topo, ex
plained as a reduction of pontico "with shifting of syllable" — but which is
just an alteration of talpa "mole". Elsewhere, the Venetian piare "take,
plunder" is associated with Gr. piazein "grasp, squeeze", whilst Persio him
self supposes that the dialectal word is a form of the common It. pigliare, as
far as the Venetians are accustomed to "neglect or swallow those two letters
GL, by a defect in pronunciation": "they say meio, fio, conseio for meglio,
figlio, conseglio".
The philhellenism does not however suffice for blocking the road to that
other current, philogermanist, which would like to "make believe that Italian
does not come from Latin but, for almost everything, from Lombard or some
other barbarian language". Persio's opposition to the antipatriotic theory
leads him to extreme attitudes. He will not "deny that we have barbarian
words". But he wants to prove that "many do not come neither from Gothic,
nor from Vandalian, nor from any other barbarian idiom", "but rather from
Hebrew, or Aramaic, from which Latin and Greek themselves have received
many words" (p.27).
However, the defense of Hebraic origins is submitted here to a typical
aggiornamento. In addition to the traditional principle of filiation, the influ
ence exerted upon Italian, from the outside, by "the long study and continual
reading of the Old and New Testament" must be taken into account (64ff.).
The transmission partly switches from the level of genealogy to cultural
heritage, and sometimes more frankly from etymology to style. In some
manner, the shifting perhaps fringes upon the "double modality of linguistic
experiment" which was currently considered by Renaissance thinking2 : the
transmission of "use and norm communicated by parents and fellow-country
men" and the training "through reasons professed by grammarians" (Tavoni
1984:235).
So, when the Italians say that "Bologna comprises such number of souls"
to designate its inhabitants, we speak like the Bible, from which we have
taken one of its usual metaphors. When we say to sleep with somebody in the
meaning "to make love" ("come in tanti luoghi se legge del Bocaccio"), we
use or perpetuate an expression of the Deuteronomy. "The Bible, first trans
lated from Hebrew to Greek, imported into Greece a lot of hebraisms, and
then from Greece into Latin", as it was "popularized by writers and preach¬
ers". This interpretation of the relationship to the sacred language — pre
cisely because Hebrew was on the verge of losing more and more of its sacred
character — announces the broad movement which will transfer during the
eighteenth century the stylistic features of the "oriental literature" towards the
supposedly "primitive" languages. Threatened or dethroned as the first lan
guage of the world, Hebrew reconverted itself into the literary ideal that will
be ¡Illustrated by Lowth and Herder (Droixhe 1989b).
20 Daniel Droixhe
4. Natural empire and barbarism
Liberated or not from Hebraic monogenetism, the search for the common
source of European languages, working on the old tapestry of the Babelic
division of nations, looked more and more resolutely towards the surround
ings of the Black Sea, during the seventeenth century. Italy took little part in
the affirmation of the hypothesis, but what could be the national profit, when
Italian discoveries brought arguments to those "Gothic" people challenging
the Mediterranean and classical world (Simone 1990:330-31)?
In 1436, the Venetian Giuseppe Barbaro (1413-94; see the Dizionario
biografico degli Italiani 6) undertook afirstjourney in the Tanaïs area, that is
to say around the Don. Much later, he will be the doge's ambassador to the
court of the shah. His Itinerarium ad Tanaim brought valuable informations
about Crimea and the province he calls Gothia, "behind the island of Capha"
(Kertch).
The Goths make use of the German language, as I have learned because I
had a German man as a servant; he and they talked together and understood
each other well enough, in the same way as a Friulan and a Florentine
understand the meaning of their speech when they converse. (1601:455;
1873:30-32)
Barbaro added that those inhabitants of Gothia have the word stufe for
"stove". He mentions other typical expressions that he met on his way.
Around Mingrelia, the idolaters are called Hibuch-Peres, and a strong man
Tulubagator — whose sounding must reflect something of the character of
the nations, "brutas et efferas". Elsewhere, he observes that the "Tartaric
idiom" designates a silver coin by a word meaning "white" as do Greek,
Turkish, Spanish and Venetian. But his interest in the fact that "many nations
agree in the denomination of the same thing" does not go further (p.453). His
curiosity seems to have the limitations of the picturesque. On another side, it
was much easier, for Leidian philologists and Oxonian armchair travellers, to
recognize the stimulating (and soon famous) correspondences linking Persian
with the Germanic languages. What was the appeal of maus "mouse", dandan
"tooth", etc. for an Italian? The observation concerning Crimean Gothic does
not belong to Barbaro, but to his German servant. For Flemish travellers or
ambassadors like Wilhelm van Ruysbroeck, in the thirteenth century, or
Busbecq, in the sixteenth, identifying their linguistic kinship with those
Crimean remains was not a great exploit.
The handicap of Italian humanism appears in the reading that could be

made of Derbent, the name of a town located on the westcoast of the Caspian
Sea. The vicinity of the Caucasus and of the Ararat bestowed a special price to
the words associated with that cradle of humanity. In 1726, Gottlieb Siegfried
Bayer will recognize in Derbent, through the Persian derbend "chain of a
door" (a meaning justified by the situation of the town), the German elements
Tür and Band "bond". The name could not provoke any echo in the narratives
of Italian travels such as the one given by Giovanni-Maria Angiolello, from
Vicenza(c. 1451-c. 1524).
It remains a fact that Italian classicism shows a tendency, in the linguistic
field, to keep at a distance what is too different, or what is shocking for the
gentilezza. Even the famous discovery of the merchant Sassetti — so remark
able in itself — could be exemplary from that point of view, if we also
consider that it is isolated, upon the background of a long and intense
missionary activity. Other researches will tell whether further approaching
observations were made, as Rome developed the strong apparatus of conver
sion and linguistic information reflected by the Costituzioni of the Jesuits, at a
time when their generals, like Claudio Acquaviva, organized the efforts "to
understand the Indian culture and especially the languages allowing to know
it better" (see the studies by G. Wicki in Fasana-Sorge 1988: 27-29, 52-56,
completed by Murr 1987).
5. Ferrari's 'Scherzo'
We noticed that the minimizing of foreign historical influences upon Italian

had taken some extreme forms in peninsular philology. The rejection of
evidences is illustrated by Ottavio Ferrari and his Origines linguae italicae of
1676. He regularly opposes to the already well established etymologies
referring to Germanic languages counter-propositions based on Latin, which
are not always offered with great conviction. To evaluate rapidly the regres
sion or delay inflicted in this case to the knowledge of Italian, we provide as
an appendix a table of historiographic comparison which could be developed
into a systematic file of cards containing, for a given stock of words, the
various explanations put forward by ancient scholars. Let us comment some
examples.
As early as 1512, the Laws of the Lombards were published by Nicolas
Bohier, where could be read the words sala "hall, room" and treuva "truce".
22 Daniel Droixhe
"Si quis servum bovoleum de sala occident [...]". It was not too difficult to
recognize in those terms, unknown by the Latins, their modern Romance
offsprings. The Laws were reedited in Venice in 1537 and 1557, in Johann
Basilius Herold's Leges antiquae Germanorum, the first large collection of
this kind. It did not prevent some supporters of the Greek origins from
identifying the French salle with audê as we can see in Périon (1555), an
hypothesis repeated by Monosini about It. sala (1604). Friedrich Lindenbrog
gave a new edition of Herold's materials in 1613 : it is typical that, in the same
year, Adriano Politi's explanation of sala in his Tuscan dictionary rather went
back to Latin saliendo ("because the chorus used to hop in the sala"). By the
middle of the century, it was not necessary to have flipped through the ancient
code to grasp the true origin of those words. Before Ménage (see Leroy-
Turcan 1991 and Droixhe forthcoming), the most remarkable synthesis of
Romance etymology was the De vitiis latini sermoni due to Vossius. So,
Ferrari had to accept a fact already fallen into the public domain.
Another word whose Germanic origin became notorious was It. squilla
"clock". Its family is mentioned by Vossius at the beginning of the De vitiis as
one of the clearest examples of northern influence upon low Latinity. The
form skella appeared in the Lex Salica (title 29) and it was of course related to
the German Schelle, as well as to the Toulousan esquil, by François Pithou in
his 1602 edition of the code (1665:122, 158). We find the same comparison,
extended to Italian, in Jérôme Bignon's edition of 1665. But Ferrari, ten years
after, still tries to link squilla with cochlea "snail", which is supposed to have
also given cloca "clock": killing two birds with one stone. But we perhaps
have to take into account a provocative and, so to say, playful bad faith which,
facing Vossius' crushing erudition, only found some unbelievable fancy as a
last resort, to avoid mere etymological plagiarism.
The stubborn search for a Latin origin could sometimes rely on the
phonetic rules established by the Germanists themselves. The correspondence
w/gw (wardôn/guardare, warjan/guariré, etc.) seemed to justify the etymo
logy of guisa by Lat. vicem "in place of', pronounced wicem (in fact: < Germ.
Weise; current etymology since Cluvier 1616).
In this mixing of resemblances, it was inevitable that Ferrari ran across
some comparative truth or idea proposed by modern linguistics, especially
when he substitutes a German word-source with a Latin term which is in fact
genetically related to the former. In the interpretation of the still enigmatic It.
fellone, Fr. félon, the Germanists had put forward their old word fallan "fail,
commit a fault". The hypothesis was wrong because fellone, which has been
explained by Lat. fel "gall, bile" (already in Charles de Bovelles), is much
more probably derived from a Frankish verb meaning "to whip". The support
ers of the Greek put their candidate in the race: phêloô "deceive, betray"; and
Ferrari had no difficulty in adding the Lat. fallere. The possible connection
between fallan and fallere is discussed by modern authorities. Pokorny chal
lenges the genetic relationship, but Ernout and Meillet found it "too seductive
for being neglected". Anyway, everybody sees that Ferrari piles up words
without any method or comparative project, without any visible idea of a
wider historical community. His goal is to establish one unilateral dependence
against another.
The best example of "accidental comparativism" — arising from an
etymological error! — is perhaps provided by the article devoted to It.
schernire "mock, jeer at" (see Appendix, 7.1/2). It has been recognized by
modern linguistics that it comes from the Frankish root skern, belonging to a
wide Indo-European family set under the root *(s)ker "jump here and there".
The relationship between Italian and German had already been noticed by
Justus Lipsius in his remarkable Letter 44 of the Centuria tertia ad Belgas,
addressed in 1599 to H. Schott. Lipsius has taken some profit from an "old
psalter", seen in Liège in the house of his friend Arnold de Wachtendonck,
where he found interlinear Germanic interpretations of Latin terms, a "treat"
for the mind. Ferrari cannot accept this German filiation. So, he prefers to
explain schernire by Lat. scurra "joker, jester", which is an error but leading
to the addition of another authentic member to the Indo-European family of
*(s)ker .
It was even possible to approach the root-meaning by extending the
family towards It. scherzare "joke"3 — Ferrari stresses in fact the relation
ship — and by remembering Monosini's old observation that scherzare must
be linked with Greek skirtaô "jump". But what was outlined remained con
cealed in the prospect, and it is only our retrospection which playing at ease
assembles the various elements of the puzzle.
6. The inner opening
We can only add very little (mainly pertaining to miscarriage and regrets) to
Bonfante's inventory, as it was summarized at the beginning. It should be
24 Daniel Droixhe
judged by others whether our documentation has to be questioned. We did not

discover authors bringing something really original to the "historical keys"
that opened the doors of Indo-European. We tried to detail what was de
nounced as the weight of classical distance towards barbarous languages. Of
course, Pope Pius II's word about the language of Bohemians cannot receive
too much importance, from that point of view, when he calls it a mere
ciañare, "babble". However, and despite the Pope's great humanistic under
standing, also exerted in philological matters (it is said that he discovered the
Strassburg Oaths), he wants to mix linguistic attitude regarding the other
cultures and moral legitimation. If Bohemians deserve that compliment, it is
because they hold the foolish opinion according to which they come directly
from Babel (the Slavi were the slaves or workers employed at the building of
the tower). His capacity of interest, manifested in a staggering Cosmography,
tends to stop where barbarism and violence begin.
"There would be much to be said", he wrote, "about the Goths in
connection with European matters". Their domination must be referred not
only to their search for vital space ("they did not find what to feed themselves
in their own country"), but also to their "avidity". Their progeny pegs away at
demonstrating their antiquity, their centrality. Renaissance linguistics will
extend their historical domain, especially by a confusion with the Celts,
before it hesitates to integrate Slavs or Finno-Ugrians. But Italy, we may
guess, is content with the internal history of a classicism which does not need
any amplification. In some manner, it leaves undeveloped, to the painstaking
curiosity of others, its crucial discovery, made as early as the fifteenth century
by Poggio Bracciolini, Flavio Biondo and Pope Pius II, of the Latin character
of Rumanian (Coseriu 1981:15). When a question comes up concerning the
character of Rheto-Romance languages — affiliated to Latium and to Etrus
can, or to Celto-Germanic? — the names of scholars involved in the debate,
as far as we know, mostly seem German ones: Gilg Tschudi (1560), Marcus
Weiser (1595), Johann Stumpf (1606).
What we should call the "inner opening" of Italian linguistics will thus
apply to peninsular dialects as it appears from the better-known 1591 notations
devoted by Angiolo Rocca to Greek remains of Calabria and Puglia (Bonfante
1956; Fiacchi 1991). From Canini, scrutinizing the Hellenic varieties in order
to formulate more general phonetic rules, to the lexical undertaking of the
Crusca, and from the latter to Ascoli, the attention given to regional diversity
perhaps constitutes one of the most original contributions of Italian tradition.
Searching for their "roots", modern linguistics and philololgy would be badly
inspired if they neglected attempts which do not necessarily "announce" or
"prefigure" the most flashy outgrowths (those dummy windows have been
denounced for a long time) but which outline problems and orientations of
inquiry having conditioned, sometimes for centuries and across paradigmatic
or positivistic revolutions, the general or national currents that illustrated the
disciplines. It could be especially true for Italy and historical linguistics.
7. Appendix
7.1 Materials for the Historiography of Germanic etymologies in Italian
In what follows we synthetize a few examples of etymologies proposed during the XVIth
and XVIIth centuries concerning Italian words of Frankish ("Fr."), Gothic or Lombard
origin. The sign "x" indicates the presence of a Germanic key-form in the "barbarian"
laws. As far as possible, "Germ." for "Germanic" is distinguished from "German". The
usual * for non-attested forms is omitted.
sala roba squilla schemire / scherzare

"hall, room" "things, clothes" "clock" "mock" / "joke"
< Fr. sal < Fr. rauba < Goth, skilla < Fr. skernjan
< Lomb. skerzan
Lombard L. x
(1512, 1537)
Périon < Gr. aulê
(1555)
Picard < Gr. lôpê
(1556)
Alaman L. x x
(1557)
Salic L. x
(Herold 1557)
Lipsius scerni "mockery"
(1599) // Germ, scern "id."
Salic L. < German Schelle
(Pithou 1602) Toulous. esquil
26 Daniel Droixhe
sala roba squilla schernire / scherzare

"hall, room" "things, clothes" "clock" "mock" / "joke"
< Fr. sal < Fr. rauba < Goth, skilla < Fr. skernjan
< Lomb. skerzan
Monosini < Gr. aulê scherzare

(1604) < Gr.skirtao"skip"
Politi < Lat. saliendo
(1613)
Lindenbrog < Germ, sala < Germ, rauba < Germ, skella
(1613)
Besold < Germ, sala
(1619/32)
Vossius < Germ, sala < Germ, rauba < Germ, skella
(1645)
Ferrari < Germ, sala < Lat. cochlea schernire
(1676) < Lat. scurra "joker"
schernire II
scherzare
7.2 Accidental comparativism: 'schernire', 'scherzare'
LIPSIUS (1599) MONOSINI (1604) FERRARI (1676)

Germ, scern "mockery" Gr. skirtaô "jump, skip" Lat. scurra "joker"
// V V
It. schernire "mock" It. scherzare "joke" It. schernire "mock"
v
I.-E.*(S)KER- "jump here and there"
NOTES
1. The following pages develop a communication first presented in French at the conference
Italia ed Europa nella linguistica del Rinascimento (Ferrara, March 1991); section 2,
devoted to Canini, summarizes the text which will appear in the proceedings. I assume
responsibility for the English adaptation, required by the publisher and kindly corrected
by P. Swiggers.
2. For example Guarinus Veronensis; but the conception can be traced back, at least, to
Isidorus.
3. Cf. German Scherz with the same meaning.
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SOMMARIO
Si riconsiderano, sulla scorta di G. Bonfante, C. Marazzini, R. Simone e M.

Tavoni, le condizioni generali dello studio storico e comparativo delie lingue
in Italia, dal Rinascimento alla fine del XVIII secolo. Si individua un certo
numero di tendenze negative che ne hanno ipotecato lo sviluppo. Si valuta il
peso persistente della teoría dell'Ebraico come lingua madre in Bartolomeo
Benvoglienti, Mariano Vittori, nel Cajetano (§1). La mancanza di un ampio
movimento di opposizione al primato dell'Ebraico viene messo in relazione
con l'atteggiamento nei confronti degli Ebrei. Si mostra peraltro il ruolo
positivo ricoperto dal contatto con la grammatica ebraica medievale (§ 2). La
laicizzazione di questo modello genetico e la sua riconversione in modello
stilistico viene studiata nel caso di Ascanio Persio (1592), che permette anche
di evocare gli effetti della germanofobia e delfilellenismo(§ 3). Si esamina, a
proposito di Giuseppe Barbaro, la mancanza in Italia di interesse per l'ipotesi
d'una relazione di natura storica tra Europa e Caucaso, proficuamente messo
a frutto invece dalla tradizione germanica (§ 4). Si illustra, con il caso del
termine 'squilla', il ritardo di un etimologo come Ottavio Ferrari (1676)
rispetto a Vossio o Ménage, pur sottolineando attraverso diversi articoli
dedicati a schernire, una potenzialità — occultata, certo — di "comparatismo
accidentale" (§ 5). Si conclude sottolineando le acquisizioni della linguistica
"prescientifica" in Italia nell'ambitodegli studi di dialettologia (§ 6).
30 Daniel Droixhe
RESUME
On reconsidère, après G. Bonfante, Cl. Marazzini, R. Simone et M. Tavoni, les

conditions générales de l'étude historique et comparative des langues en Italie,
de la Renaissance à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. On distingue un certain nombre de
tendances négatives ayant hypothéqué le développement de cette étude. On
apprécie le poids persistant de l'hébreu langue-mère chez Bartolomeo
Benvoglienti, Mariano Vittori, le cardinal Cajetan (§1). L'absence d'un large
mouvement d'opposition à la primauté de l'hébreu est mis en rapport avec
l'attitude à l'égard des juifs. On montre par ailleurs quel rôle positif a pu jouer
le contact avec la grammaire hébraïque médiévale (§ 2). La laïcisation de ce
modèle génétique et sa reconversion en modèle stylisique est observée chez
Ascanio Persio (1592), qui permet également d'évoquer les effets de la
germanophobie et du philhellénisme (§ 3). On examine à propos de Giuseppe
Barbaro l'absence d'intérêt de l'Italie pour l'hypothèse d'une relation histo
rique entre l'Europe et le Caucase, fructueusement exploitée par la tradition
germanique (§ 4). On illustre par le terme squilla 'clochette' le retard d'un
étymologiste comme Ottavio Ferrari (1676), par rapport à Vossius ou Ménage,
tout en soulignant au moyen des divers articles consacrés à schernire "railler"
une virtualité — occultée, il est vrai — de "comparatisme accidentel" (§ 5). On
conclut en soulignant les acquis de la linguistique italienne "pré-scientifique"
dans les domaines de l'étude du roumain et de la dialectologie (§ 6).
The Legacy of Classical Rhetorics
Marie-Claude Capt-Artaud
University of Geneva
Gérard Genette's preface to the 1967 re-edition of Dumarsais' Traité des

Tropes (Dumarsais & Fontanier 1967) ends with these words:
Today, when the development of studies inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure
places the problems of meaning at the heart of all Unguistic data, it is
useless to argue about the interest of re-examining the masterpieces of the
rhetorical tradition. For centuries, rhetorics constituted, together with gram
mar, the only approach to the study of language. The debt of modern
stylistics and semantics to rhetorics is evident, and accepted as such. In a far
wider sense, all current semiological research and the study of literature
itself is entirely within the rhetorical framework. Few are the heritages wich
concern us more directly and which more urgently require the making of an
inventory.1
1. Acknowledging the debt
What does this inventory now contain? What has been preserved of the
inheritance? Modern rhetorics seems to have maintained a somewhat ambigu
ous relationship with its past. Gérard Genette himself, in another and well
known preface to Fontanier's manual, Lesfiguresdu discours (1968), seeking
to highlight the author's modernity, says simply: Fontanier shows "an acute
and highly valuable awareness of the paradigmatic dimension of discourse".
Genette considers Fontanier's classification of the figures of speech to be one
of the "masterpieces of taxonomic intelligence". This does not prevent him
from criticising the "rage to denominate" which permeates this work. But
most importantly — and we will pay great attention to this in the present
discussion — Genette seems to endorse the criticisms levelled at Dumarsais
32 Marie-Claude Capt-Artaud
by Fontanier in the renowned Commentaire au Traité des Tropes: lack of

classification, slack juxtaposition of figures, collection of tropes under the
aegis of catachresis, the extinct figure nevertheless considered by Dumarsais
to dominate ("reign over") all the others. Genette wonders how a stylistician
of Dumarsais' calibre, "the first to have clearly defined the figure of speech in
terms of stylistic intent", could have turned an unavoidable figure of speech,
dictated by necessity, into the "queen" of metaboles. More offhandedly,
remarks of this kind have simply been passed over by our contemporaries as a
form of residual inconsistency, obvious to the eyes of the modern reader.
Michel Le Guern, in his Sémantique de la métaphore et de la métonymie,
makes many laudatory references to Dumarsais as a pioneer in semantics but,
as soon as he tackles precise analysis, he first draws our attention to the
"blunders" of his illustrious predecessor.2
The Mμ, Group's ostentatiously modern Rhétorique générale (Dubois et
al. 1970) peremptorily announces its break with classical rhetorics (which
they label "paleo-rhetorics"), stifled by the excessive normative claims of its
fastidious nomenclatures. However, this book presents a classification table
which demonstrates considerable taxonomic talent, together with the concern
to reduce the field of figures to a set of logical operations, somehow recalling
the rationalism of classical rhetorics. The work postulates that it is necessary
— having recourse to the concept of "ethos" — to evaluate deviances in terms
of their "acceptability to the collective aesthetic consciousness". Is this not
precisely the function assigned to "good taste" by the 17th century classicists
and revived by Fontanier? Indeed, the resolutely classical literary corpus on
which Fontanier's analysis was based asserts the positive relationships be
tween the norm and the figures and thus fixes the outermost limits of the
rhetorical domain; this literary corpus is a model of "good taste", with a zest
of daring just sufficient to excite the imagination without committing an
outrage upon "common sense"; literature is always referred to as the paragon
of standards, the great poets being the best guarantors of "exemplary usage",
in Fontanier's view.
This relationship is turned on its head by the moderns. Henceforth, it is
assumed that "rhetorics is the knowledge of language procedures characteris
tic of literature" (Dubois et al., p.25). This affinity between rhetorical re
search and the literary corpus was claimed by the structuralists in the sixties;
the renewal of interest for this deserted field was legitimated by the contribu
tion it was expected to make to the theory of literature.
This was not at all the objective Dumarsais aimed at. We will attempt
here to evaluate the legacy that Dumarsais' Traité des Tropes represents for a
Saussurian and how, by taking possession of this heritage, modern theoreti
cians have perhaps taken excessive care to collect baubles, leaving some of
the choicest pieces behind.
2. The worthwile pieces
Undoubtedly, there are two types of rhetorics. In the rhetorical tradition

which descends from Antiquity, there is a "technique": treatises on elo
quence, intended to produce persuasive speech at a time when the mastery of
language was linked to the exercise of power. This didactic role continued to
evolve, losing or gaining significance over time. It is found, well watered-
down, in Fontanier's lessons on the ornaments of discourse intended for
"young ladies at boarding-school". The other, more reflexive, rhetorical
trend, through an examination of figurative language, enters into a general
reflection on linguistic communication. Perhaps this venture really starts with
Dumarsais' Traité des Tropes.
In fact, Dumarsais is a generalist. In his view, rhetorical figures "primarily
have this general characteristic pertaining to all phrases and combinations of
words which consists of conveying meaning". In his Traité des Tropes, he
begins by rejecting conventional standpoints which oppose figurative language
to ordinary language. Dumarsais remarks that everyday speech abounds in
figures:
Far from being remote from an ordinary and natural manner of speaking,
there is nothing more natural, ordinary nor commonplace as figurative
speech in human language [...]. Figures [of speech] are not removed from
the ordinary language of man, on the contrary a manner of speech without
figures would be odd, if it were possible to compose a discourse containing
only non-figurative expressions. (Dumarsais 1967:2)3
This makes a strong stand against previous definitions of rhetorical
figures as "turns of speech removed from a common and plain manner of
speech", according to Père Lamy (1676) —- a definition which Fontanier took
up, word for word, a century and a half later.4 The definition of tropes
proposed by Dumarsais, "figures by which one gives a word a meaning which
is not precisely the proper meaning of that word" 5 , lays the emphasis, as it has
frequently been underlined, on the change of meaning. The substitutive
conception of figures, "one word in the place of another", vanishes here to be

replaced by a semantic definition: a new sense attaches itself to the word,
owing to the trope. The advantages of this fresh line of attack have already
been stated. However, the active role attributed to the speaker in this change
of meaning, displayed by the very wording of Dumarsais, must have escaped
general notice.
Fontanier believes that thought is composed of ideas. The expression of
thought is achieved through words: language ought, therefore, to provide as
many words as there are ideas. Patiently, Fontanier draws up a list of the
various possible kinds of ideas. He then elaborates a vast classification in
which it appears that rhetorical figures are governed by the same logical rules
as those governing links between ideas. Let us take, for example, the tropes by
connection, usually called "synecdoches". They consist of "the designation of
an object by the name of another object, with which it forms a whole, [...] the
existence of the one being included in the existence of the other" (Fontanier
1967:87). Let us compare with Dumarsais'definition: "The term synecdoche
means understanding, conception: indeed, the synecdoche causes the mind to
conceive more or less than the word in question actually signifies in its proper
sense" (Dumarsais 1967:113). Now, let us compare their differing definitions
of metaphor: to Fontanier, this trope "by similarity" consists in presenting "an
idea in the guise of another idea, more striking or better-known, and which is
related to the former by some conformity or analogy" (Fontanier 1968:99). To
Dumarsais, metaphor is a "figure by which the proper meaning of a noun is,
so to speak, carried over into another meaning which suits it only by virtue of
a comparison existing in the mind' (Dumarsais 1967:155).
It should be remarked that the speaker's role is constantly at the core of
the definition given by Dumarsais for each of the figures. The speaker in turn
is "giving", "taking", "understanding", "carrying over", "explaining"... It is
through this grounding in the act of speech that Dumarsais' tropological
analysis opens itself to general linguistic considerations, even though these
must become diachronic. Because what one speaker can accomplish "in order
to enable others to feel more vividly what he himself experiences vividly" can
be accomplished by the linguistic community, by force of usage; "this tyrant
of language often achieves wonders that the authority of any sovereign could
never obtain". It is sufficient if a new relationship between "words" and
"ideas" is authorized by usage. Here it appears that "arbitrariness of sign" —
the purely consensual link between words and ideas, as it was already under-
stood in the 18th century — is taken into account by Dumarsais to tackle

phenomena of evolution. "These extensions of meaning cannot be reciprocal
in any other language". Dumarsais, as a confirmed Latinist, ceaselessly
stressed that meanings do not coincide from one language to another (p.43):
In translation, a word does not keep all of the figurative senses it has in its
original language: each language contains figurative expressions of its own,
either because these expressions proceed from certain usages established in
one country and unknown in another or for some other purely arbitrary
reason.
But his understanding of the linguistic "arbitrariness" is truly remarkable
when he attempts to explain the deviations of meaning through the very way
in which language is learned.
The meaning of words was not attributed to them at a general assembly of
each nation, the results of which would have been communicated to each
new born individual; it occurred imperceptibly through education: children
related the meaning of words to ideas that usage brought them to know these
words signified. (Dumarsais, p.73)6
In a final section entitled "Concerning the other senses the same word
may receive in speech", Dumarsais evokes an entire range of potential
polysemy, made possible through word combination. It is arguable that these
considerations are the forerunners of Saussure's notion of "value". Saussure
was to say that the value of a term is assigned "through the presence of the
words which coexist with it, both syntagmatically and associatively"
(Saussure 1968:260).
The Traité is to Dumarsais "an essential component of grammar; since it
is the task of grammar to make known the true meaning of words, and the
sense in which they are employed in discourse" (Dumarsais 1967:22). For
Dumarsais, the grammarian, "words have a grammatical relationship to one
another only so that they can combine to produce a meaning [...] the endings
of words and other signs established in each language are merely signs of the
relationship which the mind conceives between the words according to the
particular meaning one wishes to express". From this comes the comment
that caused the "trope-in-one-word" to rock on its pedestal: "It is through
combination that words acquire a metaphorical sense".
3. A theory of signification is enfolded in the design of the Traité
As we have seen, Fontanier upholds that the status attributed to words is

closely related to the status assigned to ideas: words, like ideas, follow rules
of association. The role of grammar can only be authoritative, since there is
between words and ideas the accuracy of "representation". This regression to
Port-Royal has a quasi militant tone on the part of our schoolmaster out
flanked by the rising tide of romanticism. Therefore, the architectony of the
rhetorical field presented in Fontanier's Manuel is a tremenduous step back
ward and not, as Genette would have it, "a significant deepening of rhetorical
thought". The depths of Dumarsais' perspective is revealed by the very way
the Traité is set up which, as we shall see, makes clear his concern to
encompass all of the liabilities of signification in a single vision.
It is most interesting to note that, in the very same period — when the
human sciences reached their highest peak and under the complete hegemony
of structuralism — theorists, without any resistance, have accepted arguments
put forward at the beginning of the 19th century by a normativist, firmly
entrenched in a narrow rationalist position, in order to criticise the work of an
Encyclopedist. It is all the more surprising as this work (subtitled "Of the
different meanings a word can take") posed, in its own way, a major episte-
mological problem for semiological research at the end of the 1960s.
At the same time Todorov (1966:114) wrote: "Certain incorrect phrases
are no doubt uttered many times each day, whereas others, though correct, are
not and will never be uttered'. This did not take into account the infinite needs
of communication, needs constantly renewed, singular, novel and which must
be "newly-minted"; nor did this care for the speaker's constant recourse to the
inexhaustable resources of the "first articulation". For, quite the contrary, all
this would tend to imply that any possible configuration of signs will be
uttered within eternity. In the same article, Todorov asserted: "We study
language and not speech; thus specific circumstances [...] are not of interest
to us" (p.l11). The specific circumstances — which are the fount of diversity
for the needs of communication and the relevance of our linguistic choices —
are brought to the forefront by the final arguments of the Traité on synonymy.
It is interesting to note that neither Fontanier nor Genette attached the slight
est importance to the fact that the Traité opens with catachresis as the
preeminent figure, the figurehead, and ends with general remarks on syn
onymy ("Do synonyms exist?"). However, it is very precisely on these two
supports that the study of tropes lies. Figurative language is initially viewed
from the standpoint of topological drift which, over time, leads to the
adjustment of lexicon by palliating the "dearth of words"; lastly, it is related to
the general operation of choice encountered by every speaker faced with
virtually equivalent terms. It is the scope of this vision which makes Du-
marsais a semantician, aware as he is of the dual synchronic and diachronic
drift.
4. Value and synonymy
Regarding synonymy, Dumarsais (1967:351) refers to the remarks of Abbé

Girard:
By synonyms, we commonly mean those words which [...] resemble each
other through the idea they convey. But, do such words exist? [...] If, by
synonyms, we mean words which have such a complete and perfect resem
blance of meaning, that the sense understood at its fullest strength and in all
circumstances is always and absolutely the same [...] so that the words may
be used indifferently in any circumstances, and there is no choice to be
made between them in terms of meaning, [...] then, in this second sense,
there are no synonyms in any language.
Moreover, if "perfect synonyms" existed, there would be two languages

within the same language.
There are occasions when we can indifferently use one of these words
known as synonyms rather than another; but there are also times when it is
far better to make a choice [... because] this does not prevent each of them
from having a particular strength which distinguishes one from the other,
and which we must observe according to the degree of precision required by
what we wish to convey. (Girard 1799:1. x)
It has not yet been appreciated how much the Saussurian concept of
"value" owes to Abbé Girard's Dictionnaire des synonymes. Let us consider
here the only illustration Saussure proffered of the notion of "value" in regard
to content; it has been retained by the editors of Saussure's Cours in relation
to the difference between "value" and "meaning":
Within the same language, all the words which express similar ideas have
mutually-imposed limits: synonyms such as redouter, craindre, avoir peur
[dread, fear, be afraid of] acquire their own value only through contrast; if
redouter [dread] did not exist, its content would go to its rivals. (Op.
cit.: 167)
The difficulties presented by the concept of value ("slippery ground")

lie, according to Saussure, in the fact that "value is composed of two elements
[...]. Value is determined, firstly, by one different object which can be
exchanged [...], secondly, by similarities which we can compare" {Op. cit.:
259).7 Saussure insists on this comparison between terms coexisting within
the system by placing them in confrontation, but remains baffled by the
problem of defining "what they may be exchanged for": dreading, as he was,
compromising the concept of "arbitrariness of sign" and thus retracing his
steps to a taxonomic conception of language. But whereas Saussure, grap
pling with the harsh demands of his theoretical discourse, sticks to insisting
upon the intra-systemic apect of "value", emphasising interplay of contrast in
terms of negative differences, Abbé Girard, keenly alive to the most sensitive
exploration of his linguistic feeling, offers us the obverse of these differences
through positive terms of substance. The moment has come to refer to entry
179 of Synonymes françois:
179. CRAINDRE, APPREHENDER. REDOUTER. AVOIR PEUR.
FEAR. APPREHEND. DREAD. BE AFRAID OF.
We fear by aversion for evil, at the thought that it may occur. We apprehend
through a longing for good, at the thought that it may be lacking. We dread
with a feeling of esteem for our adversary, at the thought that he may be
superior. We are afraid due to a weakness of the mind and the urge for self-
preservation, at the thought that there may be danger.
The lack of courage makes us fear. Uncertainty of success makes us
apprehend. Insufficient strength makes us dread. The images of imagina
tion cause us to be afraid. (Girard 1799[1718]: I. 40)
Indeed, what does the "form" — which language is — represent if not

"relevant substance"? Is not Girard precisely revealing the relevant features
of "substance-of-content" by contrasting synonyms, "by describing the dis
tinctive characteristics of synonyms with precision", as Beauzée states in his
preface.
With their sensitivity to "need" ("need justifies everything", affirmed
Beauzée 8) and the attention they pay to the diversity of "occasions", the 18th
century stylisticians 9 intuitively opted for the epistemological solution re
garding the analysis of content which was to be discovered, much later, by
phonologues as "relevance". Let us listen to Abbé Girard's proposal for
distinguishing synonyms "as different nuances of a single colour":
I do not deny that there are occasions when the choice is quite indifferent:
but, I maintain that there are even more on which a word ought not and
cannot replace another [...]. If the object is a yellow coat, we can use
marigold or daffodil indifferently, but if [the coat] must be assorted [with
other clothing], we are obliged to identify the nuance. Now, when is the
mind not in a position to assort? (Girard 1799:I. x-xi)
Fontanier set out to "correct" Dumarsais... Dumarsais concludes his text

by drawing the reader's attention to another work, said to complete his own. It
is probably through Dumarsais' Traité, the college textbook for rhetorics, that
Saussure learned of Abbé Girard's Dictionary of Synonyms.
The criticism laid against Dumarsais for the lack of organisation in his
study of tropes appears quite misplaced. Dumarsais did not seek to achieve
any form of classification, but he did, obstinately, attempt to examine
topological language in terms of "signification", a word constantly tied up in
his definitions with the word "conception" — which means "a manner of
knowing".
5. Baubles and trifles
We have already observed that updating analyses, in spite of their need for
renewal, returned to taxonomic issues. Albert Henry, for example, claims that
the theoretical problem of synecdoche is that it is not always properly distin
guished from metonymy.10 Students are still learnedly disputing and firmly
deciding in favour of one or the other. For instance, the following sentence
from a novel by Zola: "Il avait épousé une dot" ("He had married a dowry")
must undoubtedly be a metonymy. This other phrase, to be found in La faute
de Abbé Mouret, when the old philosopher Jeanbernat seats himself at table
with the curé, crying out: "C'est la première fois que je trinque avec une
soutane!" ("This is the first time I have raised my glass together with a
frock!"), certainly ought to be a synecdoche. In these conditions, how is the
next example drawn from Voltaire to be categorised? Relating how a fire had
deprived the people of Geneva of their theatre, the philosopher wrote: "Les
tignasses et les perruques étaient réunies dans la rue" ("Shaggyheads and
periwigs were gathered in the street"). Is it essential to see the former as a
synecdoche, and the latter as a metonymy? What a long way we are from
reflections on synonymy and from the epistemological discussion entered into
at the end of Dumarsais' study of tropes. With respect to meaning, what can
we consider as "the same" and what may we consider to be "different" in two
distinct but "equivalent" linguistic forms?
Phonologists since Troubetzkoy's Grundzüge der Phonologie (1939)

have clearly explained why the speaker is led to recognise different objects
(sounds) as "the same" (the same phoneme). Structural semantics would have
been well advised had they examined in the same light the relationship
between "form" and "substance" in respect of "content": indeed, should
modern semantics not have attempted to explain how and why different
linguistic forms (i.e., different ways of conceiving meaning) can lead to the
"same underlying thought", to quote Dumarsais; how and why, on the other
hand, can the "same underlying thought" result in different meanings depend
ing on the linguistic form selected for its transmission? Undoubtedly, this was
the keypoint of classical rhetorics since it concentrated on the art of "putting
into words": Elocutio.
NOTES
1. The French works cited herein have been translated by the author of this paper.
2. "Dumarsais states that the synecdoche is a kind of metonymy; however, we have seen that
metonymy is due to a modification of the reference without, at least in synchrony, any
change in meaning. This constitutes therefore [...] a veritable contradiction" (Le Guern
1972:30).
3. More emphatically: "There is perhaps no word which does not have some figurative
sense".
4. "The figures of discourse are [...] more or less remarkable artifices [...] by which speech
[...] is more or less removed from its plain and common expression" (Fontanier 1968:64).
5. In all quotations, italics are ours.
6. Dumarsais went as far as attempting to draw up an inventory of all that could contribute
to shift the conventional relationship between "words" and "ideas": " Men's lives are
short and they are more preoccupied with their needs [than with their language] [...]. As
there is such variety and inconstancy in their situation, their state, their imagination, in
the different relations they have with one another; [...] and as the memory is not
sufficiently reliable or precise to retain exactly the same words and sounds, and the shape
of the organs of speech is not sufficiently uniform among all men to enable them to utter
sounds in precisely the same manner [...], all this has meant that children gradually
abandoned their fathers' ways of speech, as they abandoned their manner of living: they
attached new ideas to existing words [...]" (Dumarsais 1967:74).
7. On the same page, Engler reproduces the following fragment of Saussure's manuscript:
"Value is <eminently> synonymous <at each point> of a term situated in a system <of
similar terms>, just as it is <eminently> synonymous at each point of the exchangeable
element. Taking the exchangeable element on the one hand, and on the other the co-
systemic terms, fails to produce any relation between them. It is the role of value to link
the two. It links them in a way which goes so far as to drive the mind to despair [...]".
8. Op. cit. Preface to the third edition by Abbé Girard, note by Beauzée, p. XVIII.
9. Their explicit remarks as grammarians are very far behind their intuitions as masters of
the art of speaking.
10. "Rhetorical treatises leave us confused as to the true nature of metonymy and synecdoche
[...] The difficulties are essentially of a theoretical nature. Thus, that which constitutes
metonymy for some is sometimes considered synecdoche by others" (Henry 1971:17).
REFERENCES
Dubois, Jacques, et al. 1970. Rhétorique générale. Paris: Larousse.

Dumarsais, César & Pierre Fontanier. 1967. Les Tropes. Introduction by Gérard Genette.
Genève: Slatkine Reprints.
Fontanier, Pierre. 1968. Les figures du discours. Introduction by Gérard Genette. Paris:
Flammarion.
Girard, Gabriel. 1799 (=an VII) [1718] Synonymes françois. Edited by Nicolas Beauzée.
Lyon: publisher unknown.
Henry, Albert. 1971. Métonymie et métaphore. Paris: Klincksieck.
Lamy, Bernard. 1699[1676]. La rhétorique ou l'art de parler. Amsterdam: publisher
unknown.
Le Guern, Michel. 1972. Sémantique de la métaphore et de la métonymie. Paris: Larousse.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1968. Cours de linguistique générale. Critical edition by Rudolf
Engler. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Todorov, Tzvetan. 1966. "Les anomalies sémantiques". Langage 1. 100-123.
Troubetzkoy, Nicolas S. 1968[1939]. Grundzüge der Phonologie. Prague: Kraus Reprint.
SOMMARIO
I semiotici contemporanei (studiosi di semantica, di stilistica, critici letterari...)

amano riconoscere il loro debito verso i capolavori della tradizione retorica,
tant'è vero che "per secoli, la retorica è stata, insieme alla grammatica, la sola
forma di studio dei fenomeni del linguaggio" (Gérard Genette). Eppure,
l'eredità che i nostri retori moderni hanno rivendicato non ci sembra essere la
miglior parte del legato che la retorica classica ha trasmesso alla ricerca
semiologica.
Prendiamo il Traité des Tropes di Dumarsais. Quest'opera non concede
nulla davvero alle preoccupazioni tassonomiche. Fontanier ha pensato di
doverne criticare l'impianto: una semplice giustapposizione delie figure. Ora

il Traité si apre con un esame delia catacresi, la figura morta viene con-
siderata come dominante, e si chiude con considerazioni generali sulla sino
nimia: su questi due cardini si regge l'esame dei tropi. Al centro del problema
del significato, il linguaggio figurato è subito messo in relazione con la deriva
tropologica che arricchisce e riaggiusta nel tempo il lessico della lingua, e lo
si accosta infine al meccanismo sincronico della sinonimia. E' quanto dire che
c'è nel Traité una riflessione generale sul significato.
Sulla sinonimia Dumarsais riprende la posizione dell'Abbé Girard. Ora,
è proprio dal Dictionnaire de Synonymes dell'Abbé Girard che Saussure
ricava il famoso e unico esempio che illustra nel Cours la nozione di "valore"
("sinonimi come redouter, craindre, avoir peur hanno un loro proprio valore
solo per la loro opposizione"). Fatto sta che, a loro modo, Dumarsais et
l'Abbé Girard hanno posto il problema centrale del significato qual esso si
presenta a un saussuriano: come avviene che forme linguistiche diverse
possano veicolare uno stesso núcleo di pensiero, come avviene che uno stesso
nucleo di pensiero dia luogo a sensi diversi a seconda delie forme scelte per
trasmetterlo?
RESUME
La sémiotique contemporaine (sémanticiens, stylisticiens, critiques littérai

res...) se plaît à reconnaître sa dette envers les oeuvres maîtresses de la
tradition rhétorique, tant il est vrai que "pendant des siècles, la rhétorique a
été, avec la grammaire, la seule forme d'étude des phénomènes du langage"
(Gérard Genette). Toutefois, l'héritage que nos rhétoriciens modernes ont
revendiqué ne nous semble pas la plus belle part du legs que la rhétorique
classique a fait à la recherche sémiologique.
Prenons le Traité des Tropes de Dumarsais. Cet ouvrage ne sacrifie guère
aux préoccupations taxinomiques. Fontanier a cru bon d'en déplorer l'agen
cement: une simple juxtaposition des figures. Or, le Traité s'ouvre sur un
examen de la catachrèse, la figure morte y est présentée comme figure
faîtière; et il se clôt sur des considérations générales sur la synonymie. Voilà
les deux étais sur lesquels s'appuie l'examen des tropes. Au coeur du pro
blème de la signification, le language figuré est, d'entrée, mis en regard de la
dérive tropologique qui, au fil du temps, enrichit et réajuste le lexique de la
langue, pour être enfin rapproché du mécanisme synchronique de la synony

mie. Autant dire qu'il y a dans le Traité une réflexion générale sur la
signification.
Sur la synonymie, Dumarsais reprend le propos de l'Abbé Girard. Or,
c'est précisément au Dictionnaire des Synonymes de l'Abbé Girard que
Saussure emprunte le fameux et seul exemple qui, dans le Cours, illustre la
notion de "valeur" ("Des synonymes comme redouter, craindre, avoir peur
n'ont de valeur propre que par leur opposition"). C'est qu'à leur façon,
Dumarsais et l'Abbé Girard ont posé le problème cardinal de la signification,
tel qu'il apparaît au saussurien: comment des formes linguistiques différentes
peuvent-elles livrer un "même fonds de pensée", pourquoi un "même fonds
de pensée" peut-il donner lieu à des sens différents selon les formes retenues
pour le transmettre?
Mechanical Models and the Language
Sciences in the 18th Century
Jean-Pierre Séris
University of Paris I
0. My title may be somewhat misleading, even — or perhaps especially —

in a conference devoted to "the historical roots of linguistic theories".
The rules governing the production of utterances and those determining
the performance of an automaton are, for us, objects whose properties can be
studied by methods that are comparable (transformational generative linguis
tics, cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence). Computers, information pro
cessing machines — the machines most representative of our modernity —
have languages, even various levels of language. Supposing a coherent body
of linguistic theories today paid special homage to a "mechanical" conceptual
framework (which is far from being the case): does this mean that we would
need to look for something resembling the "historical roots" of this outlook in
the 18th century? No one would dream of demanding this. To lay claim to
predecessors would be both incongruous and illogical in this instance. The
difficulties encountered by Chomsky when he made this kind of claim suggest
the price to be paid; yet Chomsky chose the Descartes-Port-Royal-Beauzée
tradition as his lineage, i.e. the least "mechanical" of the traditions of the
classical period as regards the theory of language. My purpose in this paper
will thus be guided much more by differences than by family likenesses.
There is no doubt that the linguistic "promotion" of the mechanical or of
"mechanism" (in the 19th and above all the 20th century) represents, rather
than a fortuitous extension of a new domain, a crucial moment in its compre
hension, in which earlier ideas and theorisations of mechanism are made
obsolete. Given that the period I am concerned with precedes this "promo
tion", the frequency of references to the mechanical, and the multiplicity of its
46 Jean-Pierre Séris
dimensions, constitute something of an enigma today for someone like me, an

archaeologist rather than a historian.
At the risk of depriving my paper of any element of surprise, I will start
with a preliminary synopsis of the issues I intend to tackle in the short time
available: they represent the points at which mechanics makes its greatest
impact on the "linguistics" of the Enlightenment, or rather, on what Sylvain
Auroux proposes to call the "language sciences". I would like to suggest we
bear in mind these four essential topics:
1. the production of sounds by the vocal instrument, and the talking
machine;
2. the mimetic reproduction of things or their ideas by the voice;
3. the generation of utterances by rules or formalisms which are
A) logical
B) grammatical;
4. the "derivation" or the history of languages, which are seen as
modifiable in time and space.
According to whether genesis or structure, phonetics or syntax, meta
physics of mind or language evolution, "transposition" or "derivation", are at
stake, it is clear that different resources of mechanism are exploited.
1. The talking machine
1.1 It is well known that the spelling lesson Monsieur Jourdain is given by
his "maître de philosophie" in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (II. iv) is much
indebted to Géraud de Cordemoy's Discours physique de la parole (1668). It
is less well known that about a century later a similar though far shorter lesson
was given (by correspondence!) to the niece of Frederick II of Prussia, the
Princess of Anhalt-Dessau, by a master we would not expect to find in this
role — the great geometrician Léonard Euler. In his letter of 15 June 1761 on
"the marvels of the human voice", Euler applies his analytical intelligence to
deconstructing or unravelling what was left entangled in Monsieur Jourdain's
blissful astonishment at the discovery of vowels and consonants:
- he invites the Princess to share his wonder at the capacities of the
human voice and more particularly at "the different articulations that make up
speech"; but he does not stop there:
- he contrasts the facility with which we utter these different sounds with
the complexity of an instrument capable of producing so many, and such
subtle, differences. "Our mouth is so admirably adjusted that it is almost
impossible for us to discover how it really works, no matter how accustomed
we are to using it";
- lastly, he appeals for the aid of a machine capable of imitating not only
vowels (like the register of organs that bears the name "human voice"), but
consonants too.
Ce serait sans doute une des plus importantes découvertes, que de construire
une machine qui fût propre à exprimer tous les sons de nos paroles avec
toutes les articulations. Si l'on réussissait jamais à exécuter une telle
machine, et qu'on fût en état de lui faire prononcer toutes les paroles par le
moyen de certaines touches, comme d'un orgue "ou d'un clavecin, tout le
monde serait avec raison surpris d'entendre qu'une machine prononçât des
discours entiers, ou des sermons, qu'il serait possible d'accompagner avec
la meilleure grâce. Les prédicateurs et les orateurs dont la voix n'est pas
assez agréable pourraient alors jouer leurs sermons et discours sur une telle
machine, tout de même que les organistes jouent les pièces de musique. La
chose ne me paraît pas impossible. (Euler 1843:349-351)
It sounds like a prefiguration of the voice synthesizer, which, we may

note, might have enabled educated mutes to communicate with everybody.
The passage is dense with echoes, and the suggestions of the great
geometrician harmonically unite a large number of suggestions which there is
no room to explore here. With regard to the mechanising of speech, I shall
simply examine the transition from the "physique de la parole" (I deliberately
use an expression patterned on Cordemoy's title) to the "mécanique des
langues" (mechanics of languages). How, in effect, does the former cease to
be a restricted, circumscribed field of study — as it was for Cordemoy, an
orthodox Cartesian in this respect? De Brosses and Court de Gébelin not only
attempt to explain phonation and articulation, they also come to consider
language as a mechanism, whether natural or artificial.
1.2 In the first place the machine is an experimental tool, at once an instru
ment of knowledge and of imitation. The question arose during the 18th
century as to whether a machine could reproduce the whole range of sounds
of the speaking and singing human voice. The issue was no longer merely a
topic for speculation, as it had been in the previous century: experiments were
now carried out. Vaucanson's automatons immediately come to mind, and

more particularly the "Speaker" which La Mettrie looks forward to in a well-
known passage in L'Homme Machine and which Vaucanson may well have
tried to construct.
In the 18th century the idea of mechanically reproducing the singing and
speaking human voice owed as much to studies in anatomy and physiology
(not to mention medical science, which was particularly attentive to the
phenomenon of deafness and even more so to dumbness) as to enquiries in the
field of linguistic or grammatical knowledge; and of course there was also a
lively sense of the philosophical implications of anything that had to do with
vocal signs. Two dates need to be born in mind here. In 1700 the members of
the Académie Royale des Sciences listened to a paper by Rémi Dodart on "the
physical cause of the human voice and its different tones", in which the
learned doctor declared that the sounds emitted by the voice are mainly due to
the contraction of the glbttis, and claims that these are "inimitable by art". In
1741, Antoine Ferrein rectified this explanation in his academic Memoir "De
la formation de la voix de l'homme". It is to Ferrein that we owe the discovery
(and naming) of the "vocal cords".
The use of experimental mechanical apparatus (as well as its limited
success in explaining the voice) is clearly illustrated by the following com
mentary written by Court de Gébelin:
Il regarde les lèvres de la glotte comme deux rubans formés de fibres
tendineuses très élastiques, que l'air fait frémir en sortant du larynx, ce qui
produit la voix; semblable en cela aux vibrations sonores d'un instrument de
Musique lorsqu'on en pince les cordes. Aussi Ferrein se crut-il en droit
d'appeler les lèvres de la glotte cordes vocales. Il compare l'air qui les
choque aux plumes qui pincent les cordes du clavecin; la colonne d'air qui
pousse dans la glotte celle qui la précède tient lieu du sautereau, qui fait
monter la languette et les plumes; tandis que l'action de la poitrine ou des
poumons fait l'office des doigts et des touches qui élèvent le sautereau. On
peut voir dans le Mémoire où cet habile Anatomiste expose ses principes les
expériences dont il les appuie, et la manière dont les cordes vocales font
entendre l'octave, la quinte, la tierce, etc.
Flatté de sa découverte, il crut avoir découvert un instrument nouveau
également inconnu aux Anatomistes et aux Musiciens (ce sont ses termes),
et tout à la fois instrument à cordes et à vent. Il n'en tira cependant pas tout
le parti qu'il pouvait, parce qu'il se borna à expliquer uniquement par ce
moyen la formation de la voix. La nature des corps dont il se servit pour ces
expériences dut même nécessairement l'induire en erreur: comme ces corps
n'étaient plus animés, il ne pouvait en tirer des sons éclatants que par le
rétrécissement de la glotte. Mais l'air ne devient pas sonore uniquement par

le plus ou moins d'ouverture de la glotte; le frémissement qui se fait alors
dans toutes les parties de la glotte, le trémoussement de tous ses muscles,
leur choc avec l'os hyoïde qui s'élève et qui s'abaisse, la répercussion que
l'air éprouve par les parois de la bouche, etc. sont autant de causes qui
contribuent à rendre l'air sonore, et aux variétés qu'on y remarque: mais ces
phénomènes ne peuvent avoir lieu sur des corps roides et inanimés.
C'est ce qu'avait bien aperçu un Médécin Suisse qui vivait au commence
ment de ce siècle [Amman]. (Court de Gébelin 1775:11. 83-84)
Ferrein's Memoir aroused a passionate interest in the possibility of
imitating phonation mechanically. Attempts are made to explain articulation
and speech just as Ferrein explained the voice and singing. Jean-Exupère
Bertin, Montagnat (1746), La Mettrie (1748), Pluche (1751), the singer
Bérard (1755, Art du Chant ), and Jean Blanchet (1756, L'Art ou les principes
philosophiques du Chant), like Euler, consider the mechanical imitation of the
voice an undertaking worthy of a maximum investment of effort. In the
background looms the figure of the renowned Vaucanson, an indefatigable
constructor of automatons and industrial machines. Everyone paid tribute to
his Flautist (Flûteur) of 1738. The Prospectus in which he presented "à MM.
de l'Académie royale des sciences" "le mécanisme du Flûteur automate"
gives a scientific warrant to a technical achievement without imposture. In
1739 the Flautist is exhibited with an artificial Duck and the "Tambouri
naire". As La Mettrie notes, it is a long ways from a Flute Player, however
admirable, to a Speaker. After remarking that Man is to Monkey "what
Huygens' planetary Pendulum-clock is to a watch by Julien Le Roi", he
writes:
S'il a fallu plus d'instruments, plus de rouages, plus de ressorts pour
marquer les mouvements des planètes, que pour marquer les heures, ou les
répéter, s'il a fallu plus d'art a Vaucanson pour faire son Flûteur que pour
son Canard, il eût dû en employer encore davantage pour faire un Parleur,
machine qui ne peut plus être regardée comme impossible, surtout entre les
mains du nouveau Prométhée. (La Mettrie 1751:109)
There is no doubt that Vaucanson, who tried to use rubber ("the elastic
resin of Para" or "elastic gum" about which Charles-Marie de La Condamine
reported Xo the Académie royale desl sciences on 24 June 1736, and which
François Fresneau rediscovered in 1747 on the border between Guyana and
Brazil, with the precious tree that Linné was to christen Hevea Brasiliensis) in
order to construct anatomies of the circulation of the blood, dreamt likewise
of constructing a Speaker, especially as he was, from the early '1760s', on
excellent terms with the Controleur Général des Finances, Bertin, a great
friend of Court de Gébelin (it is to him that volume III of the Monde primitif is
dedicated in 1775) and a familiar of Mme de Pompadour. Montagnat, one of
Vaucanson's intimates, exclaims:
L'instrument de la voix dont nous sommes aujourd'hui assurés d'avoir la
connaissance serait-il inimitable à l'art corne l'a prétendu M. Dodart sans le
connaître? C'est ce que je ne pense pas, persuadé qu'on se trompe plutôt en
se défiant trop de l'industrie humaine, qu'en s'y fiant trop. C'est aux Castel,
aux Vaucanson que je soumets la hardiesse de mon idée. Il n'y a que
l'auteur du Clavecin des couleurs ou celui du Flûteur automate qui puissent
réussir à nous donner un clavecin pneumatique dont les sons imiteraient les
voix de différents animaux, ou seulement celle de l'homme, si variée dans
chaque individu"1.
We thus see an oscillation between the machine viewed as a mechanical

model that enables us to understand the voice (Ferrein) and the machine
viewed as the artificial imitation of a natural mechanism whose functioning or
secret has been laid bare. It must be added that in the 18th century, the
machine has ceased to be the paradigm of what matter can achieve: this role
now falls to the organism.
1.3 The mechanical reproduction of the voice is not simply an entertainment.

It is closely linked with the earliest attempts at analysing the phonetic sub
stance of languages. Let us return to Court de Gébelin, who makes a clear
distinction between singing and "the speaking voice, or voice of speech" and
chooses to concentrate on how speech is uttered, but without relinquishing the
musical or instrumental paradigm. Imperceptibly, however, this paradigm
undergoes a marked shift. Court de Gébelin writes in fact:
Si l'instrument vocal n'était qu'un instrument à vent, on n'en tirerait que les
modifications dont nous venons de parler (the vowels, which he calls
"sons"): mais il est, outre cela, un instrument à touches; celles-ci donnent
donc lieu à des modifications de la voix absolument différentes de celui-là.
(Court de Gébelin 1775:111. 122)
The passage reveals a shift from the physical nature of the instrument
(the voice as a string or wind instrument: ever since ancient times early
acoustic theories, early approaches to a physics of sound, have been based on
the study of the vibration of cords of different lengths or the vibration of air in
pipes) to its mechanical or mechanological nature (the voice as a keyboard
instrument), in other words from continuous instruments to discrete instru

ments. The action of the fingers of the instrumentalist predominates over the
physical cause of the sound. The difference between sounds becomes more
important than what they have in common in the physical mode of their
production. Writing or notation is precisely that which becomes susceptible of
transcription, transposition, and performance; it has long been so for the
singing voice, and some believe that it could become so for declamatory tones
(cf. Duclos, quoted by Court de Gébelin 1775:111. 87-90). What Court de
Gébelin adds to Ferrein is not so much the idea that living materials as supple
and palpitating as those which form the organs of the voice are capable of
many sound effects that cannot be imitated or synthesised with the aid of
inanimate materials, but essentially the idea that the study of these organs
should provide a principle of differences and explain the discontinuous
modifications displayed by writing, and prior to that, articulated speech. The
mouth is a machine for articulating differences. The phenomenon of articula
tions and the artifice of the instrument (a natural artifice, of course) cannot be
dissociated. The phonetic study of the elements of language will depend on
this artifice and receive a principle of order from it. In fact, Court de Gébelin
limits himself to a "harmonic" division into seven Sounds or vowels of the
vocal instrument considered as a wind instrument and seven Intonations or
consonants of the vocal instrument considered as a keyboard instrument.
2. The "mécanique des langues"
2.1 This is a paradigm that evokes the "linguistics of the Enlightenment",

and various commentators are inclined to use it (Auroux 1973, F. Markovits
1986). What is curious is that the phrase is not current in the 18th century.
Président De Brosses, the author who most immediately comes to mind when
this theoretical outlook or discipline is to be illustrated, never uses it explic
itly. The exact title of his book of 1765 is, of course, Traité de la Formation
méchanique des langues et des principes physiques de l'Etymologic Cer
tainly, De Brosses's writing teems with expressions that come very close to it,
phrases that form a constellation of great density: "méchanisme de la parole"
(p. XX), "méchanique des organes" (§ 141), "fabrique du langage humain"
(p. XVIII), "méchanisme interne et primitif du langage quelconque" (§ 65),
"méchanisme du langage" (running title). But there is no sign of "méchanique
des langues". 2 When one talks (as S. Auroux does) of De Brosses's theoretical
undertaking as the project for a "mécanique des langues", it has to be noted
that the term is not his.
2.2 Nevertheless, the term is not the invention of modern commentators. I

shall pick out here two uses which show that the sense of this expression is far
from being fixed once and for all:
- Maupertuis, Réflexions philosophiques sur Vorigine des langues et sur
la signification des mots (1748, and 1756).3 (This work gave rise to the
Remarques critiques sur les Réflexions philosophiques de M. Maupertuis, par
M. Turgot). Maupertuis defends himself against Boindin's charge (1753) that
he was aiming to "explain the mechanics of Languages themselves", when, in
his Réflexions (1748), he illustrated a kind of "méchanique" at work in the
combining and breaking down of the signs of our perceptions (starting from
the unitary notation of compound perceptions...) We can understand "la
méchanique des langues mêmes" as the (phonetic, morphological, and syn
tactic) specificity of their "grammaires". The "méchanique des langues", in
the perspective Maupertuis rejects as alien to him, amounts to the particularity
of their systems of rules or the systematic regularity of their usages.
- Pluche makes more frequent use of the expression. Indeed, it appears in
the title of his book of 1751: La Méchanique des Langues et l'Art de les
enseigner. But he does not clearly define what he means by it. If we approach
his book without preconceptions, what do we find there? An opening section
entitled "Méchanique de toutes les langues" reviews "the necessary parts that
make up our speech", "all the pieces that are essential to speech for depicting
thought" — the foundation common to all languages. The second section
examines the "grammaire propre à chaque langue", the "propriété d'une
langue", which is governed by a necessity that is no longer natural but
"d'usage". It is what has to be acquired when we want to learn a foreign
language, and what has to be communicated when we try to teach it. In fact,
teaching is Pluche's primary concern: he aims "to investigate how to go about
teaching languages and what kind of procedure follows from the very nature
of speech", and he defends a school method of teaching Latin to young
French pupils based on the practice of translation from Latin into French.
For proof that for Pluche the "méchanique des langues" is opposed to their
morphological and syntactical particularity, it is sufficient to read his Latin
translation of this book, which bears the title De Linguarum Artificio et

Doctrina. Pluche is much more precise in the language of Cicero (and
Quintilian) than in that of Descartes. The single, equivocal term "méchanique
des langues" has various Latin equivalents and these appear at different points
in the author's conceptual system. "Méchanique" is translated by Artificium in
the title. "Distinguer en quoi consiste nécessairement le fond et la méchanique
des langues" becomes "disquirere quae sit omnium linguarum primaria quasi
compages et mechanica structura". Elsewhere the equivalent of "méchanique
des langues" is: "naturale et necessarium Linguarum artificium!", the natural,
necessary artifice common to all languages, deposited in their invariable
elementary structure, excluding any mechanical elements human artifice adds
in the form of rules.
Méchanique is opposed to propriété des langues as naturale artificium is
opposed to humanum artificium.
Thus, in the two authors who speak of a "méchanique des langues", the
expression does not have the same meaning; indeed, it even has opposite
meanings, since for Maupertuis it is the system of rules of a particular
grammar, whereas for Pluche it is the common foundation of the grammatical
categories supplied by the nature of mind and thought, upon which languages
then build their countless variations.
2.3 We can now turn to De Brosses, who clearly lent prestige to the "mécha
nique des langues" (even if he never actually used the expression in this form)
by moving resolutely from the study of the "méchanisme complet de la voix
humaine" to "la première fabrique du langage humain" and to its "nécessité
déterminée par la nature même" (I leave aside the problem of whether "the
accessory system of derivation [...] is necessary rather than conventional":
De Brosses 1765:1. XVII ["Discours préliminaire"]).
Like Pluche, De Brosses first associates mechanism and nature in terms
of a necessity shared by everyone; but his is a physical nature and no longer a
mental one.
Démêler, par l'analyse des opérations successives, l'empire ou l'influence
de la nature dans le méchanisme de la parole et de la formation des mots,
d'avec ce que l'homme y a mis d'arbitraire par son propre choix, par
l'usage, par la convention reçue: montrer par quelles déterminations, par
quelles méthodes, et jusqu'à quel point, l'arbitraire a travaillé sur le premier
fond physiquement et nécessairement donné par la nature.
It is not the same nature, nor is it the same mechanism any more.
Where exactly does he discover a mechanical element in languages? To
find this in the apparently voluntary, spontaneous and intentional phenomena
of the speech (and in the apparently capricious, arbitrary, disorderly phenom
ena of the spoken words), it is necessary to "go back to the roots", that is, "to
the simple, original inflexions of the human voice", whose form "depends on
the form and the construction of the organ" that produces them. "An organ
cannot produce a different effect, or modulate the air in any other way than
that made possible by its natural structure. Each of the organs of the human
voice has its own structure, which gives rise to the form of the sound produced
by it, this form being conditioned by the very manner of its construction"
(Ibid.:IX-X). The organs that make up "the vocal instrument and the complete
mechanism of the human voice" being few in number, "the number of vocal
articulations must be correspondingly few: they cannot be greater, since this
is the entire effect that the machine can produce" (Ibid.:XI).4 Mechanical
causality, in his opinion, can only exist in a sphere of events that can be
derived from a finite number of situations. The result is that the physics of
sounds comes to be derived from the construction or the structure of the
organ. Beneath the apparently infinite variety of human speech, beneath the
apparently infinite multiplicity of the languages of different peoples, there is
thus a necessarily finite variety or multiplicity. The mechanical, for De
Brosses, consists above all in the encounter between the finite and the
discrete, the discontinuous and the limited. It is the bi-univocal correspon
dence between the apparatus and the sounds produced, between the machine
and the finite number of its outputs.
The physics of speech is thus brought once more into the foreground, in a
way that is all the more striking if we compare it to the procedure used by
Pluche. Pluche arrived at limitation — the precondition of science — by
reducing the number of grammatically possible categories: the natural neces
sity he was bringing to light drew him towards the concept of an underlying
General Grammar, though he did not develop one of his own and owed much
to Du Marsais in this respect. De Brosses's natural necessity is almost the
opposite of Pluche's «naturale artificium»: yet it arrives, just the same, by a
symmetrical procedure, at an original language of truth: nature is made to
become the first "fabrique des mots" by causing the form of their sounds to be
determined externally by the organ, as we have already seen, and by the
imitations of things, as we shall see later. He is mechanicist through and
through, while Pluche's méchanique des langues is not mechanistic at all. De

Brosses's observations are in fact "based on the physical principles of things".
What we glimpse here is the step which Descartes and Cordemoy did not
allow themselves to make, from a "physique de la parole" to a "mécanique
des langues".
2.4 We come now to the second aspect of necessity: the nature of the object
to be named conditions the choice of the original articulations — the voice
reproduces things or their ideas mimetically.
Dans le petit nombre de germes ou d'articulations, le choix de celles qu'on
veut faire servir à la fabrique d'un mot, c'est-à-dire au nom d'un objet réel,
est physiquement déterminé par la nature et par la qualité de l'objet même;
de manière à dépeindre, autant qu'il est possible, l'objet tel qu'il est; sans
quoi le mot ne donnerait aucune idée. (Ibid.:XII)
This twofold necessity — physical and mimetic — thus means that "le
système de la première fabrique du langage humain et de l'imposition des
noms aux choses n'est pas arbitraire et conventionnel, comme on a coutume
de se le figurer" (Ibid.:XIII).
The upshot of De Brosses's analysis is the following claim:
 existe une langue primitive, organique, physique et nécessaire, commune
à tout le genre humain, qu'aucun peuple au monde ne connaît ni ne pratique
dans sa première simplicité; mais que tous les hommes parlent néanmoins,
et qui fait le fond du langage de tous les pays. (Ibid. XVI)5
Both the disparity and the links between this postulated or analytically-
deduced ground and the reality of existing languages are the consequences of
"derivation", which blurs traces, multiplies pathways and branches, and
accumulates accessories. It can be followed by observation and analysis:
Puisque le système fondamental du langage humain et de la première
fabrique des mots n'est nullement arbitraire, mais d'une nécessité détermi
née par la nature même, il n'est pas possible que le système accessoire de
dérivation ne participe plus ou moins à la nature du premier dont il est sorti
en second ordre; et qu'il ne soit comme lui plutôt nécessaire que conven
tionnel, du moins dans une partie de ses branches. (Ibid.:XVIII)
Derivation, which is largely mechanical, may well erode the original
(physical) truth, as De Brosses has shown in his essay on fetishism; analysis
can always unearth the original truth beneath the mythological or metaphysi-
cal illusion. In De Brosses, "méchanisme" is an epistemological value: the

mechanical is that which can be subjected to rational study, that which
science can grasp through knowledge of its necessary causal links, and at the
same time that which remains invariable and identical beneath apparent
changes. It is no longer the invariable structure of the natural representation
of thought (as in Pluche) and it is no longer a General Grammar or Logic: it is
original "true-speaking" implied, without distortions and without leftovers, in
the materiality of a nature6 to which men belong by right. Existing languages
are the necessarily diverse products of the combined action of time and space
(i.e. derivation) on a natural phenomenon, the original natural language.
Mechanism supplies a foundation for etymology in the highest sense of the
discourse of truth, providing it with the epistemological backing of the values
of "nature" and of "origin".
Derivation is a natural phenomenon, but the arbitrariness of human
conventions plays a part in it: as De Brosses puts it, analysis must show "to
what extent the arbitrary has worked upon the first ground physically and
necessarily given by nature" (De Brosses 1765:XVIII). A thoroughgoing
study has yet to be made of "Babel in the 18th century" (article "Langue",
Pluche etc.). According to Court de Gébelin (1775:111. 4-5), the obscure
"labyrinth of Languages" is neither the effect of chance nor of the arbitrary
will of men. It is the task of a Natural History of Speech, which in Court de
Gébelin replaces De Brosses's "Méchanisme des langues", to show that it is
subject to strict laws: only a History of this kind "could dissipate the obscu
rity, re-establish order, link all languages, and show that beneath them lies a
common standard..." Thanks to this History "those immense Dictionaries
which frighten even the most active of men, those most eager for knowledge"
will cease to intimidate us as they did in the days when the study of one
language "was of no help whatever for studying others": "Before opening
them, we already know, thanks to this History, everything we will find: all we
need do in order to learn them is to recognise the shape under which each
word is disguised".
The mechanism that interests De Brosses is not a General Grammar; nor,
within the sphere of its own rules, is it a particular grammar, even if several
authors of the time like to treat it as such, using expressions like "le mécanis
me propre à une langue" or "mécanisme propre à chaque langue" (Beauzée,
art. "Inversion": 1017a) or "la mécanique des langues mêmes" (Maupertuis
1758:1. 294). To the extent that mechanism for him is the opposite of the
arbitrariness of a capricious, versatile will, as well as of unpredictable chance,

De Brosses rejects outright the idea that mechanism can only be based on
conventionalism. It is the concept of conventionalism which we must now
examine, together with the notion of grammatical rules, since it is the one
most likely to clarify why grammarians resort to such concepts as the me
chanical or mechanism.
3. The machine of grammar and the generation of utterances
3.1 We come now to what is undoubtedly the most difficult problem: how
does a natural general mechanics (which everyone believes in, whether it
takes the shape of a Grammaire Générale that reflects the connections of
thought, or the 'physicalist' shape of a primordial Language) interrelate with
the particular "méchaniques" arising from human institutions and artifice?
Diderot writes:
Quelque variété apparente qu'il y ait entre les langues, si l'on examine leur
objet d'être la contre-épreuve de tout ce qui se passe dans l'entendement
humain, on s'apercevra bientôt que c'est une même machine, soumise à des
règles générales, à quelques différences près, de pure convention". (Diderot
1776-1777:465)
The machine, the general rules, are those of the mind, the "entendement-
machine", and linguistic utterances are merely the "counter-proofs" of these
(the term is from engraving). It is tempting to set against this not only Court de
Gébelin's "symmetrical" opinion (quoted above), but also:
- Maupertuis's (1748) relativism, which predicates the "incommensura
bility" of languages (just as we refer to "the incommensurablity of scientific
theories" today) — a contrary or diametrically opposed opinion,
- Du Marsais' advice: "Try only to understand the simple meaning of
words and the Latin turn of phrase, instead of dabbling with the mechanism of
common rules that lead to Latin by way of French".
Two test situations deserve particular scrutiny:
- the teaching of languages (especially the teaching of Latin, which is
often an object of violent controversy at critical moments)
- the debate on inversion, in which those involved in the previous
discussion are joined by teachers of rhetoric, men of letters and philosophers.
In these two cases (which are linked by deep, common roots), the
question of rules, their status and mode of action, comes to the fore, and it is
this that governs the use of mechanical vocabulary. It is not simply a question
of the specificity of each single language — its specific phonetics (generally a
somewhat neglected aspect), as well as its morphology, syntax, and word
order ("la structure des mots"): in both cases an original, natural "archi-
mécanique" is invoked, together with accessory rules of "transposition" (in
the case of inversion) or of transformation (in language-teaching methods
with French as the base language). The recourse to "la méchanique" is once
more justified by pedagogical and "psychological" considerations regarding
the close relationship between rules and mechanisms: the need to create
linguistic mechanisms in the pupil or to throw light on the (conscious or
unconscious) processes and operations of a speaker who says what he thinks.
3.2 The mechanical learning of rules. Let us now leave the realm of nomen
clature, with which our discussion has so far been concerned, for that of
syntax or, more accurately, the "structure des mots": the construction of
sentences, the order of words.7 The noun "méchanisme" and the adjective
"méchanique" crop up just as frequently here. However, they are terms which
must be handled with great care, since 18th-century authors pay little heed to
semantic uniformity.
The debate over the teaching of Latin, where the question of word order
arises, is a good introduction for anyone concerned with inversion, since
Latin sentence structure is invariably discussed there. The leading figures in
this debate on inversion were teachers of the humanities or of rhetoric, as they
were then called, teachers of "lettres classiques" in the final classes of the
collèges that came just before the philosophy classes. They prided themselves
on teaching and appreciating good "latinité" in the Latin speeches composed
by their pupils, and made literary commentaries on ancient authors (Diderot's
recollections in the Lettre sur les sourds et muets of studying rhetoric under
Porée come to mind). Their pupils had a knowledge of Latin which was
probably far beyond that of my generation in the second and first forms (i.e.
final years) of the lycée, and even further beyond that of today's lycée pupils.
They did not begin to learn Latin only in the fourth form, as pupils do today,
or even in the sixth form, as we did in the past. They started to learn the
rudiments at primary school age. This of course did not prevent teachers and
the general public from complaining about the low "level" of French children,
or from finding fault with the manner and method of teaching (Cf. Colombat
1992). We cannot o verstress the fact that problems concerning language in
the 18th century are dominated by the question of the relationship between
living French and the two dead languages (or perhaps three, or even four, if to
Latin and Greek we add Hebrew and that Egyptian language which cannot be
read but is so often discussed since Warburton and even since Kircher). As
regards the first two at least, the issue revolves around the very down-to-earth
problem of teaching six- or seven-year-old children languages that we learn
to read and speak only in a scholastic way — from books, instead of through
conversation and immersion as with living languages. Yet they are languages
that children learn to speak when very young — round about that "age of
reason" which is so often a topic of discussion throughout the century of the
Enlightenment, from Locke to Rousseau and Kant. Teachers of Latin or
grammar show a lasting and passionate interest in the pedagogy of this
subject: "new" methods come thick and fast, and bear little resemblance to
each other. Even the general public's passions are aroused by this thorny
problem.
In 1644 (to go back no further) Lancelot published his Nouvelle Méthode
pour apprendre facilement et en peu de temps la langue latine, which in 1736
reached its 11th edition. In 1722, Du Marsais issued his booklet Exposition
d'une Méthode raisonnée pour apprendre la Langue latine, followed in 1729
by the Preface (published separately) to his Véritables Principes de la Gram
maire ou Nouvelle Grammaire raisonnée pour apprendre la Langue latine
(the famous Traité des Tropes, which came out in 1730, being the only part of
the work announced actually to appear). In 1751 Pluche published the two
works mentioned above, and Chompré applied the ideas on inversion devel
oped by Batteux {Cours de Belles Lettres, 1747-48) to the teaching of Latin.
The importance of this issue, and the contemporary feeling of its importance
is visible in the commentaries by D'Alembert {Eloge de Du Marsais placed at
the beginning of volume VII of the Encyclopédie (1757) after Du Marsais's
death in 1756), and by Thurot in the Preliminary Discourse accompanying the
translation of Harris's Hermes {Hermès ou Recherches philosophiques sur la
Grammaire Universelle, Year IV [1796]).
It will be noted that they all aim to find a "reasoned" method. But who is
to be reasoned with? The child of seven or eight? Or his teacher, who is only
too eager to ascribe to the child a faculty for reasoning which he does not yet
possess? At Port-Royal it is the child who has to reason. He is shown how to

go from the French sentence to the Latin one: the thème (translation from
French into Latin) still has pride of place. The mechanism of the rules is made
explicit for the child, who is expected to grasp their "raisons grammaticales":
i.e. he must see in what respect Latin, like any other particular language, is
based on General Grammar, which goes back to the "foundations of the art of
speech". Du Marsais likewise proposes to find the rational explanation under
lying the item of language he wants to teach. But within an epistemological
framework that has not changed in its essentials, he adopts another kind of
pedagogy. He postpones or delays the child's learning of the "mécanique de
la parole". As in Beauzée, "the mechanical order of words in the grammatical
utterance" and the "mechanism proper to each language" correspond to
"arbitrary and customary institutions of a particular language" (see the article
"Grammaire":844b, 842a). This is not where he intends to begin. Before
embarking on a reasoned application of this mechanics, he makes the child
speak. Thurot gives the best account of this:
Il sentit combien est absurde la méthode d'enseigner les langues anciennes
dans un ordre directement contraire à celui dans lequel on apprend sa langue
naturelle, ou même les langues étrangères, et combien il est ridicule de
vouloir forcer l'esprit des enfants à produire, dans un temps où il n'est
destiné qu'à recevoir; il comprit enfin que, dans les méthodes ordinaires, on
enseigne le latin à peu près comme ferait un homme qui, pour apprendre à
parler à un enfant, commencerait par lui montrer la mécanique de la parole.
(Thurot, in Harris 1796 [1972]: 106)
The result is the celebrated "interlinear translation", which should be

taught before the thème and composition, which are premature:
1. The sentence of the Latin author is written on the top line and the
words arranged "according to the French construction and without inver
sion"; any words that are implicit are then added.
2. On the line below, the literal French translation of this reordered
sentence is given.
3. Opposite is placed the original text of the Latin author, if necessary
with comments.
4. This is accompanied with a translation that is suited to the genius of
our language, carrying over, if this is possible, any inversions, ellipses, and
tropes.
D'Alembert comments:
Ainsi on les prépare peu à peu, et comme par une espèce d'instinct, à
recevoir les principes de la Grammaire raisonnée, qui n'est proprement
qu'une vraie Logique, mais une Logique qu'on peut mettre à la portée des
enfants. C'est alors qu'on leur enseigne le mécanisme de la construction, en
leur faisant faire  anatomie de toutes les phrases, et en leur donnant une
idée juste de toutes les parties du discours. (1757:IX)
Surprisingly, in Du Marsais, the mechanism of the language (the rules)
does not coincide with the linguistic automatisms elicited in the speaker, since
the effect of the pedagogic procedure is to allow practice time for each. They
only come together at the end of a long and eventful process. Are they brought
significantly closer in Chompré? In effect, Chompré adjusts the method as
follows: stage 2, the intermediate translation, now respects the order of the
Latin words in the original. Beauzée scoffs at this in the article "Inversion",
and derides the example:
Quin prodis, mi Spuri, ut quotiescunque gradum facies, toties tibi tuarum
virtutum veniat in mentem {De oratore II, 61) devient: "Pourquoi ne pas tu
parais, mon Spurius, que combien de fois un pas tu feras, autant de fois à toi
tiennes des vertus vienne à l'esprit". Peut-on entendre quelque chose de
plus extraordinaire que ce prétendu français?"
Neither Du Marsais nor D'Alembert exclaim about the reordered Latin

sentence propped up by its sous-entendus: "What could be more extraordi
nary than this supposed Latin?". For them, it is not "prétendu latin", but Latin.
What would Pluche, Chompré and Batteux say? They would say, or rather
they do say, that it is not Latin: "One does not need much taste to note that the
Latin of this second sentence has lost all its flavour; it is annihilated" (Pluche
1751:115). Chompré is by no means as foolish as Beauzée paints him. He
writes:
Une phrase latine d'un auteur ancien est un petit monument d'antiquité. Si
vous décomposez ce petit monument pour le fair entendre, au lieu de le
construire, vous le détruisez; ainsi ce que nous appelons construction est
réellement destruction (quoted in art. "Inversion" :1021a)
3.3 Inversion and transposition. "Inversion" is related to order in two ways:

a reversal is an operation that replaces one order with another. But inversion
above all introduces the idea of a secondary or derivative order compared with
an original, superior, pre-eminent order. This, at least, is how advocates of a
Grammaire générale et raisonnée see it. We know that for them "speech is a
kind of picture of which thought is the original" (art. "Grammaire" :841b),

though it needs to be specified that this picture is an "analysis" of the thought,
with the result that "the art of analysing thought is the first foundation of the art
of speech". As Beauzée also puts it in his article "Langue" (257b), "this
analysis, whose principles arise from the nature of the human mind, which is
everywhere the same, must everywhere give the same results, or at least similar
results; it must enable ideas to be conceived of in the same way...". This is true
(i.e. unchanging and general, common to all men) in particular of the relation
between ideas themselves within a thought, which is itself indivisible: "be
tween the partial ideas of a single thought, there is a succession based on the
relations resulting from the connection which links them all to this thought"
(Ibid.). General Grammar, "the reasoned science of the immutable, general
principles of the spoken or written word in all languages" (art. "Gram-
maire":842a), gives this succession "the name of analytical order, because it
is at once the result of the analysis of the thought and the foundation of the
analysis of the speech, in whatever language it is uttered (art. "Langue" :257b).
Analytical order is "natural" and "independent of men's capricious conven
tions and their mutability: it is based on the very nature of thought, and on the
processes of the human mind which are the same in all individuals at all places
and times (art. "Inversion": 1008b). General Grammar also calls this order
"analytical construction": "Analytical construction is that in which words are
arranged in the order in which the ideas present themselves to the mind in the
analysis of the thought. It belongs to General Grammar, and is the invariable
and universal rule that must serve as a basis for a particular construction in any
language whatsoever" (art. "Grammaire" :844b). Succession, order, construc
tion, structure, processes are thus either:
- natural, universal and analytical, and hence have to do with logic,
general grammar and metaphysics of speech, or else
- artificial, particular and customary (Ibid.), and hence have tc do with
the particular grammar, which is the "art of applying the arbitrary, customary
institutions of a particular language to the immutable, general principles of
the spoken or written word" (art. "Grammaire" :842a). This is precisely how
Beauzée uses the term méchanique when he associates it with the terms
"langue" and "grammaire" in the phrases quoted earlier: "l'ordre méchanique
des mots dans l'élocution grammaticale", the "méchanisme des langues", and
the "méchanisme propre à chaque langue".
One might wonder how it is possible for men to understand one another if
the second sort of mechanisms do not imitate the first (Or to put it differently:
why need we distinguish two levels if, as it would seem reasonable to suppose
in the first place, the second must of necessity imitate the first, lest men cease
to speak intelligibly?). This is the fundamental issue that the theory faces with
regard to inversion. The idea that "translation" is not merely a regulated
substitution of words for other words, but a regulated operation on their order,
a means of moving from one utterance to its homologue in another language,
as well as to its prototype in pure thought — this is the crux of the matter that
engages all our authors. (Another problem that I shall not tackle here is what
causes this divergence. There are two kinds of answer: 1. A construction is
not only constrained by analytical order: as Beauzée explains, it must also
"adapt itself to the emotional succession of objects that affect the soul; and it
should not neglect the euphonic succession of expressions most fitting to
strike the ear" (art. "Grammaire":844b, 845a; art. "Inversion": 1007b). 2.
Usage — which Beauzée and his school practically equate with, or at least
make an integral part, of their definition of a language — is the result of a
combination of manifold, contingent circumstances and hence characterised
both by diversity and mutability [art. "Grammaire":842]).
Men understand each other (or we understand Latin authors). This is
possible because human languages are simply concordant ways of expressing
the thoughts which are common to us (art. "Langue" :258b). The identity of
thoughts is the bridge that enables the mutual translatability of languages,
despite the fact that they abound in idioms. This is also what allows us to make
comparisons between languages for the purpose of understanding their particu
lar "genius" better. "Analytical order is the natural order which necessarily
serves as the basis of the syntax of all languages" (art. "Inversion": 1010a). This
being so, the difference between French and Latin is explained — after the
fashion of Abbé Girard's book, Des vrais Principes de la Langue française ou
la Parole traduite en méthode conformément aux lois d'usage (1747) — by the
argument that in one set of languages the grammatical sequence of words
remains subject to the analytical sequence of ideas, whereas in the others the
analytical order of ideas is transcribed or transposed into the inflexions given
to the words, so that, whatever the actual order of the words in the Latin
sentence, the analytical order is present behind what is said and the sentence is
still subject to it. That is why the former are termed "langues analogues" (of
which French is the best example) and the latter "langues transpositives",
regardless of whether they are "free" like Latin, or "uniform" like German (art.
"Inversion": 1010a). No one claims any more that "The Romans thought in
French before speaking in Latin", as a 17th-century writer somewhat naïvely

put it8, but nobody doubts that Latin and Greek demand "de la contention et de
la mémoire" of readers or listeners, as Diderot phrases it in the Lettre sur les
sourds et muets (1751:122):
quand Cicéron commence l'oraison pour Marcellus par Diuturni silentii,
Patres conscripti, quo erom his temporibus usus etc., on voit qu'il avait eu
dans l'esprit, anterieurement à son long silence, une idée qui devait suivre,
qui commandait la terminaison de son long silence, et qui le contraignait à
dire: Diuturni silentii, et non pas Diuturnum silentium. (Ibid.: 122)
(This idea which was to follow — the main idea — appears only at the
very end of the sentence: hodiernus dies finem attulit ).
Clearly, analogue languages are little inclined to tolerate inversion while
transposing languages are quite at home with this procedure. But this kind of
statement is compatible only with a theory of speech in which the grammaire
générale et raisonnée is the supreme arbiter of the "true" order (we might say
that its slogan is "thought first!"), a theory based on the primacy of the
"succession analytique des idées" and the subordination of the "succession
pathétique des objets" and the "succession euphonique des sons", as well as
on the contingent nature of usage. On the other hand, for those who assign
priority or primacy to the "oratorical order" (rhetoricians like Batteux, for
instance), and for those who seriously believe that usage and grammatical
rules are completely binding (for the real, concrete speaker), it is much more
difficult to see arrangements different from those with which the French
language has familiarised us as "inversions". Among the latter are, we can
imagine, Latin teachers: in their case, taking seriously the "mechanism"
proper to each language seems to stem from the magister's "way of speak
ing", from his mode of teaching, and from "the art of teaching languages"; but
it also stems from a discovery which was perhaps confined to practising
pedagogues: namely, an awareness of the resistance of psychological barriers
and the strength of language habits, and hence a capacity to appreciate the
relative efficacy of the various methods in combating such epistemological
and linguistic obstacles. The debate is carried over by these teachers into the
domain of their invaluable practical experience: should they teach Latin: 1. by
first explaining the "raisons grammaticales", or 2. by inculcating Latin sen
tences? (This question also entails a further one, which today we would
formulate: "Should we teach Latin as a dead or as a living language?").
3.4 Rules: between Rhetoric and Grammar. The experience of teachers was
borne out by that of the rhetoricians (the connection between the two points of
view had already been pointed out by Du Marsais).
A) Batteux's Cours de Belles Lettres is one of the most striking expres
sions of this original view of language. It is expressed in a passage that
Beauzée quotes at length, as I shall do, in order to articulate his objections
about it:
Qu'il y ait dans l'esprit un arrangement grammatical, relatif aux règles
établies par le méchanisme de la langue dans laquelle il s'agit de s'expri
mer; qu'il y ait encore un arrangement des idées considérées métaphysi-
quement... ce n'est pas de quoi il s'agit dans la question présente. Nous ne
cherchons pas l'ordre dans lequel les idées arrivent chez nous; mais celui
dans lequel elles en sortent, quand, attachées à des mots, elles se mettent en
rang pour aller, à la suite l'une de l'autre, opérer la persuasion chez ceux qui
nous écoutent, en un mot nous cherchons l'ordre oratoire, l'ordre qui peint,
l'ordre qui touche... (1763:IV.306)
The "procédés grammaticaux des langues" as Beauzée put it, the body of
grammatical rules and constraints of agreement, government, and construc
tion that make up "Ie méchanisme propre à chaque langue" — these are the
things whose status is debated. For Beauzée there is no doubt that "la structure
des mots" (the order of words in a grammatical utterance or the "construc
tion") is the result of an operation:
Je le demande: ce mot structure n'est-il pas rigoureusement relatif au
méchanisme des langues, et ne signifie-t-il pas la disposition artificielle des
mots, autorisée dans chaque langue, pour atteindre le but qu'on s'y propose,
qui est rénonciation de la pensée?
But at this point Beauzée raises a fundamental issue — the crucial
discriminating, one:
Un arrangement grammatical dans l'esprit, veut dire sans doute un ordre
dans la succession des idées, lequel doit servir de guide à la grammaire: cela
posé, faut-il dire que cet arrangement est relatif aux règles, ou que les règles
sont relatives à cet arrangement? La première expression me semblerait
indiquer que l'arrangement grammatical ne serait dans l'esprit, que comme
le résultat des règles arbitraires du méchanisme propre de chaque langue;
d'où il s'ensuivrait que chaque langue devrait produire son arrangement
grammatical particulier. La seconde expression suppose que cet arrange
ment grammatical préexiste dans l'esprit, et qu'il est le fondement des
règles méchaniques de chaque langue, (art. "Inversion": 1018a)
He then cites the Jurisconsults in support of his resolute choice of the

latter solution: "Regula est quae rem quae est, breviter enarrat; non utex
regula jus sumatur, sed ex jure, quod est, regula fiat". (Doesn't what eauzée
encounters here, what he formulates but admits to being incapable of think
ing, amount to the idea of a generative grammar — one closer in fact to
Chomsky, more authentically Chomskian, than the General Grammars de
scending from Port-Royal, if we accept J. C. Pariente's demonstration?)
Beauzée cannot comprehend grammatical arrangement in the mind other
than as the analytical and natural (logical) order we have talked about so
much. Whence his astonishment at Batteux's formula, which makes it "relatif
aux règles établies par le méchanisme de la langue dans laquelle il s'agit de
s'exprimer". Batteux, by rejecting outright any "arrangement grammatical
dans l'esprit" or "arrangement des idées considérées métaphysiquement",
clearly seems to leave the door open to this kind of appropriation. He chooses
to study the utterance ("élocution") as a product and thus eschews any
reference to the (inaccessible) inwardness of the speaker, to "deep struc
tures". Nor is this all. Actual utterances, which alone interest him, are — in
the concrete and situational arrangement of their words, like the Latin sen
tences that filled Chompré with admiration — the products of a language
which is both particularised and particularising. They are the "outputs" of a
black box — the speaker of a language — and it is these outputs that need to
be studied. If Batteux rejects the study of grammatical arrangement in the
mind, this does not mean that he rejects the study of the grammatical arrange
ment of words in spoken sentences; on the contrary, he believes that it is of the
first importance to recognise that the latter is "relatif aux règles établies par le
méchanisme de la langue dans laquelle il s'agit de s'exprimer". (We may
note, however, that although Batteux claims only to consider the output, he
does not explicitly state that the mechanism of a language has the function of
producing an output starting from an input, nor does he say whether this input
is linguistic or pre-linguistic).
According to Batteux, speaking is neither more nor less than producing
grammatically correct sentences. The first, essential meaning of "méca
nisme" is thus the regular production of grammatical, syntactical sentences. A
second meaning arises when the concept of regularity is related not to the acts
of a consciousness exercising its reason, but to the application of a formalism.
(Batteux is the author who comes closest to Chomsky in this respect, while
being the one farthest from Port-Royal — a fact which chimes with J. C.
Pariente's thesis.)
We may assemble some elements in favour of Batteux's view here. I am

thinking of the kind of confirmation regarding the "psychology" of the
speaker that we find in Diderot's Lettre. It is quite clear to Diderot that there is
no inversion in the mind of the speaker. In his comment on the sentence from
Cicero's pro Marcello he writes:
Qu'est-ce qui déterminait Cicéron à écrire diuturni silentii au génitif, quo à
l'ablatif, eram à l'imparfait, ainsi du reste, qu'un ordre d'idées préexistant
dans son esprit, tout contraire à celui des expressions: ordre auquel il se
conformait sans s'en apercevoir, subjugué par la longue habitude de trans
poser? E pourquoi Cicéron n'aurait-il pas transposé sans s'en apercevoir,
puisque la chose nous arrive à nous-mêmes, à nous qui croyons avoir formé
notre langue sur la suite naturelle des idées? (1751:155)
The speaker always thinks he is following the natural order of ideas.
Diderot assumes that such an order exists, but that we do not always follow it,
and that we find it extremely hard to see this. That is why he introduces the
distinction between
- "the natural order of ideas and signs", and
- "the scientific and institutional order".
The first is what those born deaf and dumb 9 enable us to rediscover — an
order that owes nothing to habits of language. It is the one we respect when
giving the definition of a body, if we say that it is a "colorée, figurée, étendue,
impénétrable, mobile substance" — the order in which the various qualities of
a body would affect a person seeing a body for the first time. It is an order
without "suspense", to make a noun out of a term Diderot employs as a verb
(1751:150 — "l'application des autres signes reste suspendue") and as an
adjective (Ibid.: "cas suspensif). (On the "mechanical"-linguistic origin of
the idea of substance, see Maupertuis 1748).
The second order is "celui des vues de l'esprit, une fois que la langue fut
tout à fait formée" — in practice, the order in which the main noun is placed
first, the peripatetic order. This, in fact, is already a reversal of natural order in
most cases, although it seems a matter of course to the (habituated) mind.
If we do not follow the true natural order, then, what order is it that we
follow and see as "natural"? Diderot's answer is that we follow a psycho-
linguistically determined order (the habit of transposing) and above all a
philosophically determined one. It is what he calls the "ordre didactique des
idées" (1751:164), the very order which French syntax fits exactly, but which
anyone with a trained mind can attain to (after carrying out an analysis and/or
after going back to the source of their intended meaning). "Cicero, as it were,
followed French syntax before submitting to Latin syntax". Thus Diderot

cannot subscribe to Batteux's thesis that the Romans do not invert at all and
that we are the ones who invert. "In French we say things as the mind is forced
to consider them, whatever the language one writes in". His position is
original with respect to that of Beauzée and Du Marsais too, and even that of
Port-Royal, for at least two reasons:
The "Grammaire générale et raisonnée" is more of a historical artefact
- than a natural product... (cf. Maupertuis's "linguistic relativism")
- than a natural product of the mind; what in Port-Royal is an operation of
the mind in Diderot becomes a result of habit, an automatism.
B) J.  Pariente has drawn attention to the fact that the "Grammaire
générale et raisonnée" is not a generative grammar or a formalism (Pariente
1985:46), an algorithm capable of generating all and only all the correct
sentences of a language (Ibid.:31). Generative grammar is a model of linguis
tic competence, but is in no way a representation of the actual behaviour of
the subject; general grammar, on the other hand, makes no attempt to con
struct derivations, trees, transformations, or a system of formal rules. The
18th-century controversy over inversion seems to me to bring out clearly this
radical difference between, on the one hand, theories of language claiming
descent from Port-Royal and, on the other, a tradition, less philosophical in
origin, claiming descent from "Belles Lettres", or from the practical peda
gogy of Latin, which I believe shows a conception of the rules and grammar
of language that, on the contrary, grants autonomy to syntax. It is exactly here
that "mechanism" is located, and its precise theoretical function is to produce
real sentences or utterances.
The only way Batteux can set out his arguments on inversion is by
modifying the nature of the term of comparison (or of the initial order that is
said to be "inverted"). This term of comparison is no longer the analytical,
natural order, which is pre-linguistic in the sense of "prior to the adoption of
any language", but simply a grammatical order, whether it is one that belongs
to another language arbitrarily taken as a point of reference and drawn on
from a corpus of actual utterances (this is thus a "comparative" approach), or
one belonging the same tongue, based on the assumption that there is a
canonical mental utterance that comes prior to the actual delivery with its
figures (this is thus a rhetorical approach). By the same token, "transposition"
acquires an "inter-linguistic" dimension and ceases to be the application of a
system of inflexions to a representation held to be naturally ordered in time.
The different orders compared are of equal value and dignity; they are also all
equally artificial, the products of a system of rules or the outcome of their
application. They are "artificial" unbeknown to the speaker, who believes
they are "natural".
Inversion and transposition can have two meanings. According to whether
they are used from the classical standpoint (Beauzée) or from the revolutionary
standpoint (Batteux) (I pass over Diderot's intermediate position here), the
following two concepts are either brought together or considered separately:
- that of a ("psychological") automatism of competence, in the sense of
an acquired habit or consolidated usage;
- that of grammatical regularity or explicit syntax.
The first entails the possibility of an agreement between the conscious
operations of a mental subject and the habit of transposing (see Diderot
1751:154-155), a transition to mechanism. In the second, habit is interpreted
in the opposite sense, since it is habit that makes us believe in a natural order
of ideas in the mind: habit is no longer seen as transforming us into machines,
but as making us forget that we are machines. (The transposition between two
orders which are equally habitual but present at different ages — the natural
order of signs and the scientific order — takes place, Diderot says [Ibid.],
without our being aware of it).
It seems to me that Diderot glimpsed the difference. What he writes
about dead languages shows that he does not confuse the lived and living
interiorisation of rules ("les arrangements possibles", "les constructions que
l'usage autorisait") with grammar as teachers may encode it; this kind of
grammar merely provides a first approach to Latin, one which satisfies us but
would have made the Romans smile. The metaphor of life comes spontane
ously to him when he speaks of usage: the generativity of Latin "died" with it.
What he means by generativity, I would specify, is in no way the "creative
aspect of the human use of language", but fidelity to norms which have never
been formulated but are nevertheless at work, norms whose secret is defini
tively lost to us. In this case the secret amounts to the competence of the
speakers of Latin as a living tongue.
(We must take care not to confuse: 1. transposition and inversion be
tween the order,of ideas in the mind of the speaker and the order of words in
the sentence actually delivered; 2. transposition and inversion between lan
guage A and language B, each being natural languages. The 18th-century
episteme is only too prone to treat the two as the same kind of phenomenon.)
4. History and mechanism, or, the history of the machine
4.1 The Scottish philosopher Adam Smith sees simplification and economy
as the driving force behind the development of languages, and it is in this
respect that he compares their development with that of machines in his
Considerations on the first origin of languages.
It is in this manner that language becomes more simple in its rudiments and
principles, just in proportion as it grows more complex in its composition,
and the same thing has happened in it which commonly happens with regard
to mechanical engines. All machines are generally, when first invented,
extremely complex in their principles, and there is often a particular
principle of motion for every particular movement which is intended they
should perform. Succeeding improvers observe, that one principle may be
so applied as to produce several of those movements; and thus the machine
becomes gradually more and more simple, and produces its effects with
fewer wheels and fewer principles of motion. In language, in the same
manner, every case of every noun, and every tense of every verb, was
originally expressed by a particular distinct word, which served for this
purpose and for no other. But succeeding observation discovered that one
set of words was capable of supplying the place of all that infinite number,
and that four or five prepositions, and half a dozen auxiliary verbs, were
capable of answering the end of all declensions and of all the conjugations
in the ancient language.
But this simplification of languages, though it arises, perhaps, from similar
causes, has, by no means, similar effects with the correspondent simplifica
tion of machines. The simplification of machines renders them more and
more perfect, but this simplification of the rudiments of languages renders .
them more and more imperfect, and less proper for many of the purposes of
language [...]. (Smith 1767:535)
He argues that this is due to their increased prolixity, to their unpleasant
ness to the ear and, lastly, to the increasing constraints laid on the order and
the position of words. As regards this opinion, we may note that what to
Diderot and many other French authors seems an advantage from the point of
view of analytical order, to an author mindful of beauty becomes a drawback.
Smith's is an interesting way of drawing a parallel between the growth of
these two kinds of technical objects, languages and machines: it reminds one
of the views of G. Simondon, and his much-reprinted volume Du mode
d'existence des objets techniques (1958, 1989).
4.2 "Derivation" has already been discussed, so I shall simply point out the
distinction that needs to be drawn between the two authors I have linked with
this topic.
Of course, Court de Gébelin is strongly influenced by De Brosses; his
"histoire naturelle de la parole" has many features in common with the
"méchanisme du langage" (this being the running title of De Brosses' book).
Each chooses to study "la forme matérielle du langage", "l'opération maté
rielle de la voix", "le côté méchanique de l'expression verbale de nos con
naissances" (De Brosses 1765:25, 27, 34) and to seek "les Lois fondamentales
dont devait résulter la théorie entière du langage [...] dans les organes de la
voix ou dans l'instrument vocal lui-même et dans ses rapports avec la nature"
(Court de Gébelin, 1775:111. 8). They each see a mechanism at work where
others thought they saw man's arbitrary, capricious will; and they find the
truthful and genuine nature of the origins still present and speaking in the very
heart of our languages.
On the other hand, the difference between the two authors seems to me to
lie in the following traits:
When De Brosses refers back to a universal language he uses an empiri
cal approach and, as he openly admits, bases his demonstration only on "tests
made on familiar, well-known languages, from which the majority of ex
amples quoted are drawn". He then adds:
La nature étant la même partout, on a quelque droit d'en conclure que les
mêmes expériences, faites sur tout autre langage, donneront les mêmes
résultats. Mais c'est le fait qui reste à vérifier. Les gens qui seront versés
dans les langues barbares tout à fait étrangères verront un jour si elles se
rapportent, aussi bien que celles que nous connaissons, à une théorie qui
pose pour principe que la première fabrique des mots consiste partout à
former des images imitatives des objets nommés, et quela suite et le
développement d'un langage quelconque, n'est qu'une suite et un dévelop
pement de ce même méchanisme, employé même dans le cas où il semble le
moins propre et le moins applicable. (De Brosses 1765:XLIV)
That is why the "Archéologue Universel" or "Tableau de Nomenclature

Général" established "pour les langues qui nous sont connues"
sera un magasin tout préparé pour y joindre celles dont on acquerra la
connaissance; et il est plus que probable que tous les mots de chacune
viendront facilement d'eux-mêmes se ranger chacun sous leur racine orga
nique, dans leur case propre et préparée, jusqu'à ce qu'on soit enfin parvenu
au complet sur cette matière.. .Ainsi tout viendra peu à peu se ranger en bon
ordre dans le glossaire général. (Ibid.:XLVIII-XLIX)
Let us avoid the temptation to liken De Brosses's "Archéologue Uni

versel" to Mendeleev's Periodical Table of the elements. The latter had empty
slots waiting for elements to take up their places. In De Brosses's Table all the
slots are already occupied', a point is scored when they are filled or saturated
by an additional occupant.
Court de Gébelin, on the contrary, deduces "radical and primitive words"
from "the analysis of the vocal instrument" and from "the value belonging to
each of these sounds" (1775:III. 8). He sees this first language as one of
immemorial wisdom and as a gift of the creator, which the natural history of
speech has the task of rediscovering:
Ramenant toutes ces écritures et toutes ces langues à une mesure commune,
les langues anciennes et modernes n'en formeront qu'une seule, au moyen
de laquelle il n'y ait plus de sociétés étrangères et barbares les unes pour les
autres, et l'homme franchisse ce mur énorme qui séparait tous les peuples,
les isolait tous; et revienne en quelque sorte à cette unité primitive que la
Divinité a établie parmi les hommes. (Ibid.:2)
This is the masonic idea of fraternity regained and of Pentecost, a return

to the"eternal rules of Order and Justice which alone govern nature" (Ibid.: 17).
What is more, he takes the demands of mechanism even further, to the extent
of expounding the seven laws "to which word change is subject as words pass
from one Language to another, and which the original Language obeys as it
splits up" (Ibid.:265).
5. The machine and language in the classical period
The juxtaposition of machine and language during the classical period — not
just or even especially in philosophy, but in undertakings linked in various
ways with languages and speech — does not arise from a more or less
arbitrary telescoping of concepts. Rather, it leads straight to the heart of those
matters that held the attention of the men of the Enlightenment — men who
were fascinated by automatons, by the opera, and by deaf-mutes, men curious
about new methods of learning languages and alert to the language of action
beneath the language of words. We might wonder why machines and the
"méchanique" should crop up so often in investigations of speech, language,
and languages in the 18th century, given that the "linguistic promotion" of the
machine had yet to come. It should be noted that they not only crop up
frequently but also signal strategic and "sensitive" points, essential cross
roads in this discipline.
These points correspond to the four topics that I have tried to distinguish:
1. the talking machine and articulated vocal delivery;
2. the mechanics of languages as a mimetic reproduction of things, or at
least of their ideas, by the voice;
3. the regular and regulated production of utterances by means of mecha
nisms (formalisms) which are
A) logical
B) grammatical;
4. the "derivation" or history of languages, which are conceived as
modifiable over time and space, and subject to material conditioning.
What does speaking consist in? What exactly do we do when we articu
late the words of an exchange, of a conversation, of a formal speech, or when
we arrange words to express our thoughts, to communicate them to others, to
show them to advantage? What different things do speakers of different
languages do? Why is it that language is so close to us, so intimate, and yet
astonishes us by its elusiveness — an instrument over which our will has no
control, one which speaks in us and for us...and perhaps without us? "La
méchanique" yokes together the connotations of necessity, regularity, uncon
sciousness, naturalness, and materiality, in varying proportions. It serves to
enable thinkers to conceive now of genesis and structure (the "origin of
languages" and their natural or human "artifice"...), now of phonetics and
syntax, now of the metaphysics of the mind, now of the laws of human
understanding and grammatical conventions, now of the regulated operations
(whether conscious or unconscious) of "transposition" and the objective
effects of "derivation". Is there an underlying unity in the meanings of the
word "méchanisme" or "méchanique" when applied to languages? I have
tried to show that these expressions could refer to quite different concepts,
depending on the phenomena under scrutiny. What has to be stressed is that
the most acute enquiries into language, the enquiries which, in the 18th-
century controversy, venture furthest and deepest, all encounter the need to
give the machine its place in the phenomenon of speech and in the positivity
of languages.
Tracing the links between the four selected topics is a difficult task. I
have insisted on the fact that the first is never self-sufficient in the 18th
century, but appeals to the second as its indispensable theoretical complement
(De Brosses in the name of the Lumières and Court de Gébelin in the name of
masonic enlightenment, or Turgot as inspired by De Brosses), thus giving rise
to the idea of a primordial language.
The third, in its "logical version" constitutes a problem: how far can
General Grammar be considered a natural mechanism for the generation of
sentences? Beauzée and Condillac will need to be investigated in the future.
Beauzée (1767:XXXII, quoted by Gusdorf 1973:298) talks of "this natural
logic, which secretly but irresistibly guides right minds in all their workings".
Speaking, like thinking, means calculating: "Locke, and later M. l'abbé de
Condillac, have shown that language is truly a kind of calculus, of which
grammar and even logic are to a large extent simply the rules", Turgot writes
in the article "Etymologie" (p. 346).
La vraie métaphysique, dont Locke a ouvert le premier le chemin, a encore
mieux prouvé combien l'étude des langues pourrait devenir curieuse et
importante, en nous apprenant quel usage nous faisons des signes pour nous
élever par degrés des idées sensibles aux idées métaphysiques, et pour lier
le tissu de nos raisonnements; elle a fait sentir combien cet instrument de
l'esprit, que l'esprit a formé et dont il fait tant d'usage dans ses opérations,
offrait de considérations importantes sur la méchanique de sa construction
et de son action10.
Condillac was frequently to develop the metaphor of the machine which

we are analysing here: thoughts split up and reassemble, and they allow
themselves to be split up and reassembled by analysis. But I want to come
back to Diderot's own elegant formulation:
Quelque variété apparente qu'il y ait entre les langues, si l'on examine leur
objet d'être la contre-épreuve de tout ce qui se passe dans l'entendement
humain, on s'apercevra bientôt que c'est une même machine, soumise à des
règles générales, à quelques différences près, de pure convention. [...] Le
traité de ces règles générales s'appelle grammaire générale raisonnée; celui
qui la possède a la clé des autres, et il est prêt àétudier avec intelligence et à
apprendre avec rapidité quelque langue particulière que ce soit. (Diderot
1776-1777:465. Quoted by Gusdorf 1973:300)
General grammar is the key to open all locks (all particular languages).
The same (intellectual) machine is at work in the various and apparently
dissimilar languages that men speak. But the quotations that I have just
gathered together do not tell us how one gets from a "logique naturelle et
machinale" (Duclos 1747-48. Quoted by Gusdorf 1973:325) to grammatical
utterances.
Can the concept of grammatical mechanism accomplish this? In this
concept a language is a machine (for Condillac, whom we meet again here, it
is a formalism; for Latin teachers it is a rhetoric). This point of view can be
defended without adhering to the principles of General Grammar: this is what

Buffier (1709) and above all Batteux do. However, to hold to such a position
is difficult, and their arguments are largely metaphorical, the machine not yet
being ready to take on this function of processing symbols, regardless of the
philosophy of calculus and the mentalist presuppositions that, unwarrantedly,
qualify Condillac as a precursor in the opinion of some commentators.
So much so that, to my mind, the machine (and mechanism in all its
forms and variants) is actually the index of a problem rather than an element
or argument of a definitive answer.
(translated by Christine Dodd)
NOTES
1. Montagnat is a doctor. His letter is dated 1746. See Doyon & Liaigrel966: 64. Cf. Court
de Gébelin quoted above.
2. All we find in Beauzée's article "Inversion" is "le méchanisme propre a chaque langue",
and a mention of Pluche's title. Condillac does not use it either, and does not even
mention it in the article "Méchaniques" in the Dictionnaire des Synonymes where he
nevertheless speaks of the expression "méchanisme d'un discours". The term is likewise
absent from Adam Smith's Considerations, which have given rise to a rather misleading
commentary by M. Foucault 1966:115.
3. "Méchanique des langues" is found on pages 294 and 297, in his Réponse to the
Remarques of M. Boindin. Cf. also Porset 1970:78, 79.
4. In a sense De Brosses is "behind the times". In the 17th century, in effect, the analysis of
sounds had moved from a repertory (prematurely considered complete) of the possibili
ties of the voice (Mersenne) to an inventory of the phonic elements of language (Lamy).
The speaker of a language already appeared like a particular machine formed by selection
from the more general machine of initial organic capacities. Combination and selection
take on a very important role in linguistic enquiries in the 17th century: Mersenne shows
that the combination of sounds of which the human voice is capable (34 in all) would
suffice for the constitution of a language capable of giving a name to everyindividual;
Lamy sees the choice of sounds as a primary act in the constitution of a language.
5. At many points, in words like "depict", "ground" etc., De Brosses provides exact
counterparts of Pluche's mechanism. According to Court de Gébelin, with sounds we can
paint the sensations and the sensible world, with intonations we can paint ideas.
6. De Brosses does not quote Lucretius, but Court de Gébelin (1775:III. 269) mentions De
Rerum Natura V 1040ff., adding the comment: "Lucrèce a bien vu que jamais l' homme ne
dut à soi-même son langage; que la parole ne put jamais être le fruit de ses recherches;
qu'il ne dut ces avantages qu'à sa constitution, à sa nature; qu'ayant été fait pensant et
parlant, il n'eut qu'à se livrer à ces impressions".
De Brosses' and Court de Gebelin's idea of etymology was already far more ambitious
than that practised at the time by the grammarians: "Nous autres modernes, [...]nous
croyons avoir beaucoup appris, que d'avoir vu que tel mot est latin, tel autre grec, tel autre
arabe, etc.; et qu'il a, dans ces Langues, telle ou telle signification; mais combien n'est
pas supérieure à cette connaissance dont nous nous glorifions si fort celle dont il s'agit ici,
par laquelle on connaît la première origine des mots, et leur rapport avec la chose même
qu'ils expriment; et par laquelle, au lieu de n'avoir qu'une origine humaine et arbitraire,
ils ont une origine prise dans la Nature même, indépendante de l'homme, et inaltérable".
(Ibid.:20)
The first origin of words is the place and time in which they are matched with nature as
well as the instant of their natural articulation. The mechanism of languages binds these
two elements which make etymology (veriloquium in the Ciceronian Latin of the Topics
[§ 8]) a "truthful discourse", in the sense of a return to the plenitude and full "value" of
words. De Brosses is quite explicit: "La vérité des mots, ainsi que celle des idées, consiste
dans leur conformité avec les choses; ainsi l'art de dériver les mots a-t-il été nommé
Etymologie, c'est-à-dire discours véritable..." (De Brosses 1765:1. 30. Cf. Court de
Gébelin 1755:111.21). See also Markovits 1986:27, for quotations from Epicurus, Letter to
Herodotus, 75, and, of course, from Cratylus.
1. We are back with Monsieur Jourdain: "Belle marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir
d'amour" etc.
8. Le Laboureur 1669. Lamy confirms: "French expresses things as far as possible in their
natural and simplest order". See Chomsky 1966:94, note 54; cf. 28. Diderot even claims:
"We say things in French as the mind is forced to consider them in whatever language one
writes. Cicero, so to speak, followed French syntax before obeying Latin syntax"
(1751:164).
9. And not simply those who are "mute by convention", and who are, moreoever, already
used to speaking in a "maternal" language: "thoughts offering themselves to our mind, by
what mechanism I know not, more or less in the form that they will acquire in speech, and
fully dressed as it were" (1751: 109). A "je ne sais quel mécanisme"!
10. See also Porset 1970:137-38. Turgot had begun a work on the Formation of languages and
General Grammar, of which that is a fragment. On the history of this issue from Locke to
Turgot, see Hutchison 1991.
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Robinet, André. 1978. Le langage à l'âge classique. Paris: Méridiens-Klincksieck.
Rosenfield Cohen, Leonora. 1941. From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine. Animal Soul in
French Letters from Descartes to La Mettrie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rousseau, Nicolas. 1936. Connaissance et langage chez Condillac. Genève: Droz (see
Bibliography).
Sacks, Oliver. 1990. Seeing Voices. A Journey into the world of the Deaf. New York:
Harper Perennial. (Trad, franç.: Des yeux pour entendre. Voyage au pays des sourds.
Paris: Odile Jacob.)
Schwartz, Elisabeth. 1981. Les Idéologues et la fin des grammaires générales raisonnées.
2 vols. Université de Lille III.
Sgard, Jean (ed.). 1982. Condillac et les problèmes du langage. Genève & Paris: Slatkine.
Simondon, Gilbert. 1958. Du mode d'existence des objets techniques. Paris: Aubier.
(New ed. Paris: Aubier, 1989).
SOMMARIO
Questo articolo affronta alcuni temi relativi ai rapporti tra meccanica e

scienze del linguaggio nel Settecento. In base all' osservazione dell'anatomía
degli organi vocali e delia fonetica articolatoria, gli studiosi individuano le
analogie meccaniche con gli strumenti a corda, a fiato e a tasti e arrivano a
progettare automi parlanti.
Muovendo da questa interpretazione meccanicista delia parola,  articolo
descrive un curioso tentativo di ricostruzione della lingua naturale primitiva.
De Brosses e Court de Gébelin ritengono di poter riscoprire la voce stessa
della natura e la vera lingua originaria attraverso lo studio dello strumento

vocale. Tutte le lingue viventi non sono se non versioni derívate ed elaborate
di questa lingua originaria, che è a sua volta una riproduzione mimetica o
meccanica delle cose e delle relative idee.
Ma la meccanica della parola non si riduce allo studio della macchina
vocale. Essa implica — come attestano le onnipresenti espressioni "mécha-
nique des langues" e "méchanisme propre à chaque langue" — un vasto
programma di interpretazione meccanica delle regole grammaticali. La com-
petenza linguistica è intesa come la capacità mentale di rappresentare e
giudicare e, insieme, di parlare qualsiasi lingua umana — una capacità che la
teoría della grammatica generale attribuisce umversalmente a tutti gli uomini
— oppure corne la facoltà meccanica di enunciare proposizioni regolari in una
data lingua e grammatica. Da una parte, si puö supporre che ci sia, dietro ogni
esecuzione linguistica, una meccanica generale dell'animo; dall'altra, è
possibile raffigurare il parlante come una macchina perfetta e l'apprendimento
di una lingua straniera come passaggio ad un altro tipo di macchina parlante.
Le lingue umane sono modifîcabili nel tempo e nello spazio. Col termine
"derivazione" si indica il procedimento meccanico di tali modificazioni,
regolate da mera necessità.
Su questi quattro punti, leriflessionisul linguaggio più acute e più audaci
del secolo XVIII incontrano la necessità di individuare il ruolo della macchi
na nel fenomeno del linguaggio e nella positività delle lingue.
RESUME
L'objectif de cet article est de traiter de quelques problèmes qui se posent

au 18e siècle, autour des points où les sciences du langage font appel de façon
insistante à un vocabulaire mécanique.
1. Dans leurs recherches anatomique sur l'organe vocale de l'homme (et
de quelques animaux) et sur la physiologie de la voix chantante et de la parole
articulée, les naturalistes tirent parti des analogies mécaniques (instruments à
cordes, à vent, à touches). Ils aspirent à fabriquer un automate parlant.
2. Sur la base de l'interpétation mécanique de la parole, et grâce à
l'examen de l'instrument de la phonation, De Brosses et Court de Gébelin se
disent capables de retrouver le vrai langage de la nature, dont toutes les
langues seraient dérivées. Il était la reproduction mimétique et/ou mécanique
des choses mêmes ou plutôt de l'impressions qu'elles causent en nous.

3. Mais à la mécanique de la parole s'ajoute la "mécanique des langues",
autour de laquelle s'élaborent tant de discours à prétension scientifique. En
vertu de l'interprétation mécaniste des règles grammaticales, la compétence
linguistique peut être conçue soit comme pouvoir mental de représenter et de
juger (impliquant le pouvoir de parler toute langue humaine quelle qu'elle
soit, après apprentissage), accordée à l'homme comme faculté universelle par
les théoriciens de la grammaire générale, soit comme la capacité toute méca
nique d'énoncer des phrases correctes dans une langue donnée. Dans le
premier cas, il peut y avoir une mécanique générale de l'esprit, à la base de
toute performance linguistique; dans la seconde hypothèse, il devient possible
de représenter le locuteur comme une machine à faire des phrases dans une
langue donnée. Dans un cas comme dans l'autre, la grammaire devient la clé
d'une science de l'esprit.
4. Enfin, les langues humaines se modifient dans l'espace et dans le
temps. La "dérivation" est le nom des processus mécaniques contraignants et
nécessaires supposés à l'œuvre dans ces changements.
Sur ces quatre points, la pensée la plus aigüe de la langue rencontre le
besoin de donner à la machine et à la mécanique sa vraie place dans le
phénomène de la parole et dans la positivité des langues.
The Beginnings of Psycholinguistics
Natural and artificial signs in the treatment of
language disorders
Antonino Pennisi
University of Messina
1. Let me say at once that this paper has a "covert" theme. I shall talk briefly
about it at the beginning only, but it is in fact the leitmotiv of my whole
discussion. The theme is: "What is the present place of linguistics in the
framework of the cognitive sciences?". I shall mention only what seems to me
to be the central issue here.
Artificial Intelligence is not a contemporary invention but derives from a
time-honoured intellectual tradition. We might say that the programme of AI
was already set forth, in outline, in Hobbes's semiotics. Specifically Hobbes
established the principle that the manifestations of the understanding can all
be traced back to an activity that consists in the arbitrary manipulation of
symbols. In the interpretation of authoritative theoreticians of AI (see Hauge-
land 1985), the idea of the arbitrariness of "mental" signs has had some
important consequences: the assumption that semantic rationality and syntac
tic coherence coincide; a lack of interest in the problem of the "substance" of
signs and the (biological, electrical, electronic, etc.) apparatuses that transmit
and receive them; the idea that the relationship between the correct utterance
of the symbol and its referential link with the external world is essentially
irrelevant. What is more, on the assumption that they all share the principle of
the arbitrariness of signs, AI has envisaged doing away with the specificity of
the various disciplines (including linguistics) and bringing them together in an
all-inclusive science of the human mind, namely the science of symbolical
manipulation, or "cognitive science".
In what way has contemporary linguistics contributed to this markedly
"cognitivist" approach? How has linguistics reacted to this attempt at annex-
86 Antonino Pennisi
ing and incorporating its identity in a more general discipline of mental

sciences?
I shall not try to explore the jungle of 20th-century schools of linguistic
theory here, partly because I believe that they can, in the end, be reduced to
two philosophies of language, one Saussurean, the other Chomskian. Neither
seems to add anything new or different to the semiotic presuppositions of AI.
Indeed, the two positions can be said to have become the reference points —
one philosophical and the other operative — of a formalist-mentalist outlook.
With structuralism, in fact, the emphasis on arbitrariness and the privileging
of "form" reached their speculative peaks, to the extent of arousing suspicions
of idealism. With Chomsky, the playing down of semantics and the privileg
ing of syntax have become undisputed scientific standards. Yet neither of the
two main sources of contemporary linguistics actually seems capable of
suggesting alternative semiotic principles or points of view to AI.
A final remark before coming to the "overt" topic of my paper: the
historiography of linguistics accurately mirrors the failure of linguistic semi
otics to distinguish itself from the semiotics of AI. For decades now we have
been busy back-dating the notion of arbitrariness, tracing the origins of
structural semiotics in the most diverse philosophies, surveying and drawing
up detailed inventories of works of grammar and syntax great and small. And
although many of us might hesitate to admit it, we cannot deny that, even in
the field of historiography, we have been totally subjected to the hyper-
semiotic hegemony irresistibly exerted by the galaxy of arbitrarism. If proof
were needed, it would be enough to mention an absence rather than a
presence: the fact that there exists no really authoritative history of phonetics,
a science of "matter" as opposed to form.
Let me come now to my overt theme. What I would like to do is pick out
one or two fundamental moments in the history of linguistic enquiry when it
was still possible to glimpse the outlines of a distinction between "artificial"
and "natural" semiotics, an antithesis obliterated at the beginning of this
century by the principle of arbitrariness and what followed from it (Pennisi
1989, 1992, 1992a, 1994).
First of all I would like to specify what I mean by talking about artificial
and natural semiotics, when it would be more radical — and thus clearer
perhaps — to talk about an explicit antithesis between semiotics and linguis
tics.
By "artificial" semiotics I mean all theories of signs based on the prin
ciple that it is essentially indifferent what semiotic material is used for
The Beginnings of Psycholinguistics 87
constructing a cognitive and/or communicative universe based on form. By

"natural" semiotics, on the other hand, I mean all those hypotheses which start
from the ineluctable specificity of each single communicative code and of the
bio-psychological apparatus which enables it to be implemented.
It is very important to clarify that the artificial/natural antithesis starts
from, but is by no means confined to, the issue of the centrality of the material
of which signs are made and through which they express themselves. This
issue, in fact, is closely bound up with a far broader one, namely how the
cognitive apparatus of "communicating" organisms is formed in strict depen
dence on the biological structure that "constrains" them to use certain expres
sive modes rather than others. Those who take the opposite position maintain
instead that it is not necessary to distinguish between different bio-anthropo
logical structures which think differently, because all, in the last resort, share
a single organising principle, a single representing faculty.
In other words, it is not an internal problem of semiotics as a general
discipline of signs, but an insuperable antithesis between a semiotic mode and
a linguistic mode of conceiving of discursive-communicative activity, with all
that it implies for the philosophy and psychology of mind.
In this perspective, an investigation of the literature on and by deaf-mutes
and aphasics would seem to provide us with an excellent starting point, since
they represent the two facets of language: deaf-mutes illustrate its origin or
genesis, aphasics its phenomenology and development.
2. I will begin with the second group by citing an important observation

made by J. H. Jackson, the greatest investigator of aphasia. Jackson puts his
finger on a central issue when he postulates that every pathological symptom
conceals a positive reaction of the organism. Thus attempts made by aphasies
to construct sentences in which important elements are missing, para-aphasic
behaviour in which the same words are repeated over and again, and the use
of syntagmatic stereotypes in place of whole segments of the articulation of
sentences, all appear to be forms of reaction and defence of the semiotic
faculty.
Jackson, of course, disagrees with all associationist hypotheses and with
the more extreme localising theories. According to these schools — of which
Broca and Wernicke are the major representatives — aphasia always depends
on the lesion of precise centres located in the left hemisphere of the brain. The
lesion is supposed to destroy the "areas" (the notorious "auditory", "visual"
88 Antonino Pennisi
"articulatory" and "graphic" centres of the Charcot-Bastian quadrilateral), or

the conducting channels that carry information from one centre to another.
Against this "geometrical" conception, first Baillarger and then Jackson and
Alajouanine oppose a series of extremely common clinical cases.
For example: a young aphasic patient is asked the name of her daughter,
who is sitting next to her. The patient becomes very agitated and then bursts
into tears exclaiming: "Oh! my dear little Jacqueline, I don't know your name
any more!". Other aphasic subjects are asked to pronounce the word "five" or
"April". Unable to respond to the explicit request, they nevertheless have no
difficulty in uttering the series: "one, two, three, four, five, six..." or "Janu
ary, February, March, April, May...". Aphasies unable to recognise the image
of a zebra, answer "zebra" instantly when the association "run like a..." is
suggested to them (cf. Alajouanine-Mozziconaci 1947-8:47).
Any number of similar cases could be cited. The case history of aphasies
abounds in subjects incapable of calling up a word in certain cases but quite
capable of doing so rapidly in others. This phenomenon utterly rules out the
existence of a "treasury" or "deposit" or "centre" of language in which the
patient "fishes for" words and which is "wiped out" by the aphasie syndrome.
The words have always been there: aphasies have not "lost" them. What they
have lost is a higher-order language activity enabling them to retrieve words
voluntarily by exercising what Jackson calls the "power to propositionize"
("loss of speech is, therefore, the loss of power to propositionize. It is not only
loss of power to propositionize aloud (to talk), but to propositionize either
internally or externally, and it may exist when the patient remains able to utter
some few words". Jackson 1866-8:126).
Thus, above and beyond this rational and voluntary faculty there still
remain surviving active language phenomena which can be summed up as
follows:
i) emotional language (anger, lamentation, swearing, etc.);
ii) infantile, dialectal, maternal or idiolectal language;
iii) language contextualised in syntactical and vocal-phonic frames or
logical or habitual series (numbers, lists, nursery-rhymes, etc.);
iv) a-grammatical language (Pick's "a-grammatism").
All these forms of non-propositional language elude the will but not
meaning. Meaning can be hidden, syncopated, or personalised, but it is
always present, so much so that subjects in this state feel a desperate sense of
impotence when the listener is unable to understand them.
2.1 Both early and recent studies of other types of language disorder have
shown, however, that linguistic survivals exist even in the absence of mean
ing. I am referring to the work done in the 19th century by Lélut and Séglas on
the linguistic behaviour of the insane, but above all to the recent work of Luce
Irigaray, which has mercilessly exposed the fragility of Saussurean and
Chomskian semiotic frameworks when they are used to interpret the destruc
tion of meaning in the language of schizophrenics.
In these subjects the automatisms already noted in aphasics are laid bare,
in the sense that the only things to survive are syntactically-stereotyped rules,
transformations and combinations, whereas all reference to meaning or deep
structure vanishes. Schizophrenics, as much or more so than aphasics, seem to
be "machines programmées une fois pour toutes et qui n'engendront qu'un
discours fini, clos, à la fois limité et enveloppant" (Irigaray 1985:227). Bereft
of any link between the inside and the outside of language, the schizophrenic
is "le plus rigoreusement syntaxier des linguistes et des sujets parlants"
(Ibid.:228): in him syntactical operations take the shape of pure morphologi
cal virtuosity. His skill in articulating, assembling, and dismantling all kinds
of verbal associations gives rise to a semiotic game based on the signifier
alone: "c'est dire qu'il serait marqué par des sons dont les concepts lui
resteraient cachés, voilés" (Ibid.:230). As for Jackson's aphasies, for the
schizophrenic "il n'y a pas de langue ni de parole [...] pas de dictionnaire
imprimé en lui dont on trouverait des exemplaires identiques déposés chez
tous les individus d'une même société" (Ibid.:224), "[pas] de signes à double
face [...], mais une écriture ou ré-écriture cryptogrammatiques d'inscriptions
sonores" (Ibid.:231). In short, in the schizophrenic the signifier is emanci
pated from the control of meaning; the schizophrenic association no longer
even obeys "la loi de l'arbitraire" (Ibid.:234); his signs attempt to set up an
economy of signifiers, a "syntaxe idiolectale" (Ibid.:234) aiming simply to
tame and neutralize "la puissance des sons" (Ibid.:235).
2.2 Agnosia victims, too, can be considered "syntactical machines" devoid

of semiotic or referential power. In 1833, when studying a syndrome called
"verbal blindness", J. M. Charcot, the founder of studies on agnosia and a
pioneer of localisation, recorded the case of a cultivated Viennese shopkeeper
who had lost the capacity for visual recognition of objects and, although
seeing them perfectly, could only grasp their syntactical, definitional and
contextually-relevant reality1:
90 Antonino Pennisi
as I completely lack a sense of inner representation — this patient writes —

my memories have changed too. Today I can only remember words and I
have to keep on saying to myself the things I want to keep in my memory,
whereas previously it was enough for me to photograph them with my sight,
(quoted in Charcot 1883:187-88)
A case of this kind is discussed by O. Sacks in his book The Man Who
Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985). His patient suffered from a form of
agnosia that prevented him from seeing things directly. For example, if shown
a glove, he could define its form and functions, give a minute description of its
structure, and imagine its possible uses; however, he was incapable of "recog
nising" it, of making the statement "this is a glove". Sacks describes the way
his patient proceeds by definitions as a cybernetic process that makes use only
of the relational structure of semantic features, constructing factorial or
componential analyses of objects completely devoid of referential reality.
In Sacks's interpretation, it is possible to liken man to machine because
of the patient's lack of what J. Lordat, another great pioneer of research on
aphasia, had, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, called "the embody
ing of ideas", namely the syncretic identification of the mass of "ideal"
relations which is embodied in the "denomination" and which, as a result,
"creates" the object — an operation which, according to Sacks, coincides
with the Kantian concept of "judgment".
2.3 From what we have seen so far, it would thus appear that disorders
always affect "propositional" activity, the cognitive, voluntary element of
semiotic behaviour, and expose the empty husk of automatic processes. "So I
had lost the memory of the word, but I had retained the memory of the place it
occupied"y writes Doctor Saloz, an early nineteenth century aphasic who, on
recovering his speech, wrote an important autobiographical memoir.
Roman Jakobson has translated this statement into the terms of general
linguistics. He sees all pathological phenomena as derangements in the laws of
systems: of the phonematic system in the case of sounds, of the lexical system
in the case of signifieds, of the morphological and syntactical system in the case
of sentences (Jakobson 1944). On this basis, he goes so far as to argue that
disorders of signifiers can be predicted from a phonological scheme: where
there is a phonetic impairment the subject will re-establish the internal equilib
rium of the system by replacing one phonematic "value" with another that has
the same function. This point of view is shared by most of those who believe
in aphasic holism. Not surprisingly, Jakobson is influenced by K. Goldstein,

who claims that there is no categorial difference between sounds, words,
thoughts, movements, etc. The elimination of pathological specificities and the
re-arrangement of all the components of language on a semiotic-cognitive level
is the common denominator of what I have called the "artificial semiotic"
outlook here.
Significantly, however, Jakobson makes no mention of the most important
clinical study of the phonetic phenomena of aphasia, written almost three years
before his Kindersprache und Aphasie (1942). This study — La syndrome de
désintégration phonétique dans l'aphasie by Alajouanine, Ombredane and
Durand (1939) — cuts the ground from under the structuralist semiotic
approach, in fact. The phonetic disturbances of aphasia have nothing whatso
ever to do with abstract phonological schemes, or with wrong mental represen
tations of words. In phonetic aphasia there is no such thing as the one-to-one
replacement of the original "values" by substitute "values" that maintain the
economy of the system. All we find is defensive behaviours typical of the
specific acoustic-prosodic organisation formed during the genesis of the
language disorder.
For example: one of the patients analysed started all syllables and ended
all words with a 'stop' because he needed a fixed point d'appui at the
beginning and end of each vocal utterance. As a result, 'soldat' became
'deudat' (the final 't' being pronounced), 'jour' became 'kouk', etc.
In another patient what was affected was the duration of all sounds. This
rhythm disorder produced defence behaviours that were phonologically inex
plicable: the elimination of voiced consonants because the muscular contrac
tion lasted too long; the introduction of glottal stops or initial aspirations to link
sounds that were too "detached"; the prolonging of vowels and the merging of
phonemes because some of the opening movements of a sound persisted in the
sound following, etc. In short, it was a case of "phonetic mutations pertaining
only to oral expression" (Alajouanine-Ombredane-Durand 1939:41): disor
ders not of the sign system, or of the phonological system in search of its
"artificial" equilibrium, but of the primordial phonetic synergisms of speech.
The causal link between this type of natural specificity and human
cognitive specificity is precisely what is denied by all the "artificial" hypoth
eses (in the sense defined above). Actually, the dualism between the cognitive-
voluntary component and the mechanical-material component of language
smacks of mentalist presumption. That it is indefensible would be immediately
92 Antonino Pennisi
obvious if, after enunciating it, we went on to enquire what those linguistic
automatisms surviving in pathological subjects represent and how they were
formed in the first place.
We can thus reformulate Jackson's intuition: the disease destroys and
simultaneously creates. It destroys the correct mind-body relationship but
creates an attempt to re-form the original mechanisms that enabled the setting
up of the primordial synergisms between the inside and the outside of signs,
between the material of semiosis and the efforts to represent it — mechanisms
without which no form of natural intelligence could exist.
I would thus like to put forward a hypothesis based on the other facet of
language disorders, the genetic one, as represented by deaf-mutes: any lan
guage automatism (whether phonetic, syntactic or semantic) that withstands
the disorder is based on the original capacity for sensorial and pre-significa-
tional manipulation of the sound material. Biological phoneticity and orality
are at the origin not only of the formation of meanings but above all of the
procedures for constructing human cognition: not just of contents, then, or
ideas, but also of the operations which much later on will make possible that
arbitrary symbolical manipulation of which supporters of artificiality speak.
3. We have thus come to the second moment in the history of semiotics that
I wish to recall here, namely the debate about deaf-mutes that took place
between the beginning of the 17th and the end of the 18th century. Here too
we find a deep-rooted disagreement between supporters of artificial semiotics
(re-education based on manual signs) and supporters of natural semiotics
(pedagogical techniques for rehabilitating subjects to the spoken word).
In its origins, the manual method — backed by L'Epée, Sicard, Bébian
and many other 18th-century French educationalists — can be seen as repre
senting a radical, and hence perhaps clearer, version of the Saussurean
paradigm of form.
In the Saussurean type of formalist paradigm, in fact, one of the misun
derstandings that has prevented us from discerning the full extent of its
contradictions is that, in spite of his general semiotic outlook, Saussure
always had natural language in mind as his living example.
The advocates of manual methods, on the other hand, no longer relate
form to spoken language, which is excluded by definition, but to a conception
of the "faculty of language" inspired by an elementary and extremely crude
notion of arbitrariness, thanks to which all kinds of signs can be considered

interchangeable.2
A number of specifications follow from this approach:
a) since its signs are not naturally generated, the setting up of a manual
code appears explicitly conventional: i.e. it is constructed artificially for the
community of sign-users;
b) constructing an explicitly conventional system reinforces the need for
an approach that is "calculational" and "abstract" in every possible sense,
involving:
b. 1) the setting up of rigid semantic conventions and a very high
degree of referentiality of the language;
b.2) the specification of an explicit syntax (strictly regulating
the use of particles, for instance, which is far freer in
natural language);
b.3) the establishment of a collective, consensual method (a
pedagogy of sign languages)
c) this set of consequences induces the "formalists" who theorise manual
signs to overrate the rational power of manual language: manual signs, they
claim, are distinct, precise, self-sufficient, and unambiguous. They are pro
duced by and produce ideas and thoughts as clear as those of "chemical
nomenclature" (Bébian 1817:54). "I go directly and necessarily from the
perception of the sign to that of the ideas" (Desloges 1779:17). It is a position
endorsed by Condillac, who goes so far as to claim that the manual signs of deaf-
mutes give us "more exact and precise ideas than those usually acquired with
the aid of the hearing" (1776:117).
d) the greater rationality of manual language is contrasted with the
subtlety, vagueness, ambiguity, metaphoricalness, and "corporeal heaviness"
of oral language:
spoken languages cannot represent ideas other than through the mediation
of sounds. The language of signs represents them directly. Our languages
are thus, so to speak, further from objects than is the language of signs
(Desloges 1779:17).
[...] in the realm of the vagueness of words, which cannot entirely be
corrected by definitions since these themselves are made up of other words
which are often no less indeterminate, we get lost in discussions, we search
for each other without meeting. (Bébian 1817:54)
The language of signs, on the other hand, speaks with "the clarity of an
incontestable fact" (Ibid.:54).
94 Antonino Pennisi
What the "manualists" fundamentally object to is thus the "bodily",

concrete status of the words, sounds and vocality intrinsic to verbal language.
It introduces an unnecessary obstacle between the system of symbols and the
system of things. From this point of view, then, the language of signs, far from
hindering intellectual abstraction, actually favours it: "I thus believe [Bébian
writes] that if manual language has any kind of superiority, this can be seen
above all in its expounding of the acts of the understanding. " (Bébian 1817:54)
3.1 The "oralists" — or supporters of the method of rehabilitation to spoken

language — respond with three main arguments:
i) at the moment of its birth, language is not concerned with produc
ing signs but procedures;
ii) the genetic procedures of language are rooted first of all in the
body and only then in the mind; first in the sensorial, emotional
substratum, and then in the rational one;
iii) language rehabilitation must be based on the mechanical retrieval
of procedures and not on the artificial retrieval of signs.
J. K. Amman, the founder of the "oralist" re-educational method at the
end of the 17th century, starts, for example, with the idea that the subject
learning to speak aims above all at constructing tools before constructing
products. The "most intimate relationship" and the "perfect correspondence"
existing between the organs of hearing and those of articulation are incapable
by themselves of setting the mechanisms of language in motion.3 Hearing in
itself, in fact, plays no active role in imitation: someone who hears does not
yet know what he must "do" to produce the sounds. To struggle against the
difficult physicality of pronunciation and the easy intuitiveness of meaning is
the first step in the oralists' programme. What takes place, in fact, during the
phase known in modern psycholinguistics as the "period of latency", in which
the new-born infant begins to understand easily the meaning of many words
without being able to pronounce them, is in fact this characteristic mechanical
refining of articulatory procedures. Paradoxically, the climax of cognitive
evolution is not the big-bang of signifieds — which is an almost banally
behavioural event — but the big-bang of the signifier s, which can be verified
not by the test of the recognition of an object named and already known for
some time, but by the coincidence between sounds originally heard and those
finally pronounced:
as soon a baby has grasped the meaning of some word, which always occurs
before he knows how to speak, the idea of this word acts effectively upon the
organs that transmitted it to him; he keeps on trying to imitate it until,
hearing and imitating his own voice, he is delighted to perceive that he has
caught the phonic resemblance to the original word. (Amman 1700:270-72)
The strong version of the most radical oralist thesis consists, however, in
the argument that the big-bang of signifiers is not a generically semiotic event
but a specifically linguistic one. By which is meant that the ensemble of man's
bio-psychological apparatuses can attain to its cognitive specialisation only
by means of the unrepeatable embodying of experience in sounds. Their
production is no mere historical accident, nor is it a choice conditioned by
mere functional convenience. Only through phonic sensoriality is it possible
to achieve not circumscribed intellectual units of sense but manifestations of
discursive vitality which is instrumental both to the cognitive construction of
the world and to the emotional-passional pathos of being. Thus, in addition to
the traditional semiotic arguments on behalf of the voice (it needs no tools, it
can be heard in the dark, it leaves the hands free, etc.) Amman concludes:
no other inner faculty bears such a strong stamp of Hfe as speech [...] It is
chiefly in the voice that the spirit of hfe which animates us dwells, and
through the voice that it finds outer expression; the voice is the interpreter
of the heart, the sign of passions and concupiscence (Ibid.).
It is to this extraordinary synergism of heart-mind-language that the

human bodily apparatus is entirely adapted. Amman constantly talks about "a
most intimate, vital correspondence and commerce" of the vocal organs with
all their counterparts in the sensory-motor, emotional and cognitive apparatus
which produce that "vital character which emanates from the heart and the
brain" (Ibid.). Other oralists (Deschamp, Ernaud, Pereire, etc.) agree that the
production of sound is the anthropological fulcrum of man's complex cogni
tion. To demonstrate this they "re-condition" deaf-mutes using a completely
mechanical method based on training them to recognise the vibrations of their
throats by touch and to lip-read, which involves a detailed knowledge of the
phonetic apparatus and its functional mechanisms. In this way Amman en
tirely re-draws the map of theory and application in experimental phonetics.
The impact of oralism does not stop, however, in the clinical-practical
antechamber. For oralists, the voice also demolishes the artificialists' philo
sophical myth of the combination of elementary features. Just as Locke
painstakingly demonstrated in his Essay that no arbitrary combination of
signs could enable a blind person to grasp the meaning of the term "scarlet",
96 Antonino Pennisi
so no form of "componential" semantics, no combination of features as

distinct "as those of chemical nomenclature", will ever succeed in "photo
graphing" the ultimate sense of the outer world:
for their natural needs they [deaf-mutes educated by means of manual
signs] can describe sensible ideas [...]; but once outside this limited sphere,
what will they be able to do if you confront them with the need to express
spiritual things, or the past or future? To render a single word, a periphrasis
of signs will have to be used; but how can the need to resort incessantly to
circumlocutions in place of the simple denomination of objects be consid
ered the wealth of a language? (Deschamp 1779:18-19)
To teach the term "God", for example, the artificialist has to pick out a
limited number of semantic markers: to select the idea that God is being par
excellence, that he has created all things, that he is the sum of all perfection.
The instructor will thus begin by pointing to the sky where he dwells and the
objects he has created, etc. Nevertheless, however much this procedure is
refined and complicated, it will never succeed in achieving a sufficiently
complex communicative function. No matter how far the meaning is ex
panded, no matter how many predicates are used to define it, a deaf-mute
deprived of the "embodying of the voice" "will not understand his nature or
his mode of being any better" (Deschamps 1779:20).
4. In the 17th- and 18th-century linguistic tradition there are at least two
major philosophical referents for a theory of language which is coherent with
these principles of applied linguistics. One is Locke, the other Vico. They
have in common a philosophy of language based not so much on the indis
soluble relationship between senses, imagination and language as on the
primacy of this relationship during the ontogenesis and phylogenesis of the
understanding. Unfortunately historians of linguistics have interpreted both
authors from the standpoint of "artificialist" semiotics and overlooked a
number of significant details. It is hardly surprising that in all their reconstruc
tions of the "pre-Saussurean" Locke or of Vico a number of "spurious" topics
(which nevertheless appear throughout these authors' works) are completely
ignored, or interpreted as "oddities". The philosophers' continual recourse to
examples involving sense deprivation — Locke's blind men, Vico's "mutoli"
(mutes) — , the problem of how simple, non-arbitrary ideas are formed on the
one hand, and of singing, music, rhythm, and many other Vichian oddities on
the other, seem to have been suppressed by the exegetic consciousness of

historians of linguistics.
For an up-to-date theory of the difference between thought and language,
Locke's and Vico's formulations, however, are nothing more than distant
philosophical referents. In times of mentalist hegemony it is not at all easy to
understand the damage that can be done by confusing or denying that which is
typical of thought and that which is typical of language. Nevertheless, in some
branches of contemporary psychology this distinction is beginning to emerge.
The psychologist Gaetano Kanizsa, for instance, has clarified the differ
ence between seeing and thinking, which can be said to mirror the distinction
between speaking and thinking. The main line of Kanizsa's reasoning runs as
follows: in cognitive psychology a broader sense of the term "visual percep
tion" is beginning to prevail, according to which there are no essential
differences between the process whereby visual clues are formed and the
process whereby they are interpreted. Each are seen as "ratio-morphic proce
dures" typical of discursive and scientific thought (categorisation, formation
of hypotheses, production of inferences). It would thus appear that the rules of
reasoning condition perception in all its phases: "what we see not only
appears to be used by inferential processes in the phases of interpretation but
also to be the product of unconscious inferences during the primary process"
(Kanizsa 1991:22).
Kanizsa contests this dominant thesis of cognitive psychology by citing a
series of visual experiences of perceptual completion that unequivocally
reveal the existence of cases in which visual results openly contradict both
contextual rules and rules of experience interpreted on the basis of purely
cognitive models. This demonstrates, he argues, that "seeing follows a differ
ent logic", or more precisely, that it does not follow any logic at all, but simply
"functions according to autonomous principles that are not the same as those
regulating thinking" (Ibid.:38).
Of course, in the ordinary phenomenology of adult sight, "seeing" and
"thinking" continually interact, giving rise to an impression of the "rational
ity" of sight that leads cognitivists, as Kanizsa puts it, to imagine "the
mechanism of perception processes as if it were itself a computer pro
grammed to carry out inferential operations of a logical kind" (Ibid.:47).
Here too, this is possible because "the physical representation of stimuli is
replaced by a symbolical representation; and the sense experience is con
ceived as the set of conclusions reached by a sequence of procedures for the
98 Antonino Pennisi
manipulation of symbols" (Ibid.:47). On the other hand, the genesis of sense

experience is rooted in that sort of pre-symbolic magma which in perception
has been called the "primary" or "pre-attentive" process.
Sight and language are not the same thing, of course. In the first place,
because sight is a sense and language is not. In the second, because the use of
the terms "symbol" or "sign" for sight is almost a metaphor of biological
processes, whereas for language it is the appropriate term for representative
projection. Lastly, because it seems legitimate to suppose that there are bio
chemical and neuro-physiological correlates for sight that set up the genetic
code of the "primary processes", whereas for language we do not know
whether these exist or not.
In spite of this, the need to identify a linguistic prius that cannot simply
be equated with a thought, an idea, a concept, a meaning, a sense, or with the
cognitive operations that use this set of notions, should, I feel, be one of the
main goals today of a theory of language that is not prevalently semiotic.
The oralist instructors of 18th-century deaf-mutes seem to have located
this prius in the voice. However, present-day linguistic theory — which has
been drawn irresistibly into the orbit of semiotics — has not paid much
attention to this claim on behalf of the power of the signifier. Only experimen
tal phonetics, when it has broken away from the suffocating embrace of
phonology (as for instance in the school of Ph. Lieberman), has opportunely
revealed the shortcomings of semiotic approaches to the processes of coding
and decoding speech (cf. Lieberman 1975 & 1991). Nevertheless, these
studies seem so far to lack a genetic outlook. And yet it is precisely when it
first comes into being that the tumultuous syncretism of vocality produces the
cognitive-emotional "embodiment" mentioned by Amman and Lordat. It is
thus likely that we will have to look even further back in order to explain the
ontogenesis of language. The only linguist who has so far attempted to follow
this path is I. Fónagy (1983), who, in his psycho-phonetics, has begun to
explore the impervious terrain of the pulsional bases of phonation, prosody,
proxemics and vocal kinesics. Beyond this threshold we find only a number of
major studies by non-linguists. It is to audiologists, neonatologists, embryolo-
gists, neurophysiologists, child neuropsychiatrists and even to psychoanalysts
that we must turn today in order to try to set up a genetic theory of the oral
basis of human cognition and reconstruct a non-arbitrarist scientific paradigm
in the sphere of semiotics and philosophy of language.
4.1 The idea that to be able to understand the mechanisms giving rise to the
primary physio-psychological synergisms of language we need to probe into
the neo-natal or pre-natal realm began to make headway around the nineteen-
twenties. The first studies in the embryology of communication confined
themselves (i) to observing that the new-born infant and the foetus (from as
early as its fourth month of life in the womb) react to sound stimuli from both
the inside and the outside, and (ii) to setting up a method of experimental
observation devised for measuring this type of physiological reflex.
Very soon, however, the accumulation of a vast body of data from
experiments under way made it possible to set up an extremely rich general
theoretical framework, and to approach the understanding of this phenom
enon from the various standpoints of the biological sciences. Let me now try
to give a synopsis of the most important results achieved so far.4
4.1.1 In the first place, it has now been clearly shown that at the anatomical-
physiological level hearing occupies a special, primary position among the
various sense systems.
For example, it has been ascertained that the vestibule and its connection
with the tectum and crown are formed extraordinarily early.5 Between the
fourth and fifth month of gestation the inner ear, the vestibule, the tympanum
and the chain of ossicles have already reached adult size. The osseous
structures of the ear have, in fact, a unique characteristic: unlike the rest of the
Haversian osseous system, they are not formed from a nucleus of medullar
substance around which, through the system of nutrition, a laminar shell
forms, growing stronger and ossifying definitively only over a long span of
time (the tibia, for instance, may take twenty years or more to reach full
length). On the contrary, the malleus, the incus, the stapes and the rigid part of
the acoustic labyrinth already show osseous consistency at birth. From a
histological viewpoint the ear ossicles form a kind of whole with the skull and
in particular with the osseous tissue of the temporal bone. From a morphoge-
netic point of view they seem to be remodelled elements of the set of
branchial arcs forming a single piece with the primitive facial walls, the
styloid apophysis, the stylohyoid ligament and the thyroid cartilage.
According to some studies carried out mainly with radiographic tech
niques, this "fantastic advance of the ear in time" (Tomatis 1981:228), can be
explained by the need for an instrument for frequency analysis in the sensori-
100 Antonino Pennisi
ally "activated" foetal organism. The morphological linkage between the

temporal bone and the osseous part of the inner ear in fact forms a perfect
mechanism for setting off a ringing vibration in the rigid structures of the
organism on which the adult faculty of the osseous ear depends (and which is
often used to enable deaf-mutes suffering from profound deafness to "hear"
music). It is to this structure that man owes his ability to monitor — through
the cheekbones and mandibles — the modulations in intensity of his own
voice, i. e. his articulatory feedback.
The most recent studies have gone even further towards explaining the
precocious formation of the most archaic and internal part of the skull-ear,
postulating that the vestibule has an extremely particular function.
As is well known from studies in anatomic audiology, the primary hearing
process is characterised by a dual level of perception. The first involves the
"quantitative" analysis of the variations in pressure due to vibration; the second
involves the "qualitative" analysis of frequencies. Quantitative analysis, which
measures the periodicity or a-periodicity of sound stimuli (cf. Cervetto, Marzi
& Tassinari 1987:162), in effect makes possible the perception of regularities
within our acoustic environment: rhythms, time sequences, relative intensities,
and intonation curves. In other words, quantitative analysis processes the
musical and prosodic component of language, abstaining from, or preparing
for, the recognition of the "content" of sound, its articulation. This type of
processing is based above all on low tones and receives inputs above all through
rigid channels of access, laminar and osseous tissues that relay the vibrations
"internally". The final, physiologically-internalised product of this processing
is a kind of "calculated" regularity of "sonorous" recurrences, which has its
morphological counterpart in the astonishing similarity of the acoustic laby
rinth of foetuses. The vestibular apparatus thus prepares and exercises the
cochlea by means of quantitative-rhythmical training: at a given moment what
can be properly considered a relay comes into play and transfers the processing
of the musical, continuous substance to the organ which will convert it into
articulated and discrete phonic substance.
The results obtained by the embryology of hearing in its functional
reconstruction of the roles of the various components of the inner ear thus
reveal an important feature of the primary activity of the vestibular labyrinth,
namely its capacity to store, during the foetal stage, rhythms and cadences
that will form the basis of the perceptual faculties of the infant. To put it
another way, the first nucleus of the ear — which is also genetically the first
sense instrument to form itself — by means of an exhaustive engrammatic

reconnaissance of a "musical (or rhythmic or prosodic) topic", produces a sort
of diffuse (i.e. not yet specialised) sensorial expectation which prearranges
the modes of access to the tabula rasa of the nervous system, to its initialisa
tion, or, in more specific terms, to the future processes of myelination of the
neural system.
4.1.2 Very recently a number of important psycho-physiological investiga

tions of the behavioural reactions of infants only a few days old to acoustic
hearing have clearly confirmed the rhythmical-physiological origins first of
the nervous processes and then of the fully cognitive processes. I am referring
in particular to the studies carried out in France at the "Laboratoire de
Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique" in Paris under the guidance of J.
Mehler, and to the identification of the characteristics of "motherese lan
guage" which many researchers have been exploring since the nineteen-
eighties.
Mehler and his team have shown that we must turn to neonatology or
cognitive embryology if we want to understand how adults are able to use
their grammatical knowledge in the actual practice of natural speech. The
most striking theoretical outcome is that traditional linguistic conceptions
based on the idea of a "pyramidal" hierarchy of minimal units starting from
simple (phonemes) and ending with complex (sentences) are not only ineffec
tive for the practical analysis of communicative interaction, but also inad
equate for constructing a theoretical model that might be of use in artificialist
simulations of human language (Bertoncini & Bijeljac-Babic 1990:174-75).
The novelty of this work lies above all in the use of items deriving from
natural pluri-syllabic chains in experiments. In fact, as long as experiments
attempted to probe the reactions of infants using phonemes or synthetic
syllables (i.e. syllables detached from real sentence chains) as stimuli, the
only significant result was the demonstration that the neonate's capacity for
phonemic discrimination is always linked to the presence of "vocalic kernels"
in the inputs. In other words, that neonates distinguish sounds, but not as
phonemes, given that the presence of a vowel is essential for minimal recog
nition to take place. These results have reinforced the hypothesis that the
syllable is the unit of discrimination, since the definition of the concept of
syllable is precisely the presence of a vowel around which the most elemen-
tary phonematic variation can be organised. Two-day-old infants, in fact, can

only recognise global, syllabic-type units, whereas at four months they begin
to show signs of a more analytical and detailed differentiation of consonantal
sounds (Bertoncini & Bijeljac-Babic 1990).
As in the transition from vestibular ear processing to cochlear ear process
ing revealed by embryological audiology, here too the evolutionary phases
indicate that the infant's initial hearing is preceded by a global "musical" or
rhythmical training, which paves the way for an increasingly discrete articula-
tory functionalisation or specialisation.
What is structurally peculiar about the syllable, in fact, is its musical or
prosodic nature: the syllable carries stress, it is the smallest unit in which
intonation variation can already be detected. Indeed, rather than a unit in the
(phonological, morphosyntactical, semantic) sense that we normally ascribe
to this concept, the syllable is simply the mark of auditory attention based on
broad segments of speech. For this reason, in experiments, syllabic perception
is most convincingly demonstrated when syllables are presented as items
within "natural" configurations: i.e. pluri-syllabic sequences incorporated in
whole sentences or segments of sentences.6 In such cases the human voice is
represented by its most significant acoustic properties: co-articulation be
tween syllables, full stress variation, and the appearance of a melodic contour.
These features form the basis not only of phonetic perception and recognition,
but also of syntactical recognition as such, in the sense that natural prosody
makes it possible to identify the boundaries of syntactic constituents and the
order of words. This obviously does not mean that syntactical units do not
exist as purely combinatory entities with their own, autonomous grammatical
definition. What it means is that in first stage of ontogenesis, they are no more
than rhythmical sequences which are perceived by registering the pattern of
their pauses; this prepares the way for the subsequent perception of content
and form (of a grammatical kind) as such.
As a result of this, our theories of language require modifying in two
respects.
The first modification is of a practical-descriptive nature: the analytical
order in which contemporary linguistic theories tend to process communica
tive events needs to be inverted. Instead of taking the phoneme as our starting
point and seeing sentences as the result of combining it with other phonemes,
we need to start from the continuity of the sentence (or at least from acoustic
continuums) and proceed first to distinguish syllables, and then to distinguish
phonetic elements.
The second modification is a theoretical one and consists in acknowledg

ing the primacy of the substance with respect to the form of language, and,
within the substance, in recognising the function of non-articulated vocality
as opposed to articulated vocality.
At the outset, in fact, items of language are not only not perceived
semantically or phonologically: they are not even perceived as phonetically
articulated. Four-day-olds have been exposed to their mothers' natural sen
tences and show reactive behaviours to them (recognition); when the same
voices are filtered at frequencies (400Hz) high enough to destroy not only all
kinds of semantic signs (indices) but all phonetic articulation too, leaving only
prosodic signs intact, the neonates are still able to recognise their mothers'
voices (cf. Mehler, Jusczyk, Lambertz & Amiel Tison 1986).
Studies of "motherese language" seem to point in the same direction as
Mehler's work.7 These consist of a series of researches that have registered a
remarkable number of differences in the way a mother speaks when she turns
from an adult listener to her new-born child. Above all, these changes consist
of a higher basic frequency (FO), a slower rhythm, an exaggerated intonation
— in other words, what has been termed "an expanded intonation contour"
(Fernald & Simon 1984).8 This type of signal carries a high amount of
perceptual saliency for infants, even those only a few days old (Ibid.: 105).
The interaction between maternal musical language and the neonate's percep
tual preference for an expansion of intonation contours seems to constitute a
true "language universal" both of production and of reception (Grieser-Kuhl
1988:19). In fact, it has been recorded in both European and Asiatic lan
guages, in tonal and non-tonal types of language, and no differences have
been recorded between primiparous and multiparous mothers (Fernald &
Simon 1984:110). From a functional standpoint, these studies have demon
strated a number of important features which it is worth listing one by one:
1) prosody increases the redundancy of the message: whereas two syn
tactically identical sentences pronounced with a neutral intonation arouse no
reaction, two syntactically different sentences pronounced with an expanded
intonation contour trigger the neonate's response;
2) the exaggerations of wave-crests in "motherese" maximise the atten
tion of the neonate and introduce a kind of "turn-taking" into the interaction;
3) the expansion of intonation contours enhances affective motivation:
in adults, too, high intonation peaks and an increase in the range of prosodic
variation marks behaviour of greater affective intimacy;
4) the prosodic patterns of the mother amplify the perceptual abilities of

the neonate thereby paving the way for phonological, semantic and syntactic
organisation; in particular, the continuity of intonation segments is most likely
what foreshadows the idea of the sentence;
5) the exaggerated rhythmical patterns of maternal language play a basic
role in the formation of the infant's metrical competence, and hence in its
manipulation of the speeds most suitable to the perception and production of
language: "this temporal and tonal redundancy may aid the infant in auditory
pattern recognition, an essential skill in the development of speech percep
tion" (Fernald & Simon 1984:112).
Taken as a whole, these observations seem to suggest that what has been
called the "prosodic bootstrapping hypothesis" (cf. Fernald & Mazzie
1991:209) fits in perfectly with the view that an auditory-musical apprentice
ship takes place during the foetal stage. The point of contact between post-natal
research into the characteristics of "motherese language" and experiments on
the embryo's perception of language is represented by the work of A. J. De
Casper who has probed even deeper into the nature of voice recognition by
infants immediately after birth. In particular, in his study entitled Histoire de
foetus par un nouveau-né (1990), which sums up many years of experience in
psycholinguistic and embryological research, De Casper reveals that the
perceiving organism is sensitive to the mother's voice not only in the immedi
ately post-natal phase of life but also in the pre-natal phase; and, within the
mother's voice, it is sensitive to the most recurrent expressions, the "maternal
melodies" it has learned to recognise in the womb.
What is more, De Casper puts forward and experimentally tests a hypoth
esis that may provide an essential key for understanding the totally uncon
scious nature of the original mechanism by which communication is first
implemented and for explaining the rhythmical, prosodie, or, in the most
archetypal sense of the word, musical origin of language.
As we have already seen, Amman — the oralist healer of deaf-mutes —
had already sketched out a sort of metaphysics of the voice in the 17th
century: the voice, which expresses the bodily synergism of heart and brain,
passion and reason, is the life of language.
Today, De Casper (and others) are postulating that non-articulated vocal-
ity, prosodie melody, pre-frequential rhythm, the musical alternation between
regularity and irregularity — phenomena which, as we have seen, necessarily
precede the analysis or assembling of combinations of "discrete" atoms in the
natural evolution of language — all, in fact, derive from the monistic relation
ship between mother and foetus, united by the silent transmission and recep
tion of the sole acoustic source that can be "discriminated" from the medley
of intra-uterine noises: the heart-beat. This is no mere archetypal image
whose explanatory power lies in its undefinable suggestivity and fascination.
Far from it: as De Casper has shown in a series of repeatable and rigorously
circumscribed experiments, non-nutritional sucking (the symptom of a "per
ceptual" reaction of the foetus) measured by probes linked to an electronic
data-recording system, is rigorously synchronised with the mother's heart
beat. Not only does the foetus react (by increasing the number of suctions) to
the pulsing of the mother's heart, but it stops to listen to it, making a clearly
discernible pause between systole and diastole. This ecstatic, unconscious
starting and stopping in conjunction with the sound of the heart-beat is,
moreover, absolutely specific. Within the uterine acoustic environment,
which is teeming with noises of all kinds (breathing, gastric activity, move
ment of fluids, etc.), the mother's heart-beat is "the only unspoken stimulus
that it has been possible to recognise as having reinforcement value for the
new-born infant" (De Casper 1990:170).
How far this primordial experience will affect the cognitive future of that
essentially physiological mass which is the foetal organism is today the most
stimulating object of enquiry of contemporary embryology. There can be no
doubt, however, that the path taken by the embryology of communication is
calling in question some of the theoretical cornerstones of contemporary
semiotic frameworks: the assumption that participants in communication are
separate; that we share a code understood as a system of rules for combining
minimal entities (of whatever kind); that the nature of the signifying material
is essentially irrelevant (the minimal version of arbitrariness); that the articu
lated substance (or articulation itself) has priority; that consciousness or will
or communicative intention is fundamental.
In positive terms, embryological research has sketched out the lines of a
development which has barely begun, but which obliges linguistics to break
free of the formalist fixation that has characterised it ever since Saussure. It
has brought to light the pre-articulatory nature of language, its irreplaceable
function in the formation of human cognition, thereby confirming Amman's
early intuition of the centrality of the voice: the voice as the life of language,
the body of language, the concreteness of language.
5. Having a mind without life, without body, without concreteness is pre

cisely what pathological subjects deprived of their voice complain of. From
their autobiographical writings — which offer the most extraordinary testi
mony of unconscious semiotic theorising — three major points emerge with
which I would like to conclude this paper:
a) the writings of aphasies, deaf-mutes, and especially blind deaf-mutes,
all clearly show that users of "artificial semiotics" suffer from a sense of
"coercion to abstraction".
As Abbé Copineau noted, summing up a long passage by Desloges, an
18th-century deaf-mute trained with the method of manual signs, the lan
guage of signs is "une définition perpétuelle des idées qu'on y exprime"
(Desloges 1779:56) and the reality of the senses is seen "comme à travers une
glace transparente" (Ibid.:57).
In the Mémoires of Doctor Saloz, an 18th-century aphasic I have already
mentioned, the loss of the spoken word and the persistence of the "thought"
word gave rise to a feeling of confusion and indefiniteness, a weakening of
ideas so that they became ungraspable, "comme flou" (Saloz 1919:9).
Abbé Carton, an educator of blind deaf-mutes, defines their language of
touch as a vicious circle, a "synonymie toujours incomplète" (Carton 1840-
41:138). Similar views are expressed by Saboureaux de Fontenai, Laura
Bridgman, and above all by the famous blind deaf-mute Helen Keller, who
complained of the absolute lack of concreteness of manual sign language.
b) in this state of coercion to abstraction, subjects have the impression
of wandering in a labyrinth of ideas without being able to find the door to
things. The desire for concreteness and the desire for the spoken word are
experienced as an identical cognitive privation.
La difficulté vient de ce que j'ai besoin de voir non seulement la forme,
mais encore d'entendre le son de la lettre [...]. J'oublie les éléments
sensoriels et mouvementaux de la lettre, de la diphtongue, de la syllabe et
enfin du mot tout formé. L'élément syntaxique ne suit qu'après un certain
temps, très variable et très fluctuant [...] ce qui revient à dire que dans mon
cas l'idée intuitive est souvent différente de l'idée formulée en ce sens, que
l'idée intuitive est plus floue que l'idée formulée. [...] Je ne saurais mieux
exprimer cette conception qu'en disant que l'oubli du mot m'apparaît
comme une sorte de décortication de l'idée par le fait qu'elle a perdu son
enveloppe concrète. (Saloz 1919:16)
In Helen Keller the loss of oral concreteness and the overcrowding of

abstract signs accentuates the impression that manual language has become a
semiotic prison on which the coercive structure of a purely mental reasoning

depends.
The loss of access to the spoken word arouses the same feeling in all of
them: they see their minds as an unorganic, random entity, a jumble of
fragmented, unconnected signs:
souvent mes pensées me font l'impression comme d'un champ inculte, non
défriché, sur lequel j'aurais semé des idées incidentaires épisodiques de
toutes sortes dont l'enchaînement manque de suite. (Saloz 1919:26)
c) the spoken word, a sense of concreteness and cognitive organicity —
these are the main privations felt by subjects who have gone through all the
levels of artificial re-training. This training has certainly produced arbitrary
symbols and intelligences capable of manipulating them, but it has left a
cognitive gap that can be filled only by the recovery of the voice. It is
extraordinary that all the "deprived" persons I have mentioned choose
spontaneously at some point to break out of the cage of artificial signs
(gestures, writing, etc.) in order to learn spoken language in spite of the
enormous effort required. Only this can make them feel that they have fully
regained that sense of life which Amman attributed to the voice, and which
Helen Keller identified as free expression in rapid and winged words, for
which manual signs can never be a substitute.
6. This paper began with the admission that its real purpose was to assign to
linguistics the place that it deserves among the cognitive sciences. I hope the
line of reasoning I have followed has made it clear that this place ought to be
a pre-eminent one, provided that linguistics ceases to be confounded with
semiotics, which is a theory not essentially different from that of the cybernet
ics of information, although richer of course.
To achieve this goal we need to give renewed dignity to the study of the
specificity of the material of signs. To consider the material they are made of
and above all the kind of bio-psychological procedures they impose on the
living organism, and hence the kind of anthropological cognition they give
rise to, as irrelevant, is as detrimental to cognitive epistemology as it is to
linguistic epistemology.
Something is stirring in the stronghold of AI as well. The ups and downs
of its first forty years has led to a re-examination of the sources of artificialism.
It is no accident that connectionism has revived biologically-orientated aspects
of Wiener's cybernetics in which the formalist element tends to be rooted in

ethology. Although it still seems extremely reductive, the shift from the
simulation of the mind (i.e. essentially the operations of logic) to the simulation
of the emotional, intuitive, imaginative, non-logical and not-strictly-semiotie
features of the brain, is an important development that linguistics cannot ignore.
In any event, in the new epistemological architecture of the human sciences
there is very little space left for a pure linguistics of the sign. Events in the
distant world of the embryology and pathology of language are an invitation
to us to bring the priceless historical accumulation of reflections on language
to bear on psycholinguistics, phonetics, and the anthropology and biology of
language — to embrace a new philosophy capable of reviving and remould
ing the exhausted energies of formal and artificial thought too.
NOTES
1. This patient, who had had a very strong visual memory, wrote in a note to Charcot:
"suddenly this inner vision has completely vanished, and today, for all my determination,
I cannot inwardly represent the features of my children, my wife, or of any everyday
object. Thus [...] my impressions have changed absolutely" (Charcot 1883: 186). "Being
no longer able to represent what is visible and having completely preserved my abstract
memory, I am continually, daily, surprised to see things that I must have known for a long
time. Since my sensations, or rather my impressions, are indefinitely new, they give me
the feeling that a complete change has taken place in my existence, and of course my
character has changed considerably. Before I was impressionable and enthusiastic and
had a fertile imagination; now I am calm, cold and have completely lost my imagination.
Given my total lack of a sense of inner representation, my memories too have changed.
Today I remember only words" (Ibid.: 187). "A remarkable consequence of this loss of a
mental faculty is the change in my character and my impressions. I am far less accessible
to trouble or grief. I may even say that having recently lost one of my relatives to whom I
was warmly attached, I felt far less grief than I would have if, through my inner vision, I
had been able to represent to myself the physiognomy of this relative, the phases of his
illness and above all the external effect produced by his premature death on the members
of my family" (Ibid.: 187). Charcot notes that this loss did not provoke the loss of the
faculty for expression in language, indeed, that from the moment his patient became
aware of having lost his visual memory he instinctively developed his auditory memory:
"in him the auditory equivalent replaces the visual equivalent of words. It is thus a further
example of those 'substitutions' we encounter at every turn in the history of aphasia"
(Ibid.: 189). He goes on to argue that aphasia is never a unitary phenomenon and that
language dwells in many centres. He then distinguishes four basic elements: the auditory
mnemonic image, the visual image, the image of motor articulation, and the graphic
motor image. All the cases of losses "compel us to admit that these different groups of
memories have their seats in particular regions of the encephalon and support the
evidence which establishes in other ways that the hemispheres of the brain comprise a
certain number of differentiated organs each of which has its own function though all are
very closely connected with the others" (Ibid.: 191).
2. "There is no natural connection between letters and syllables, or between words and
sounds. Letters and syllables do not in themselves naturally represent sounds any more
than sounds in themselves naturally represent letters and syllables. Their connections
derive from the conventions laid down by the people of a single nation [...] That neither
letters, nor syllables, nor words can, independently of an arbitrary convention, represent
ideas, is attested by the fact, that the same things have different names in the different
countries of the world and'also that, where they do have the same names, these names are
not written in the same way, are pronounced differently, and give rise to sounds different
from those which need to be pronounced in order to be understood" (de l'Epée 1783:51).
3. ' It is here that the central role of mechanicalness, of articulatory "trial and error" in
language learning and cognitive development emerges. "It is only by forcing ourselves
for a long time to imitate the sounds pronounced by others and by listening to our own
voices that we can succeed in grasping reciprocal relations between these; this is how all
children gradually learn to speak. Anyone who has to learn to speak, whether deaf or
endowed with hearing, thus [has] need of prolonged practice so that his organs can
acquire the necessary aptitude and flexibility" (Amman 1700:320-21).
4. For a detailed overview of this kind of work see Pennisi 1994 (§.  . 1.1.4).
5. A review of the great quantity of research by specialists in this field (Th. Bast, B. J.
Anson, B. G. Harper, etc.) is given in Tomatis 1981:224ff.
6. On non-natural pluri-syllabic experiments, see Jusczyk & Thompson 1978. On "natural"
syllabic perception, Bertoncini & Bijeljac-Babic 1990; Bertoncini & Mehler 1991.
7. See, among others: Fernald & Simon 1984; Fernald-Kuhl 1987; Grieser-Kuhl 1988;
Ferland & Mendelson 1989; Fernald & Mazzie 1991; Papousek, Papousek & Symmes
1991. There is an important essay on "motherese" in the sign language of the deaf in
Masataka 1992.
8. The parameters measured in the mother's language in three contexts — speech addressed
to adult listeners, the simulation of speech addressed to infants but with no infants
present, and speech addressed to infants present — were: 1) basic frequency; 2) pitch
range (in semitones); length of sentences; 3) length of pauses; 4) speed of articulation (in
syllables); 5) correspondence between pauses and sentence boundaries. The differences
ascertained by Fernald & Simon 1984 were all highly significant statistically.
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SOMMARIO
In questo contributo si analizzano due momenti di storia della semiotica

che si sviluppano in ambiti estranei sia alla ricerca glottologica che alla
speculazione filosofica tra la fine del XVIII e tutto il XIX secolo. Si tratta del
dibattito sulle patologie linguistiche: le teorie e i metodi di riabilitazione dei
sordomuti sino alla fine del Settecento, e le ricerche sull' afasia, a partire dagli
inizi dell'Ottocento.
Ció che accomuna le discussioni su questi due settori della pedagogía
linguistica è la contrapposizione tra i sostenitori di metodi "semiologici" (il
linguaggio gestuale, gli alfabeti manuali, la riabilitazione afasica attraverso
metodi "globali") e i sostenitori di metodi specificamente "linguistici", fon-
dati, cioè sul recupero della vocalità in quanto proprietà intrínsecamente
"naturale" della facoltà cognitiva sottostante al linguaggio (metodo oralista,
per i sordomuti, metodi localizzazionisti per  afasia). Al di là delie questioni
puramente cliniche, il dibattito fornisce spunti di riflessione sull'ontogenesi e
la natura delie abilità linguistiche, mettendo in discussione il principio di
arbitrarietà materiale su cui si è fondata  epistemología della linguistica
moderna.
Nella parte conclusiva del lavoro si mettono in relazione le osservazioni
teoriche scaturite dal dibattito sulla storia delle patologie con alcune questioni
attualmente discusse nell'ambito della psicología cognitiva e della psico-
linguistica. In particolare sul contributo che una linguistica basata sui fon-
damenti biologici del linguaggio, e, tra questi, sull'importanza della vocalità
per il primo apprendimento del linguaggio (audiologia embriológica e dibat
tito sul "motherese language"), potrebbe fornire anche alle scienze cognitive
che, nel corso degli ultimi trenta anni, hanno, invece, implicitamente adottato
un modello linguistico di tipo semiologico.
RESUME
Cette communication propose l'analyse de deux moments de l'histoire

de la sémiotique qui se sont développés indépendamment des lieux de la
recherche glottologique et de la spéculation philosophique depuis la fin du
XVIIIe et pendant tout le XIXe. Il s'agit du débat sur les pathologies linguis
tiques: les théories et les méthodes de rééducation des sourds-muets dès la fin
du XVIIIe et les recherches sur l'aphasie à partir du début du XIXe siècle.
Les discussions sur ces deux secteurs de la pédagogie linguistique ont en
commun l'opposition entre d'un côté les partisans des méthodes "sémio-
logiques" (le langage gestuel, les alphabets manuels, la rééducation de l'apha
sie à travers des méthodes "globales") et de l'autre les partisans des méthodes
spécifiquement "linguistiques" et donc fondées sur l'entraînement à l'oralité
en tant que propriété intrinsèquement "naturelle" de la faculté cognitive qui
est à la base du langage (méthode orale pour les sourds-muets, méthodes de
localisation pour l'aphasie). Au-delà de son intérêt purement clinique, ce
débat est l'occasion d'une réflexion sur l'ontogenèse et la nature des capaci
tés linguistiques qui remet en question le principe de l'arbitraire matériel sur
lequel s'est fondée l' épistémologie de la linguistique moderne.
L'article conclut en mettant en relation les observations théoriques issues
du débat sur l'histoire des pathologies avec certaines questions actuelles du
domaine de la psychologie cognitive et de la psycholinguistique, relevant en
particulier la contribution qu'une linguistique fondée sur les bases biologiques
du langage, et surtout sur l'oralité dans la première phase d'apprentissage du
langage (audiologie embryologique et débat sur le "motherese language"),
pourrait apporter aux sciences cognitives qui au contraire ont au cours des
trente dernières années adopté implicitement le modèle linguistique de type
sémiologique.
The Theory of Interjections
in Vico and Rousseau
Annabella D'Atri
0. Interjections are extremely important in the naturalistic theories of lan

guage origin of Giambattista Vico and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. For both
authors, interjections not only contribute to the genesis of words but also
reveal the presence of living, dynamic factors within historical languages.
Although Vico and Rousseau ascribe the birth of language to natural, biologi
cal factors, they do not fall into the trap that Cassirer (1944) has drawn
attention to — namely that of confusing the problem of the genesis of
language with that of its phenomenology. Moreover, in their analysis of
language they are guided by the search for elements that distinguish the
human world from that of animals.
What draws Cassirer to Vico's theories is his search for the rational
foundations of anthropology (see D'Atri 1992): he considers Vico "the founder
of the human sciences". With regard to the problem of language in the history
of philosophy, however — as Pagliaro (1961:301) has remarked — Ernst
Cassirer would not appear to have done "full justice" to Vico's theories of
language. Nevertheless, on closer scrutiny, Cassirer's scattered references
offer a significant contribution to historiography, especially his claim that it is
from Vico that Rousseau derives some of his basic conceptions of language.
1. In the first volume of his Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. Die

Sprache, Cassirer notes that Vico rejects the doctrine that primitive words are
conventional in origin, claiming that there is a "natural bond" linking them to
their meaning. To Cassirer's mind, the concept of a spiritual "universal
dictionary" capable of tracing the words of all the different articulated Ian-
116 Annabella D'Atri
guages back to their common roots is by no means an ill-considered one.

Vico's own attempts in this direction, though revealing all the shortcomings
of "speculative etymology", contain a fertile hint for a general conception of
language, since they trace it back to the dynamics of feelings and affections.
For Cassirer it is no accident that Rousseau takes over and develops Vico's
theory, since Rousseau is a thinker who ascribes a special role to feeling and
sees it as "the original creative power of the spiritual world" (Cassirer
1923:91-93). Cassirer also points out links between Rousseau's creative
spontaneity, typical of feeling, and Kant's transcendental creativity. It is thus
possible indirectly to assess the role of Vico in the genealogy of Kant's
"implicit philosophy of language" (see D'Atri 1990):
The circle of Rousseau's theory of feeling is completed only at this point:
feeling is now raised far above passive 'impression' and mere sense percep
tion; it has taken into itself the pure activities of judging, evaluating, and
taking a position. (Cassirer 1954:112)
Thus Cassirer does not make the mistake of assessing Vico's linguistics
on the basis of his etymologies (for a discussion of Vico as an "extremely
poor etymologist", see De Mauro 1969). In the opinion of Cassirer, and of
others (Pagliaro 1961:421; Formigari 1993:78-85), the genetic principle of
language identified by Vico is also a functional principle of language itself.
Certainly, it is hard to resist the temptation (Garin 1972:62) to read
Rousseau's essay on the origins of language in the light of the linguistic theories
of the Scienza Nuova, given the many significant analogies between the two
works. But Cassirer's historiographical thesis raises a series of questions: if
interjections and onomatopoeias are the first elements in the building of the
historical languages, are they what underpin the natural correspondence
between signs and meanings? And if so, what role do such matters as
arbitrariness and linguistic innovation play in Vico's and Rousseau's systems?
Cassirer suggests a number of answers. In Philosophie der symbolischen
Formen, when describing the "phenomenology of linguistic form", he sets out
to trace the gradual transition from greifen to begreifen, from grasping to
apprehending. In this process physical-sensorial grasping turns into sensory
interpretation (Cassirer 1923:129). In this context Cassirer draws on the
distinction between "indicating gestures" and "imitating gestures" in order to
identify in both types "a feature of typical, universal spiritual meaning",
through which an emotion succeeds in distancing a content from itself and in
rendering it objective. This action marks a transition from physical doing to
Vico and Rousseau 117
ideal doing (Ibid.: 127). With gestures and inarticulate cries we have already
reached a stage in which we have left behind the simple universe of the
"reflected" and moved to the various degrees of "reflection" (Ibid.: 134). Since
by the term 'reflection' Cassirer means the linguistic-analytical power to order
the manifold identified by Herder, there is no doubt that with interjections the
immediacy of sensory life is transcended, however rudimentarily, and we are
already in the realm of the human.
However, Cassirer's theorising about interjections is not confined to the
analyses contained in the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. Twenty
years later he returns to this topic in his Essay on Man and corrects some of
his earlier views. In a chapter devoted explicitly to the problem of the
transition from animal reactions to human responses, interjections are rel
egated to the sphere of an emotional language typical also of animals. The
difference between 'propositional language' and 'emotional language' is the
real dividing line between the human and the animal world. And if it is true
that the language of feelings is the first and most essential "geological
stratum" of language, a word is by no means a mere interjection or an
involuntary expression of feelings but always forms part of a sentence with a
logical and syntactic structure (Cassirer 1944). Ever since Democritus, the
inventors of biological theories of language (including Vico and Rousseau)
have tried to trace language back to elementary sounds of an emotional kind,
but they have never succeeded in explaining the metabasis which occurs with
the shift to propositional language.
Cassirer maintains that human language must be explained in terms of its
structure, the connections between its parts, and not merely in terms of its
simple elements. In a manuscript preserved at Yale University, he writes that
even if the life expressed in language is not simply a matter of pure ideas, the
understanding must be considered the "Dramatist in the drama of life", as
Bally put it (cf. Cassirer 1941-1942). It is not possessing emotions but having
the linguistic capacity to express them in their various tonalities and in their
most subtly-nuanced distinctive features that humanises our biological-natu
ral substratum.
Linguists who have not been content to relegate exclamations to an
extra-linguistic sphere, thus banishing them from the 'corpus' of language
phenomena, have followed various paths. Roman Jakobson has compared
interjections to sentences, stressing that they carry information even if not of a
cognitive kind: "They are not components but equivalents of sentences"
(Jakobson 1958:354). Serge Karcevskij (1941:57-59) splits them into inten

tional utterances of human voices and onomatopoeias which merely record or
register, and recognises only the former as non-conceptual substitutes for
ordinary sentences. Edward Stankiewicz fully incorporates them in the sys
tem of languages, demonstrating that they are both arbitrary and inserted into
the system of grammatical inflections and derivations (1964:253-54).
Philosophical speculation and the practice of linguists converge in identi
fying the properties essential to the definition of acts of speech: namely,
voluntariness, arbitrariness, and a degree of cognitivity. The debate between
those who ascribe interjections to language and those who ascribe them to
biology will be settled on the basis of whether these properties can be found in
exclamatory acts or not.
2. For Vico, unlike Rousseau (see Trabant 1989), languages and writing are
born together and proceed hand in hand. In their birth two principles are at
work, though separately. The principles are: "that the first men conceived the
ideas of things through imaginative characters; that, being mute, these men
expressed themselves by actions and objects which have natural relations to
these ideas" (Vico 1744:168; Vico 1982:234). The origin of the semantic
function is thus traced back to a stage of language that is not yet vocal but in
which the pre-logical signified (the "caratteri fantastici") and the signifier
("atti o corpi", acts or bodies in natural relation to the signified) are both
definite. Thus on the one hand, "atti  corpi" signify naturally, on the other a
first seed of what Cassirer calls "spirituality" can already be glimpsed in the
phase of "hieroglyphic" writing (which Trabant 1989 defines as "speaking by
writing") "in which", as we read in Degnità LVII, "all nations spoke during
their first barbarism" (Vico 1982:178). For Vico hieroglyphic writing is in
fact everything that is used for expression, including the body and gestures;it
is a "parlare", i.e. a language that is not yet a fully-fledged tongue. For a
'language' in our modern sense, Vico uses the term articulated "voice"
('voce'). (On the language of children and mutes in Vico, see Pennisi 1988b).
In the stage of gestures, the link between signifier and signified is one of
temporal continuity and spatial contiguity. At the end of this stage — in the
phenomenological rather than in the chronological sense — Vico tackles the
problem of the transition to phonetic articulation and, in parallel with this, to
the "symbolical" stage of writing. Lia Formigari has remarked that Vico
devotes a great deal of space to the transition from the first to the second
phase, but much less to the transition from the second phase to that of the
"parlari convenuti" (1993:81-83). However, it should be noted that the sec
ond stage, which corresponds to the "heroic" phase in the history of peoples,
already contains the seeds of the principles that will develop fully in the third
phase. It is thus on this that Vico has to concentrate his attention, in order to
discover the principles themselves rather than their historical consequences
and transformations. His intention is to establish the origins of social institu
tions in order to justify the need for "lingue ben fatte", i.e. languages that
correspond to their true principles.
Onomatopoeia and interjections are thus intermediate concepts between
the language of mutes and "parlari convenuti", which signify by means of
articulated sounds. The (more or less marked) presence of articulation is also
considered essential by Vico for the phenomenological definition of the three
types of languages, which in his historical and ideal reconstruction are seen as
coexisting chronologically (Vico 1744:181; Vico 1982:244-245).
Vico attempts to explain why the use of articulated languages ("voci
articolate") became necessary. Since "men first have a sense of the necessary,
then attend to the useful" (Vico 1744:180), this explanation cannot be based
on the principle of utility, which comes after necessity and which in order to
function requires a sophisticated logical faculty that presupposes a ready-
formed language. The other famous principle which Vico stresses is that:
"First men have a sense of things without conscious consideration, then they
consider them with a perturbed and agitated spirit, finally they reflect upon
them with a pure mind" (Vico 1982:177). It is thus this perturbation that
causes the body to emit the first phonic signifiers. With the advent of articula
tion a seed of "voluntariness" enters the history of language, though it is still
deeply rooted in the biological and much more like an impelling, "necessary
want" than a spontaneous decision. Onomatopoeias and interjections in Vico
should thus be seen as "motivated" linguistic signs (cf. Karcevskij 1941):
what prompts them is not their purpose but a sort of instinct (Vico 1744:182;
Vico 1982:245).
The way Vico traces the dynamism and creativity of language back to
such a static factor, to a passive registering like that of onomatopoeia (Pagliaro
1961:380), may seem reductive, but it is worth recalling that onomatopoeia is
seen by Vico only as supplying the phonic material that replaces gesture in the
act of signifying divinity, whereas it is interjections that are the repositories of
the "heroic" character of symbolic languages (Trabant 1989:50). He links the

creativity of language to the metaphorical capacity to invent significations by
means of nexes of similarity.
In his inquiries into the origins of language, Vico seeks a dynamic
principle capable of explaining the leap from the cry to articulated language.
It is the affections and the 'commotions' of the mind that demand suitable
expression (Vico 1744:93; Vico 1982:178). Wonder ('meraviglia') is one of
these passions in search of an expression. It is wonder (Degnità XXXIX)
which demands to know what any extraordinary effect felt in nature "might
mean or signify". And again it is wonder which gives rise to the idea of God,
an intuition that "is itself a speech act" (Formigari 1993:82), to which we owe
the birth of the institutions themselves. The men of the age of the giants
"imagined the sky to be a huge animate body who was trying to communicate
something to themthrough the whistle of his bolts and the roar of his thunder
and under this aspect they named him Jove" (Vico 1744:140; Vico 1982:211).
As Battistini has shown (1975:132), in Vico's etymons the role played by
onomatopoeia is quantitatively small. Nevertheless onomatopoeias and inter
jections are fundamental because, according to Vico, for these first articu
lated sounds to arise a series of human faculties have to be mobilised, chief
among these being the capacity to feel emotions like awe and wonder.
Vico ' s thinking on interjections is just as complex, theoretically, if we shift
from the plane of philosophy to that of rhetoric. Recent studies have rightly laid
stress on the "epistemological" value of metaphor in Vico (Dorfles 1969:585-
86), on its role as a "point of intersection" between theory of language and
theory of knowledge (Di Cesare 1988:214), and on the "material imagination"
as a primary faculty which finds its semiotic materials in the realm of the senses
(Pennisi 1988a:206). But critics have not yet made the most of Pagliaro's
important analysis of Vico's etymons, an analysis which leads to an acute and
fruitful distinction between "allegorical" and "analogical" etymology. As
Pagliaro has pointed out, this distinction can be seen as the direct consequence
(and hence proof) of Vico's "admirable intuition" of the distinction between
signifier and signified (Pagliaro 1971). If it is allegorical etymology that
informs the study of the origins of signs, it is analogical etymology that is used
to explain innovations in the realm of signs. Allegory as "diversiloquium"
appears when a sign deriving from a concrete sense experience is taken as
representing something of a fantastic kind, and this is the case with the first
onomatopoeias and interjections. Analogy, on the other hand, belongs to the
phase in which the human species is capable of defining things, and consists in
the faculty of restoring expressiveness as well as precision to languages, by
tracing their meanings back to their concrete roots (Vico 1944:154; Vico
1982:222). 'Achilles' represents a value common to all strong individuals and
the meaning is transferred from the single individual so named to the others of
a similar series. In other words it is the individual itself and not the universal
which is predicated of other individuals. The analogies later made by literary
authors, on the other hand, presuppose the identification of two pairs of
signifiers and signifieds linked by a common relationship. In the case of the first
interjection described by Vico, it is the actual lived experience of awe,
expressed by the redoubled onomatopoeia "papè" which, after beginning as an
individual experience, comes allegorically to signify similar experiences of
awe and wonder. It thus displays a 'horizontal' type of universality and
communicates in an intersubjective rather than objective way (For Dorfles
1969:586, metaphor possesses the power of "extension of the semantic area").
As languages gradually grow away from their natural roots, this universality
gives place to the historical and geographical differences that bring about
metaphorical-analogical transformations and extensions of semantic fields.
3. To some it has seemed that for Rousseau, on the other hand, "the past
crystallises the dreams of a lost innocence" (Pons 1969:170). But the situation
is more complex as regards linguistic issues. In the Essai sur l'origine des
langues he tries to find a natural explanation of the origin of language; but this
gives rise to contradictions since, when it appears, language forms a sphere
which is no longer homogeneous with nature, within which it is nevertheless
inscribed. The question is how arbitrary signs (on arbitrariness in Rousseau
and Saussure, cf. Derrida 1967) arise from the context of 'motivated' signs.
This leap from the state of nature to the need for languages is so great that
Rousseau, in his Discours sur Vorigine de l'inégalité (1755), is driven to hint
that only a supernatural agency can be responsible for it.
In the second Discours Rousseau clearly sets forth the terms of a problem
which is no longer simply a matter of the origins of language but one of logic.
He explicitly crititicizes Condillac, who sees languages as "méthodes analyti
ques". Condillac, in fact, takes for granted what Rousseau calls in question,
namely that some kind of society already existed among the inventors of
language. Compared to Condillac, Rousseau increases the distance between
"pure sensations" and "even the simplest of cognitions". Whereas for Condillac
languages are formed in a continuous process, without sudden transitions, for
Rousseau there is an "irruption" of the arbitrary (Rousseau 1986:145). Actu
ally, in Condillac the genesis of language is only "metaphorical", since its
appearance does not disturb the framework of a perfectly organised analytical
representation (Crispini 1982:54).
There is no need to pay special attention to Vico's influence on Rousseau
in this context. It will suffice to recall that Rousseau may have seen Vico's work
in Venice in 1743-44 during his visit in the entourage of the French ambassador,
and that he may have known it at second hand through Warburton, Montesquieu
or Condillac himself (cf. Croce-Nicolini 1947-48; Pons 1969; Verri 1979).
As regards the wider debate over the origin of languages, Rousseau's
observations have given rise to some doubts about his option for the naturalis
tic theses. Just as in Vico the hypothesis of the Flood apparently reconciles the
biblical explanation with the historical-genetic one, so in Rousseau's Essai
sur Vorigine des langues (which may be dated either before or after the
second Discours: see Droixhe 1988:227-30; Gentile 1984:11-12) there is
space for divine intervention: it is held responsible for the inclination of the
earth's axis and hence the seasons, the inclement atmosphere, and the need
for societies and languages (Rousseau 1990:99). But are we really right to
interpret the touche du doigt as signifying the recuperation of supernatural
causes (Frankel 1983), or should the divine touch be understood, as Derrida
fascinatingly suggests (1967), as the arbitrary gesture that alone can explain
the arbitrariness and the diversity of languages? Rather, the image of the
divine forefinger is a splendid rhetorical device used by Rousseau to distin
guish between the two forms of naturality to which he makes constant
reference: the variety of climates and geography that lies outside, and the
uniformity of nature that dwells within the human species.
The nature of man, as instinct, need and passion, is perfectible; in the
encounter with the circumstances of external nature a process occurs that leads
to the sphere of spirituality, which is made possible by the increasing perfection
of language. Gestural language corresponds to a phase in which man lives
immersed in the realm of material needs and to satisfy this kind of need words
are not necessary. Unlike Vico, Rousseau does not undertake what today we
would call a semantic analysis of gestural language, nor does he even discern
a 'meaning' at work in it. The age of savagery does not interest him except as
a negative pole from which to take his distance. Rousseau, of course, believes
it is needs that prompt the first cries and passions that beget the first words
(Rousseau 1990:67). But how does this coercion of nature take place? Whereas
simple sounds come naturally out of the throat, the modifications of the tongue
and palate that make articulation possible require practice and cannot be made
without our wanting to (Ibid.:70). If it is will that explains the leap from cries
to articulated sounds, the energy behind the voluntary is nevertheless, in
Rousseau, the involuntary: will, in fact, is the product of a transformation of
instinct.
While the metaphysics underlying Vico's theory is, as Lia Formigari
(1993:64-65) has pointed out, fundamentally dualistic, opposing mind to
body, knowledge to opinion, the learned to the vulgar, Rousseau's metaphys
ics tends to be monistic and energeticist, being based on the transformations
of needs and passions.
Rousseau imagines the primordial tongue as an 'entirely interjectional'
language (Rousseau 1990:71) possessing those minimal elements of lexical
precision and morphological definition which contemporary linguists ascribe
to interjections. But as needs gradually increase and as human affairs grow
more complicated, language too becomes exact — clearer, colder and more
astute. Rousseau thus has to resort to need in order to explain the origin of
language (Ibid.: 100), positing fundamental differences and contrasts between
the nature and origin of the languages of the South and those of the North:
only the southern languages are seen as originating in the passions, while the
northern ones are seen as deriving from mutual need. It is possible, however,
to assimilate these material needs to the moral passions — i. e. to the feelings
— because of the impelling nature of both (cf. Starobinski 1990:37).
Once he has simultaneously located two types of language on the globe,
the one being more poetical, the other colder and more precise, it easier for
Rousseau to deal with the coexistence of the two functions in language: the
role of one is to express feelings, that of the other to define concepts. The
question of how one form evolved into the other can thus be left in the
background. Nevertheless, in Rousseau's system the passions are an essential
source of energy for the birth of languages and society. Before the passions
found expression there were families but no nations, domestic languages but
no peoples' languages; "il y avoit des mariages, mais il n'y avoit d'amour" —
instead of passion there was instinct, instead of preference, habit" (Ibid.: 107-
108)
Daniel Droixhe (1988:237) has shown convincingly that in his quest for
the origin of language Rousseau identifies this moment with the birth of
humanity, when "the individual fulfils himself as a man endowed with compas
sion and solidarity". The effects of distance, absence and separation, the
coming and going that occurs when closed domestic families expand, all
contribute to enriching the moral world as well as enhancing the expressive
capacities of language. Given his special interest in politics as well as morals,
Rousseau is concerned to identify and define the moment of the institutional
ising of the feeling of solidarity. He concentrates his attention on the phase of
transition from barbarous societies to civil ones, when natural signs and
gestures are replaced by institutionalised signs. The latter, being articulated,
require practice and volition on the part of their creators and users. For
Rousseau, interjections and onomatopoeias are sounds and not voices: they are
passive registerings and as such do not presuppose the intervention of will,
which is what characterises human acts of speech. Rather, "the first voices of
the heart" are the primitive musical and melodic languages. Rousseau is thus
careful to distinguish the emotional factors present in all human practices,
language included, from the expressive function proper to language itself. This
function is discharged better by phonic materials than by lexical or grammatical
forms. In the original language — that mythical realm where minds are
transparent — men would be able to communicate easily, but they would
convey instincts, not feelings: the limited articulation of language would reflect
the moral poverty of man. Human discourse, which is capable of moving hearts
with redoubled emotional intensity even in the absence of its object, is also
responsible for the generation of feelings (Rousseau 1990:62-63).
REFERENCES
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Cassirer, Ernst. 1923. Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. Erster Teil: Die Sprache.
Oxford: Bruno Cassirer (2nd ed. 1954).
. 1932. The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Ed. and transl, from German by
Peter Gay. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954 (2nd ed., 1989).
. 1944. An essay on Man. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
. [1941-1942]. Symbolism and Philosophy of Language. Ms., Yale University,
Beinecke Library, Box 51, folder 1023.
Crispini, Franco. 1982. Mentalismo e storia naturale nelVetà di Condillac. Napoli:
Morano.
D'Atri, Annabella. 1990. Cultura, creatività e regole. Fra Kant e Cassirer. Cosenza:
Bios.
. 1992. "Un 'carrier' del pensiero vichiano in USA: Ernst Cassirer". Bollettino
Filosofico (Cosenza). 10. 133-146
De Mauro, Tullio. 1969. "G. B. Vico: from Rhetoric to Linguistic Historicism". Taglia-
cozzo & White 1969. 279-296
Derrida, Jacques. 1967. "La linguistique de Rousseau". Revue Internationale de Philo
sophie XX/4. 443-462.
Di Cesare, Donatella. 1988. "Sul concetto di metafora in Giabattista Vico". Formigari &
Lo Piparo 1988. 213-224.
Dorfles, Gillo. 1969. "Myth and Metaphor in Vico and in Contemporary Aesthetics".
Tagliacozzo & White 1969. 577-590.
Droixhe, Daniel. 1988. "Rousseau e l'infanzia del linguaggio". Formigari & Lo Piparo
1988. 225-240.
Formigari, Lia. 1993. Signs, Science and Politics. Philosophies of language in Europe
1700-1830. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins (Revised and enlarged
version of L'esperienza e il segno. Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1990).
& Franco Lo Piparo. 1988. Prospettive di storia della linguistica. Roma: Editori
Riuniti.
Frankel, Margherita. 1983. "Vico and Rousseau through Derrida". New Vico Studies 1.
37-54.
Garin, Eugenio. 1971. "Vico e Rousseau". Rivista critica di storia della filosofía 26. 457-
459.
. 1972. "A proposito di Vico e Rousseau". Bollettino del Centro di studi vichiani 2
. 61-63 .
Gentile, Giulio. 1984. Introduzione in J.J. Rousseau, Saggio sull'origine délie lingue.
Napoli: Guida.
Jakobson, Roman. 1958. "Linguistics and poetics". Style in Language, ed . by Thomas A.
Sebeok. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press. 350-377 .
Karcevskij, Serge. 1941. "Introduction à l'étude de l'interjection". Cahiers F. de Saussure
1. 57-80.
Pagliaro, Antonino. 1961. "Lingua e poesia secondo Vico". Altri saggi di critica semantica.
Messina-Firenze: D'Anna. 386-444.
. 1971. "Giambattista Vico fra lingüistica e retorica". Giambattista Vico nel terzo
centenario della nascita, ed. by Pietro Piovani. Napoli. Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane.
Pennisi, Antonino. 1988a. " 'Calcolo' versus 'Ingenium' in Giambattista Vico: per una
filosofía politica della lingua". Formigari & Lo Piparo 1988. 191-211.
. 1988b. "Ingenium e patologie del linguaggio. Su alcune fonti della linguistica
vichiana". Nuovi Annali della Facoltà di Magistern delVUniversità di Messina 6.
667-704.
Pons, Alain. 1969. "Vico and French Thought". TagUacozzo & White 1969. 165-185.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1990. Essai sur l'origine des langues. Texte établi et présenté
par Jean Starobinski. Paris: Gallimard.
Rousseau, Nicolas. 1986. Connaissance et langage chez Condillac. Genève: Droz.
Salvucci, Roberto. 1982. Sviluppi della problematica del linguaggio nel XVIII secolo:
Condillac, Rousseau, Smith. Rimini: Maggioli.
Simone, Raffaele. 1987. "Le lingue come méthodes analytiques in Condillac". Il sogno di
Saussure. Bari: Laterza. 149-158.
Stankiewicz, Edward. 1964. "Problems of emotive language". Approaches to Semiotics,

ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok. The Hague: Mouton. 239-264.
Starobinski, Jean. 1971. La transparence et l'obstacle. Paris: Gallimard.
. 1990. Présentation. Rousseau 1990. 9-54.
Tagliacozzo, Giorgio & Hayden V. White (eds.) 1969. Giambattista Vico. An Interna
tional Symposium. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press.
Trabant, Jurgen. 1989. "Parlare scivendo: Deconstructive Remarks about Derrida's
Reading of Vico". New Vico Studies 7.43-58.
Verri, Antonio. 1978. "Vico e Rousseau filosofi del linguaggio". Vico e l'instaurazione
delle scienze, ed. by Antonio Verri. Lecce: Messapica Ed. 141-162.
Vico, Giambattista. 1744. Principii di Scienza Nuova, ed. by Fausto Nicolini. Milano-
Napoli: Ricciardi, 1953. (Reprint, Torino: Einaudi, 1976)
. 1982. Vico Selected Writings, ed. and transi, from Italian by Leon Pompa.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. (Containing an English translation of
Vico 1744)
SOMMARIO
Pariendo dalla tesi di Cassirer secondo la quale vi sarebbe una ispira-

zione vichiana delle teorie linguistiche di Rousseau, l'articolo si propone in
primo luogo di mettere in evidenza la ricchezza della posizione di Vico sul
tema delle interiezioni, sulla loro distinzione dalle onomatopee, e sul loro
molo, fondamentale nella genesi delle lingue. Questo tema è altrettanto
centrale nella teoría di Rousseau. Questi tuttavia confida meno di quanto non
faccia Vico nelle audaci ricostruzioni etimologiche. Pur considerando le
interiezioni, come le onomatopee, tipiche di un momento originario e tutto
naturale nell'evolversi delle lingue, Rousseau ne decreta la povertà espressiva
in una progredita fase di diffusione delle lingue e di più difficile comunica-
zione dei sentimenti.
Vico e Rousseau sono entrambi attenti ad una ricognizione analitica dei
materiali linguistici che contribuiscono al processo fondativo delle comunità
umane. Ma mentre in Vico c'è un richiamo alle radici filologiche, funzionale
a un progetto di pedagogia sociale, in Rousseau le origini sono proiettate in
uno spazio e tempo mitici, come ideale di un'assoluta trasparenza comunica
tiva.
RESUME
En prenant pour point de départ la thèse de Cassirer selon laquelle Vico

aurait représenté une des sources d'inspiration de Rousseau pour l'élabora
tion de ses théories linguistiques,!'article se propose en premier lieu de mettre
en relief la richesse de la position du philosophe napolitain sur le thème des
interjections, sur leur distinction par rapport aux onomatopées, et sur leur rôle
fondamental dans la genèse des langues. Ce thème est lui aussi central dans la
théorie proposée par Rousseau, mais celui-ci recourt beaucoup moins que ne
le fait Vico aux reconstructions éthymologiques audacieuses. Même s'il
considère les interjections, tout comme les onomatopées, comme typiques des
premiers moments de l'évolution naturelle des langues, Rousseau en décrète
cependant la pauvreté expressive dans le cadre d'une phase plus avancée de la
diffusion des langues liée à une communication plus difficile des sentiments.
Vico et Rousseau accordent tous les deux une attention particulière au
repérage analytique des matériaux linguistiques qui contribuent au processus
de fondation des communautés humaines. Mais tandis que Vico fait appel aux
racines philologiques et fonctionnelles selon un projet de pédagogie sociale,
Rousseau projette ces origines dans un espace-temps mythique qui représente
pour lui un idéal d'absolue transparence communicative.
The French Sources
of Leopardi's linguistics
Claudia Stancati
0. Giacomo Leopardi's "rationally founded and demonstrated scepticism"

(ZIB:1653) draws its nourishment from still-vital elements of Enlightenment
thought. This can be seen, for example, if we explore Leopardi's connection
with Holbach (cf. Stancati 1979). But it is true in a more general way of his
relationship with other French Enlightenment thinkers, also with regard to the
question of a national language, the "questione della lingua", which is an
important aspect of Leopardi's political and cultural project. As Lo Piparo
(1982) and Gensini (1984) have shown, Leopardi's materialist anthropology,
based on the discovery of the "adaptive" nature of man, is tightly linked to his
linguistic theory, which posits close, reciprocal relations between society,
language and culture.
1. Leopardi' s use of his sources
It is very hard to identify the sources of Leopardi's linguistics owing to his

extraordinary ability to make highly significant contributions of his own to
cultural issues, even when he took his cue from second-hand quotations
encountered, perhaps, in minor authors (Gensini 1984:26). To be able to say
anything definitive about the sources of Leopardi's linguistics, in fact, we
would need to "make a thoroughgoing investigation of the materials stowed
away in Leopardi's library" (Ibid.:29): for example, in order to trace the
origins of Leopardi's remarks on Sanskrit or Chinese (cf. ZIB:929, 942, 950,
978, 982).
130 Claudia Stancati
As regards his intuitive grasp of the cultural issues of his day and his
ability to make his own syntheses of these, Leopardi himself writes:
Never having read metaphysical writers and being engaged in studies of
quite a different nature, having learnt nothing of these matters in the schools
(which I have never attended), I had already awoken to the falsity of innate
ideas, guessed at the optimism of Leibniz, and discovered the principle that
the progress of knowledge consists entirely in conceiving that one idea
contains another, which is the summa of the whole of the new ideological
science. (ZIB:1347)
His claim never to have read metaphysical writers should of course be

taken with a pinch of salt, since we know that Leopardi was a voracious
reader — one engaged, moreover, in developing what he himself explicitly
referred to as "his philosophical system" (ZIB:946-950, 1089-1090).
Although the only available catalogue of Leopardi's library is an old and
incomplete one (CAT. 1899), we know that he had at his disposal texts of all
kinds, including many of the most challenging works of Enlightenment
culture, such as the Lettre de Trasybule à Leucippe or the Examen critique des
apologistes de la religion chrétienne attributed to Fréret, or Holbach's Bon
sens. There also exists a record of the poet's reading from 1823 to 1830 (cf.
Binni, in Leopardi 1969:1. 373 ff.) in which the names of some of the authors
I shall later be mentioning appear, as well as numerous Italian works specifi
cally concerning the "questione della lingua" (Lollio, Salvini, Buonmattei).
Since the connection between Leopardi and the Idéologues has been fully
explored by Gensini and since the poet's references to Constant, Chateaubriand
and Madame de Staël are explicit and direct, I will dwell here only on the
relationship between Leopardi and a number of exponents of the Enlighten
ment (Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and D'Alembert) with a view
to adding a little to the observations already made by Lo Pipara and Gensini.
2. Diderot and D'Alembert
Diderot is mentioned directly in the Zibaldone only as co-author of the

Encyclopédie (ZIB:4299). We can perhaps detect an echo of Diderot in
Leopardi's comparison between a baby and a dumb person (ZIB:1924, 2960):
like a dumb person, a baby has the disposition for but not the faculty of
speech. What Leopardi certainly did not share with Diderot was his view of
the superiority of the French language: the poet's rejection of this view is one
of the central issues in his linguistic enquiries.
Leopardi's links with D'Alembert are much easier to demonstrate since,
in the above-mentioned list of works read, we find not only the latter's
Discours préliminaire, but also his Observations surl'art di traduire and Sur
l' harmonie des langues. These are listed between 1827 and 1829 and cited in
notes dated May 1829. However, the list of readings and the citations in the
Zibaldone do not always coincide chronologically (for example, in the case of
the Essai sur les éloges de Thomas which is listed as having been read in 1824
but is mentioned as early as August 1820).
D'Alembert's observations on the difficulty of translating are picked up
more than once in the Zibaldone, as is his opinion that Italian is more suitable
for translation thanks to its flexibility and that French is less easily translated
because of the severity of its rules and the uniformity of its construction. Each
language, in any case, D'Alembert concludes, has its particular "genius", a
view which Leopardi certainly shares.
It is impossible here to cite all the passages in which Leopardi discusses
the harmony of languages and the connection between modern European
languages and Latin and Greek. But there is no doubt that he agrees with some
of D'Alembert's remarks on the impossibility of reconstructing the sounds of
dead languages, whose true pronunciation is lost to us. In fact, Leopardi
stresses that, as far as Latin is concerned, the most authentic pronunciation is
more likely to be found in popular writings and verses than in learned works
(ZIB:3344).
3. Oher authors of the Encyclopédie
It is certainly possible to find connections between Leopardi the linguist and the
Encyclopédie if we bear in mind that the work of linguistics most often cited in
the Zibaldone (no fewer than 17 times) is the Encyclopédie méthodique of
Nicolas Beauzée who succeeded Dumarsais as author of the grammatical
articles of the Encyclopédie and wrote, among other things, the article on
Langue itself.
Leopardi did not of course share the linguistic rationalism of Beauzée
and the other contributors to the Encyclopédie. But when he writes that
"usage is acknowledged as the sovereign lord of speech" (ZIB:1263), he is
virtually translating the passage in Langue where Beauzée writes: "Tout est
usage dans les langues [...] l'usage n'est donc pas le tyran des langues, il en
est le législateur naturel", since "l'idée de tyrannie emporte chez nous celle
d'une usurpation injuste".
In the same article we find another observation which was to be picked
up by Leopardi, namely that the old vernaculars are closer to Latin and Greek,
and derive from these. Beauzée also incidentally criticises Rousseau for
getting entangled in insoluble contradictions with regard to the connection
between sociality, needs, and the origin of language. The circularity of
Rousseau's approach is pointed out by Leopardi too:
We can thus apply to the alphabet what Rousseau said when he confessed
that, in examining language and endeavouring to explain its invention, he
was greatly embarrassed, since it did not seem possible for a language to be
formed before a society had come to perfection, or for an almost perfect
society to exist before it possessed a ready-formed and mature language.
(ZIB:2957)
We might add here that another thread links Leopardi with Beauzée and the
encyclopedists, namely Girard's work on synonyms frequently cited in the
Encyclopédie and explicitly mentioned by Leopardi (ZIB:367, 978, 994).
There is more than one resemblance between some of Leopardi's jottings
and Turgot' s article Etymologic Leopardi, in fact, used etymological analyses
as a kind of proving-ground for his ideas on language and proclaimed himself
"a philologist enlightened by philosophy" (ZIB:1205), for whom etymology
was one of the main tools of the archaeology of language. Leopardi thus might
be seen as agreeing with the article Dictionnaire of the Encyclopédie where he
would be able to read that the earliest words are the "philosophical roots" of a
language.
4. Voltaire
In the Zibaldone there are three direct mentions of Voltaire on language,

together with an indirect one via a passage from Vincenzo Monti's Proposta
di correzioni e aggiunte al vocabolario della crusca. The earliest is dated 17
June 1821 when Leopardi, discussing Chinese language and culture, cites
Voltaire in order to stress the difference between words that "fall within the
language of conversation", and "technical words" which he calls terms,
whose meaning is much more precise and definite (ZIB:1180). In another
note Leopardi mentions a letter from Voltaire to Frederick II in order to turn

upside down Voltaire's view that Latin is a much apter language than French
for details and precision. For Leopardi French is a supremely "unnatural"
language and hence extremely rich in minute terminology (ZIB:3633). There
is also a brief note dated March 1824 in which Leopardi makes a reference to
Voltaire on the universality of the French language (ZIB:4050).
5. Montesquieu
Montesquieu is an important presence in the jottings that form the Zibaldone:

he is cited with great frequency and on a variety of topics. It is worth recalling
that the idea of investigating human phenomena as products of a web of
relationships first appears in Enlightenment culture in the Esprit des lois and
in the early writings of Montesquieu, with which Leopardi was certainly
familiar. In one respect, Leopardi's linguistics may thus be seen as an enquiry
into the relationship between languages and "the constitution, customs, cli
mate, religion, commerce etc." as the frontispiece of the Esprit des lois has it;
an account of the connections between Leopardi and Montesquieu would also
be useful for reconstructing Leopardi's political ideas.
In the Zibaldone Leopardi talks about the relations of necessity that
govern the human world: "man will never be happy till he knows himself and
the necessary relations that bind him to other beings" (ZIB:379). He had
already noted earlier, citing Montesquieu's work on the Romans, that "the
human world has become like the natural world; we need to study events as
we study phenomena" (ZIB:119). It is hardly surprising, then, that when he
mentions Madame de Staël (no doubt still with Montesquieu in mind), he sets
up a new relationship between languages and climates (ZIB:200, 3247), a
subject here turns to when he mentions "the infinite number of causes" which
give rise to the diversity of languages.
Re-reading the Pensées of Montesquieu devoted to language, we come
across a number of topics that will later turn up in Leopardi. For example, the
antiquity of Hebrew, the prosodic differences between the various languages,
the difficulty of accepting a foreigner's pronunciation of our own language;
or again, a parallel drawn between Latin and French, a remark on the
difficulty of translation, an attack on the academies for attempting to impose
norms on languages (cf. Montesquieu, Pensées, in  11:1213 ff.). Moreover,
the systematic parallel drawn by Montesquieu between five modern Ian-
guages (French, English, Italian, German and Spanish), with the inclusion of
Greek and Latin, seems to foreshadow Leopardi's project for a "parallelo
delle 5 lingue". Similarly, Montesquieu's brief notes on the origin of writing
foreshadow Leopardi's observations on this topic and mention among other
things the legend of the Phoenician origin of the alphabet.
6. Rousseau
The relationship between Leopardi and Rousseau is a vast, controversial and

complex matter. Leopardi seems to echo Rousseau continually when he deals
with subjects like the relationship between nature and reason, barbarity and
civilisation, individual and community, and their contradictions (see for
instance ZIB:873-877).
I have already remarked that Leopardi was aware of the circularity of
Rousseau's approach to the problem of the origin of language in the Discours
sur l' origine de l' inégalité, but we do not know whether he also knew the
Essai sur l' origine des langues directly. This work of Rousseau's is men
tioned only once in the Zibaldone (ZIB:2086) and then only at second-hand,
via Madame de Staël's De l'Allemagne, where the work from which the idea
is derived is not mentioned explicitly. The passage in question draws a
distinction between the "langues du Nord" and the "langues du Midi": the
former are seen as the daughters of necessity and the latter the daughters of
joy. This contrast between North and South corresponds to that between the
ancients and the moderns in Leopardi's notes on language (as a comparison
with, for example, ZIB:932 and 1026 shows).
For Leopardi as for Rousseau, language "is the most essential feature of
man, who is distinguished from animals by the organs of speech" (ZIB:1021);
"la parole distingue l'homme entre les animaux: le langage distingue les
nations entre elles" (Rousseau [1781] 1990:59). "La langue de convention
n'appartient qu'à l'homme", writes Rousseau. Leopardi maintains that "the
faculty of speech comes from nature but the difference of sounds comes from
the force of habit", and that "speech is an art learned by men. The variety of
languages is proof of this. Gesture is a natural thing taught by nature"
(ZIB:65, 51, 141).
As regards the relationship between human and animal language Leopardi
may owe something to Lamettrie's L'Homme machine, where he would read
The French Sources of Leopardïs Linguistics 135
that the capacities of man and animals are the same but that man possesses many
more signs and, above all, arbitrary signs. (We might recall here that Leopardi
in his youth wrote a Dissertazione sopra l'anima dette bestie).
Another subject which Leopardi and Rousseau have in common is music;
it is discussed in the second part of the Essai sur l'origine des langues and
Leopardi touches on it on various occasions in the Zibaldone (ZIB:154, 178).
It is worth noting in this context that Maupertuis, for example, considered
music a kind of universal language like arithmetic. There are no traces of
direct or indirect citations of Maupertuis by Leopardi, but a reading of La
dissertation sur les différens moyens dont les hommes se sont servis pour
exprimer leurs idées shows that they have a number of points in common,
especially as regards the origin of the alphabet.
To return to Leopardi and Rousseau: each of them holds that languages
lose their naturalness as they acquire greater clarity and precision, and that the
earliest names are those designating objects (Rousseau [1781] 1990:73; ZIB:
1356, 1202, 1448, 1388, 1205, 2383).
One difference needs to be recorded here, namely their concepts of
synonyms. According to Leopardi primitive languages do not possess syn
onyms, whereas according to Rousseau they are rich in these. Both however
believe that in ancient languages vowels predominated over consonants.
It could of course be argued that these topics are not peculiar to Rousseau,
since they appear in most of the literature of the 18th century on the problem
of the origin of languages. Yet, like both Rousseau and Vico, Leopardi
highlights the imaginative function of language (see for example his rejection
of languages that are too geometrical), even though he by no means underes
timates language's logical, rational aspects.
7. Leopardi and the origin of the alphabet
Leopardi is less attracted by such typical 18th-century issues as the invention

of language, the original tongue, and the quest for a new universal language
(ZIB:3254, 4374). What seems to interest him more, on the other hand, is the
origin of the alphabet. The transition from a spoken to a written language
seems extremely important to him, since it is through the alphabet — and the
invention of numbers — that we move from the phonetic to the semantic
plane, in other words from the oral expression of primordial feelings and
needs to the representation and communication of abstract, complex ideas.

The more the alphabet is restricted and "stylised", the further it moves from
hieroglyphic and ideographic scripts, which are related to objects and not
ideas, the more the powers of a language are enhanced and multiplied.
If conventionality is what characterises human language, the main me
dium of this convention is writing. It is at the point of transition from spoken
language to written language that an authentic semantic revolution takes
place: the transition from sound to writing. "Sound and structure are indepen
dent, so that it is possible to imagine two languages whose words have a
common etymology but which are nonetheless very different tongues",
Leopardi writes (ZIB:965). "An infinity of results and combinations derives
from the use of elements in writing and arithmetic" (ZIB:808). It is a sort of
chemical combination: just as nature, drawing on a large though limited
number of elements, mixes an infinite series of compounds, so language is
able, through the graphic representation made possible by the alphabet, to
make infinite use of finite means. What fascinates Leopardi is the transition to
this second phase of language, and his wonder at the invention of the alphabet
is expressed on various occasions, with possible echoes of Polybius: "a most
abstruse and admirable invention if we reflect a moment on it, one which men
have had to do without, not out of chance but out of necessity, for centuries
upon centuries" (ZIB:940). This "miracle of the human spirit" was born of
chance and, according to Leopardi, was the product of the genius of a single
person, subsequently spreading throughout the world. In fact, peoples that
"have had no commerce with any other literate nation have not had or do not
have an alphabet" (ZIB:2620).
In a long passage dated 4 June 1823 Leopardi (ZIB:2948, 2960) returns
to the idea that all alphabets derive from a single, Phoenician original ("I say
that all or nearly all derive from a single one"), illustrating how some letters
may have been introduced into our alphabet even if they were absent from
Phoenician, Hebrew, other ancient oriental, and Latin alphabets. The "admi
rable thought" that gave rise to the alphabet consisted in
applying the signs of writing to the sounds of words, instead of applying
them to things or ideas as was done in primitive writing and hieroglyphics
and by the Mexicans in their picture-writing, and as is done by savages and
the Chinese.
In ascribing the invention of the alphabet to the Phoenicians Leopardi is

repeating an ancient legend which he may of course have come across in
The French Sources of Leopardïs Linguistics 137
Lucan's Pharsalia or in Hobbes, but which is also mentioned in the articles

"Ecriture" and "Encyclopédie" of the Encyclopédie, and by Warburton and
Condillac, as well as by Rousseau in his Essai sur l'origine des langues.
Leopardi may also have found in these texts the idea of an evolution from a
pictorial to an ideographic to a linear alphabet. In another passage Leopardi
writes
Since man can only think by speaking, it is through the medium of language
that ideas are attached to words [...] the alphabet is the language with which
we conceive sounds and break down language into its simple elements until
we are able to reassemble ideas by means of the elements of sound.
(ZIB:2949ff.)
Those who do not know the alphabet — children or the illiterate — cannot
master those procedures of thought consisting in the analysis of elements into
simpler ones and the synthesis of elements into more complex ones. The
alphabet gives words wings and enables language to achieve that lightness
which makes the understanding of the world accessible to man.
Leopardi returns to the invention of the alphabet — so essential for the
"denaturalising" of man — in a comment dated 8 December 1823 referring to
Algarotti's Saggio sugli Incas, which he had read that year (ZIB:3958). To
Leopardi, the refined civilisations of the Incas and of China represent a
typical example of how the lack of a linear alphabet can cripple a civilisation
and culture, giving rise to a rift between the cultivated classes and the people
(ZIB:942). A very similar thesis is expounded in Condorcet's Esquisse. These
observations also appear in a long note dated October 1823, which begins
with the story of the invention of fire, continues with the invention of
navigation and language, and ends with the invention of writing. In the same
passage Leopardi refers to the idea that there was a single, original human
language, citing as evidence the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, as does
Beauzée in his article "Langue" (ZIB:3669).
Leopardi also remarks on the lack of graphic representation of vowels in
ancient oriental alphabets, in s pite of the fact that vowels are widely used in
the spoken languages. He notes that "the subtlety and spirituality" of these
sounds defy the still rather limited and crude analytical capacities of these
alphabets (ZIB:2402).
In discussing the origins of the great enterprise of language, Leopardi
claims that we can uncover the ancient roots of languages by employing "the
discernment and subtlety of the philosopher, and the vast erudition and skill of
the philologist, archaeologist and polyglot" (ZIB:1263).
Leopardi frequently dwells on the "prodigious and most difficult [art] of

writing" and on the changes that the use of a single alphabet brought about in
the infinite variety of languages which had already developed, in however
rough and ready a form. For writing, after a long process of refinement,
succeeds in exalting the creative capacities of a language, encoding its sound,
making conventions possible — conventions that can be shared by an ever
growing number of men.
In a passage dated 22 June 1821 Leopardi writes:
Words in themselves are mere sounds, yet, like languages as a whole, they
are signs of ideas; they are able to signify these because men by mutual
consent apply them to particular ideas, and recognise themas signs of these.
In a fairly developed society the principal medium of this human conven
tion is writing. Languages that entirely lack or are deficient in this medium
[...] remain either completely impotent, or extremely impoverished and
weak [...]. All these things are impossible without writing because there is
no medium for a universal convention, and without this a language is not a
language but mere sound. The living voice of each person does not carry far
and carries to few others. (ZIB:1202 ff.)
We may say, then, that convention rather than analyticalness is the key
concept of the philosophy of language for Leopardi.
8. Conclusions
The dream of a general grammar that constitutes a universal logic, the idea of
anew single, universal and natural language, the quest for the origin of
language or the zero degree of the word — all these are alien to Leopardi in
spite of the fact that his culture is deeply rooted in Enlightenment thought.
Radically materialist and sensationalist, Leopardi shares above all with En
lightenment thought a descriptive, non-evaluative stance and a comparative
approach to languages and cultures, while implicitly acknowledging the
superiority of the ancients. Echoes of all the most important 18th-century
investigations of language can be found in his works. What Leopardi lacks is
the Enlightenment's idea of nature as the source of intelligibility, order,
goodness, and universal, absolute values. Rather, he perceives nature as a
tangle of insoluble contradictions which reason struggles to reduce to unifor
mity, but which cannot be resolved by new, consolatory mythologies. Such
mythologies seem to him to be an attempt to reintroduce innate ideas, which
have been overthrown "by Locke and by modern ideology" (ZIB:1616). This
attitude of Leopardi's is confirmed in the opinions he frequently expresses
about the idea of natural law as universal law, or about the French Revolution
(ZIB:312, 160, 358, 725, 1180).
REFERENCES
Alembert, Jean le Rond (dit d'). [1753] 1967. Observations sur l'art de traduire. In
Oeuvres. IV. 31-42.
. [1753] 1967a. Sur l'harmonie des langues. In Oeuvres IV. 11 - 27.
. 1967b. Oeuvres. 5 vols. Genève: Slatkine.
CAT. 1899 = Catalogo delia Biblioteca Leopardi in Recanati, ed. by E. De Paoli. In
Memorie delia Deputazione di Storia Patria per la provincia delie Marche. Roma.
De Stael, Germaine. [1813]. 1968. De l'Allemagne. Paris: Garnier.
Diderot, Denis. 1751-1780. Encyclopédie. 35 vols. Paris: Briasson.
Gensini, Stefano. 1984. Linguistica leopardiana, Bologna: Il Mulino.
La Mettrie, Julian Offray de. [1747]. 1960. In La Mettrie's L'Homme machine. A Study in
the origins of an idea, ed. by A. Vartanian, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Leopardi, Giacomo. [1817-1832]. Zibaldone. In Opere III-IV.
. [1823-1830]. Memorie e disegni letterari. Elenco di letture. In Tutte le opere I.
367-377.
. 1937. Opere, ed. by F. Flora. 5 vols. Milano: Mondadori.
. 1969. Tutte le opere, 2 vols., ed. by W. Binni e F. Ghidetti, Firenze: Sansoni.
Lo Piparo, Franco. 1982. "Materialisme et linguistique chez Leopardi". Historiographia
Linguistica IX. 3. 361-387.
Maupertuis, Pierre Moreau de. 1768. Dissertation sur les differens moyens dont le
hommes se sont servis pour exprimer leurs idees. In Oeuvres III. 437-478.
. Oeuvres. Lyon: Bruyset.
Montesquieu, Charles Louis Secondat baron de la Brède de. [1796] 1949. Les pensées. In
Oeuvres complètes I. 973-1574.
. Oeuvres complètes, ed. by R. Callois. 2 vols. Paris: Gallimard.
Monti, Vincenzo. 1817-26. Proposta di alcune aggiunte e correzioni al Vocabolario délia
Crusca. 4 vols. Milano: Imperiale Stamperia Regia.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques. [51781].1990. Essai sur l'origine des langues, ed. by J. Starobinski.
Paris: Garnier.
Stancati, Claudia. 1979. "Lettura di d'Holbach in Italia nel XIX secólo". Giornale critico
delia filosofía italiana LVIII. 279-285.
Voltaire, F.-M. Arouet de. 1877-1883. Oeuvres complètes. 52 vols. Paris: Garnier.
SOMMARIO
L'articolo si propone di individuare le fonti francesi delle osservazioni seritte

da Leopardi tra il 1817 e il 1832 e raccolte col titolo di Zibaldone. In
particolare è possibile individuare la presenza delle teorie linguistiche di
Diderot, D'Alembert, Voltaire, Rousseau e Montesquieu, autori che Leopardi
aveva studiato e che cita spesso direttamente.
Un confronto, in particolare, con alcuni articoli dell'Encyclopédie (Lin
gua, Linguaggio, Dizionario, Scrittura, Etimologia, ecc.) permette di consta
tare come certe acquisizioni delia linguistica illuminista siano state utilizzate da
Leopardi al di fuori di ogni mitologia delia ragione universale e del progresso
inarrestabile.
RESUME
Cet article se propose de rechercher les sources françaises des observations

écrites par Leopardi entre 1817 et 1832 et recueillies sous le titre de Zibal
done. On y reconnaît en particulier la présence des théories linguistiques de
Diderot, D'Alembert, Voltaire, Rousseau et Montesquieu, des auteurs que
Leopardi avait étudiés et qu'il cite souvent directement.
Le rapprochement avec quelques articles de l'Encyclopédie (Langue,
Langage, Dictionnaire, Ecriture, Etymologie, etc.) permet de constater que
certaines acquisitions de la linguistique des Lumières ont été utilisées par
Leopardi bien qu'il se situe à l'écart de toute mythologie de la raison univer
selle et du progrès ininterrompu.
Intellectual History, History of Ideas,
History of Linguistic Ideas
The case of Condillac
Franco Crispini
0. In this paper I would like to look at the proper object of the history of
ideas and at how this kind of history is linked with intellectual or cultural
history; I also want to ask what part ideas of language play in the various
branches of historical research, and how the meaning of these ideas changes
with changing historical and theoretical outlooks.
In 1980 Lia Formigari, concluding her account of the fertile interaction
between the history of ideas and the philosophy of language, suggested that
the history of 17th- and 18th-century thought was a field worthy of further
exploration: these centuries are not only a treasure-house of concepts — they
remain a rich source of theoretical suggestions and empirical data concerning
the sciences of language which continue to prove useful to this day. It is
implicit in Formigari's account that a profitable approach to the history of
linguistic ideas requires a specific investigation of individual manifestations
of intellectual and social life rather than a schematic, over-comprehensive
representation of these ideas.
Language, as a specific form of knowledge that accompanies all other
forms of learning, is particularly affected by the connection between its
internal history and external history, by its relation to praxis, to social and
civil history. Language is itself a practice that more or less consciously
incorporates a theory. For this reason, of all the objects of historical inquiry it
is the one that lends itself best to the toilsome but profitable labour of research
into the way different theories or parts of theories, practical necessities, and
intellectual needs have influenced each other.
142 Franco Crispini
This is how, more recently, Formigari has defined the ideal model of
linguistic historiography:
It is a model in which diachronic analysis (a technique typical of all
histories of ideas and as such used to describe the genealogy of ideas
themselves, their relations of continuity, discontinuity, and identity) must
continually be assisted by the synchronic analysis of the connections which,
in each single case, link the various theoretical problems of language to the
problems of social communication. (Formigari 1988:5)
Thus history of ideas should not be taken as a homogeneous area, but

rather as a field of countless interrelations — a space in which the intersection
of ideas, their transversality, continually challenges the cultural and intellec
tual framework of the inquiry. This is just the kind of history of ideas which
turns out to be most fertile for the study of the history of linguistic ideas as a
chapter in an anthropology uniting the data supplied by the various sciences in
a coherent framework. Theoretical approaches that isolate problems from
their historical dimension have difficulty in drawing on the cultural aware
ness of man and thus deprive themselves of an essential yardstick for under
standing the function of language in the investigation of the presence of man
in the world. Such is the case with philosophies of mind like those of Douglas
R. Hofstadter and Daniel  Dennett (1981), or of Gerald Edelmann (1991)
who extends the theory of the selection of neuron groups to the formation of
concepts, language, and consciousness. Unlike studies such as Bruner's (see
Bruner 1956) of the strategies and categories of thought in relation to lan
guage, these investigations depart from the paths of the history of linguistic
ideas and from the type of comprehension of human reality that it makes
possible; they sever the link with cultural and intellectual history.
What I have said so far is meant as a further invitation to recognise the
theoretical interest of Condillac's model for us today. Of course, many
commentators acknowledge the lasting importance of this author. This does
not mean that we have to accept all his specific theoretical proposals but that
we need to retrieve the multi-dimensionality of his approach to the origin,
function and forms of language. This is the most cogent and fertile heritage
which Condillac and his century have left to us. Language, as knowledge, as
an institution, and as a system of arbitrary signs, covers an area that is co
extensive with that of the history and culture of a community. Language is not
just an inventory or a nomenclature; nor is it a mere habit or a mould. Rather
it is the correlate of the ideas, of the "genius", of those who speak it.
The Case of Condillac 143
The multi-dimensionality of Condillac's approach seems to me to be

capable of responding both to epistemological questions and to those raised
by cultural anthropology. It is more of a theoretical-anthropological outlook
than a general,comprehensive philosophical one. But if it is not an overall
theory, it is not a mere collection of crude empirical data either. That is why
Condillac's thinking stands out even during his own century, and continues to
be of major importance in the history of linguistic ideas: suffice to recall his
idea of grammar and the art of speech as the foundation of the individual's
learning and formation.
As in the past, the theory of language today must take up a frontier
position: it must be alert to research in fields like that of the philosophy of
mind, of cognitive sciences, of biology and neurology, but also to research in
the history of ideas if it is not to run the risk of continually starting from
scratch.
Given the revival of interest in Condillac, it behoves us to clarify the
methodological justifications for re-opening a discussion of the topics that
engaged him.
1. Condillac's system has been considered contradictory in that it wavers

between a demand for analysis and schematic reconstruction on the one hand,
and for historical-genetic reconstruction on the other. However, in the current
philosophical and intellectual climate it is easier for us to see his system as an
attempt to bring together these two contrasting needs.
At a time when philosophers of language are engaged with the issue of
where to draw the line between the natural and the arbitrary, and how these
domains influence each other, from a historian's standpoint Condillac's ap
proach seems able to account for the complexity of the phenomena to be
investigated without schematising and over-simplifying. In the heyday of
structuralism, the "historiographical transcendentalism" of M. Foucault (1966)
placed Condillac and his "langue des calculs" inside the classical episteme, in
a pre-history of modern ratio. Classical rationality comprises such features as
the rejection of immediacy, a general science of order and serialisation, and the
transparency of language. Foucault does not consider the special relationship
of 17th- and 18th-century thinkers with mathesis as an extension of the
algebraic-mathematical method to all branches of learning but as a generalisa
tion of the method of analysis, which employs the sign-system as its tool: the
144 Franco Crispini
theory of knowledge becomes both a doctrine of signs and a definition of the

analytical power of thought. For Condillac men would never have been able to
reflect on metaphysics and morals if they had not invented signs, which were
necessary for fixing their ideas as they gradually formed new collections of
notions. Thus, words are to the ideas of all the sciences what figures are to the
ideas of arithmetic (Condillac 1746:132).
In this framework the problem of the connection with things crops up
again, though in an ambiguous shape: once the world of the mind (conceived
as a network of signs) has been rendered independent of the chaotic substra
tum of representation, Condillac's attempt to supply a genetic explanation of
branches of knowledge stops at the inner boundary of the system of ordered
representations.
If we follow Foucault we have to admit that, even if Condillac made
representation the sole object of philosophy and scientific theory, he went on
to search for the origin of knowledge by using the fiction of a subject which
finds itself the theatre of transformations not determined by all its intellectual
and physical structures. (For a more detailed discussion of Foucault's inter
pretation, see Crispini 1982.)
Actually, in his Essai sur l'origine des connoissances humaines (1746),
Condillac has two aims: on the one hand, he wants to emulate the accuracy of
geometricians who fix the sense of expressions precisely and invariably; on
the other, he wants to go back to the genesis of ideas. He wants to "montrer
sensiblement" the source and the materials of our knowledge as well as the
principle that sets these materials to work. What tools does knowledge
necessitate in men and how must they be used? (Condillac 1746:5).
For Condillac, these materials are set to work in the workshop of reflec
tion, a vortex of actions and movements; this setting to work is an activity that
produces ordered configurations, modifications of the identical, and which
has signs at its command', memory has access to its materials thanks only to
signs, those arbitrary signs "that we ourselves have chosen". Only in so far as
it is the function of an arbitrary activity can rationality comprehend the
uninterrupted flood of images and impressions. Thus submission to the insti
tutionalised order of languages, be they those of words or those of calcula
tions, is the prerequisite for the constitution of scientific rationality.
Of the original workshop, the site of what is inchoately pre-semiological,
little seems to be left. A man who had only accidental and natural signs
available would have no sign at his command. He would also be bereft of
memory because his needs could only stimulate the activity of the imagina
tion (Condillac 1946:58).
Thus, in order to establish itself, reason needs clarity, evidence and
precision, which can be provided only by arbitrary signs. In La langue des
calculs (1780) Condillac reaffirms his belief in the reciprocal relation be
tween language and analytical method.
But Condillac's theoretical analysis does not stop here. If the use of every
word presupposes a convention, this convention rests upon an analogy which
limits its arbitrariness. A completely arbitrary language in which the choice of
words and their various meanings is not determined by analogy would be a
jargon unfit for reasoning or inventing (Condillac 1780:180). From the earli
est expressions of the "language of action" other expressions are created by
analogy: inventing is neither more nor less than seeing the unknown in the
known. A good method is "a telescope through which we see that which
escapes the naked eye" (Condillac 1780:164).
The simplest language is algebra, since it requires a minimal use of
memory. According to Condillac it is in fact much more difficult to speak about
things than to learn them; the only advantage mathematicians have is that of
knowing the simplest language, and hence the most exact one (Condillac
1780:297). Thus arbitrary signs, which Condillac does not want to distinguish
too sharply from natural ones, resemble an animating power of the mind which
at times sets up bonds with the bodily organisation, thanks to the power of
impressions that give rise to knowledge, and at other times abandons these
bonds in order to assert its free self-determination and its capacity to reason
mathematically. On the one hand signs are the means of mental operations, on
the other they are the ends of thought, which tends to turn itself into axioms so
as to be able to speak the best, clearest and most evident language.
In Condillac's system, then, the two moments of mathesis and genesis
coexist in forms that make it hard to interpret his thought in a linear fashion. It
is difficult, in fact, to read it at once as a sensationalist-psychologistic system
and as an analytical-algebraic semiotics. But it is precisely these difficulties
and complexities that make Condillac's ideas so relevant and vital in the
present-day theoretical climate.
2. What the philosophies of Kant and Condillac — "the two great philosophies
of the 18th century" (Auroux 1985:73) — have in common is their recognition
that scientific knowledge is limited by the human faculty for knowledge. But
146 Franco Crispini
Sylvain Auroux, comparing Condillac with Kant, has rightly stressed that there
are two significant differences between their systems, namely in their concep
tion of science and in the role they assign to mathematics. Unlike Kant, who
seeks the enabling conditions of necessary judgments in pure faculties,
Condillac is concerned to define knowledge in its completeness. For Kant the
model of necessary a priori knowledge is mathematics, whereas Condillac sees
mathematics as deriving from the faculty of language typical of man as a
corporeal being. As a result, in his system, mathematics becomes an epistemo-
logically subordinate discipline. Hovering in the background of Condillac's
philosophical undertaking, the image of an original sensation is always to be
found: a sensation which transforms and assembles itself to produce new ideas.
The logical-analytical systematising of the branches of learning and the
corresponding perfecting of languages of which Condillac dreamed encounter
obstacles in the empirical world, which in his century is seen as the place of
"natural history" and to which he pays constant attention.
Both Kant and Condillac have projects for constructing an anthropology,
but Condillac's historical-genetic model allows him to propose a more open
view of man which is not hampered by a framework of universal categories as
is Kant's model. This greater openness toward historicity in Condillac is
fostered by semiological analysis. Nicolas Rousseau has shown that mental-
ism and nominalism are reconciled in Condillac's work and that between
analysis and sign, analogy and identity, genesis and calculation, a circular
movement arises:
Condillac se distinguerait de ses contemporains par une analyse génétique
devenue à elle-même son propre objet, partie du langage pour se retrouver
dans le langage, de la science pour se découvrir scientifique, dessinant des
cercles concentriques. (Rousseau 1986:96)
Historical genesis and synchronic systématisation in Condillac are

grounded in a single law Whose object is "semiological thought":
D'après le niveau de développement où elles se situent, les idées verront
ainsi leur fonction de signes plus ou moins accentuée: infime dans les
premiers moments de la conscience, elle augmentera à proportion que le
langage d'action se transformera en instrument d'analyse [...]. (Rousseau
1986:76)
In Condillac, according to N. Rousseau, the interaction between thought and
language takes place without one hampering the other: just as language
conditions ideas but it is genetically produced by these, so ideas condition
language in that they supply a teleology for producing and perfecting it

(Rousseau 1986:404).
As can be seen from these brief references, Rousseau's lively and
complex image of Condillac makes a useful contribution to historiography
and to the reconstruction of this thinker's articulated philosophical theory of
language. In this fairly recent reading of Condillac what is again stressed is
the epistemological function of his appeal to origins, which releases the
productive potential of reason thanks to a mechanism "multiplicateur et
démultiplié".
3. Rousseau's interpretation, which is orientated above all towards the

philosophy of language, coincides with other recent readings in suggesting
that Condillac's originality lies in his theoretical-anthropological project.
Particularly interesting is the brief essay by Paganini (1992) which succeeds
in reconstructing Condillac's ethical views even though he never penned a
specifically moral work.
When discussing moral ideas in his Essai sur Vorigine des connoissances
humaines, Condillac follows Locke in stressing the archetypal nature of these
notions — notions born of a human artifice that collects ideas regardless of
what takes place in the empirical world. But he is particularly attentive to
ordinary language, where established usage fixes the meanings of signs (cf.
also Auroux 1985a), and, when he cautions us against abuse of language, he
makes reference to the original process through which ideas are formed.
In keeping with the naturalistic outlook that pervades his entire methodol
ogy, Condillac in fact holds that we must do a second time, consciously,
what nature initially makes us do unconsciously in our infancy. (Paganini
1992:655)
Ethics, like other branches of knowledge, is governed by a method which
constantly links ideas and signs, mind and language, and reconstructs the
stages in which they are generated from sensations and needs by analogy and
the association of ideas.
Condillac is at one with his contemporaries in playing the methodologi
cal game of abstract fictions: he develops the model of a statue-man to
represent the phase ín which all human knowledge originates. The statue is a
philosophical device for giving organic coherence to the complexity of an
thropological reality. For Condillac, the latter is characterised by sign-sys-
148 Franco Crispini
tems and language, which are what distinguish it from other natural domains.
Condillac's most fertile suggestion is thus the idea that language should be
our guide when we try to understand the world of human culture. Cutting
across all the fields of knowledge as it does, it is the object best suited for
bringing together a scientific method, a respect for the empirical world, and a
historical outlook.
REFERENCES
Auroux, Sylvain. 1985. "Condillac et Kant — sur la theorie de la science". Aufklärungen.

Frankreich und Deutschland im 18. Jahrhundert. Hrsg. von Gerhard Sauder und
Jochen Schlobach. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. I. 73-87.
. 1985a. "II linguaggio quotidiano come linguaggio della filosofia". Paradigmi 3.
7-17.
Burner, Jerome S. 1956. A Study of Thinking. New York, London & Sidney: John Wiley
and Sons Inc.
Condillac, Etienne de. 1746. Essai sur Vorigine des connoissances humaines. In Oeuvres
complètes I. Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1970.
. 1780. La langue des calculs. In Oeuvres complètes XV-XVI. Genève: Slatkine
Reprints, 1970.
Crispini, Franco. 1982. "Ratio classica e 'langue des calculs' in Condillac". Mentalismo e
storia naturale nell'età di Condillac. Napoli: Morano Editore. 45-68.
Edelman, Gerald M. 1989. The Remembered Present. A Biological theory of conscious
ness. New York: Basic Books Inc.
Formigari, Lia. 1980. "La linguistica". Immagini del Settecento in Italia. Bari: Laterza.
. 1988. "Filosofia linguistica, eloquenza civile, senso comune". Formigari 1988a.
61-79.
(ed.). 1988a. Teorie e pratiche linguistiche nell'Italia del Settecento. Bologna: II
Mulino
Foucault, Michel. 1966. Le mots et les choses. Paris: Gallimard.
Hofstadter, Douglas R. & Daniel C. Dennett. 1981. The Mind's I. Fantasies and Reflec
tions on Self and Soul. New York: Basic Books Inc.
Paganini, Gianni. 1992. "Un'etica per i lumi. Condillac dalla psicologia alla morale".
Rivista di storia della filosofia 4. 647-688.
Rousseau, Nicolas. 1986. Connaissance et langage chez Condillac. Genève: Librairie
Droz.
SOMMARIO
Chi negli studi di storia e linguaggio decide di ispirarsi a Condillac con ciò
sottolinea la multidimensionalità sia delle origini che delle funzioni del lin
guaggio. In tal modo la filosofía del linguaggio diviene modello epistemo
logico per una antropología generale, capace cioè di raggruppare i dati forniti
dalle discipline particolari.
Michel Foucault (1966) ha letto Condillac sullo sfondo dei due concetti
antitetici di "mathesis" e "genesi". Interpretazioni più recenti invece rico-
noscono maggiore complessità al sistema di Condillac in cui l'analisi del
linguaggio, grazie alla sua trasversalità, diviene guida alla comprensione
dell'universo culturale umano secondo un metodo che aspira a definirsi
scientifico.
RESUME
S'inspirer de Condillac dans l'étude de l'histoire et du langage c'est souligner

la pluralité dimensionnelle des origines comme des fonctions du langage. La
philosophie du langage devient ainsi un modèle épistémologique pour une
anthropologie générale, c'est à dire qui soit en mesure de rassembler les
données fournies par les différentes disciplines particulières.
Michel Foucault (1966) a lu Condillac sur la base des deux concepts
antithétiques de "mathesis" et "genesis". Certaines interprétations plus récen
tes reconnaissent au contraire une plus grande complexité au système de
Condillac dans lequel l'analyse du langage, grâce à sa transversalité, devient
un guide pour la compréhension de l'univers culturel humain selon une
méthode qui aspire à se définir comme scientifique.
The 'Imperfect' Language
Notes on Alessandro Manzoni's linguistic ideas
Stefano Gensini
University ofCagliari
0. In the Italian tradition of enquiries into language and languages,

Alessandro Manzoni displays an emblematic combination of 'national' and
'international' elements (cf. the distinction proposed by De Mauro 1988:xviii-
xix). Both at the level of abstract theorising and in the sphere of politico-
linguistic options, Manzoni always sets the Italian situation—which is his main
concern as writer, historian, and student of language — in a framework of
European co-ordinates. He takes France as the prototype of the modern national
State and uses it as a yardstick for assessing the contradictions typical of Italy,
namely its long-standing political disunity, its lack of a common tongue that is
both learned and popular, one written and spoken by all social classes. (De
Mauro [1963] 1983 has calculated that in Italy in 1861 only 2.5% of the
population was able to speak and write satisfactorily in Italian. The more
optimistic estimates made by Castellani 1982 suggest a proportion closer to 9-
11%, but do not invalidate the view that in the mid-19th century Italian was
"lingua straniera in patria" — a foreign tongue in its own country.) France also
provides Manzoni with a historical example of a possible solution to these
problems. The policy of linguistic Jacobinism, in particular the views of Henri
Grégoire (see Vecchio 1990), profoundly influenced Manzoni's idea of replac
ing the dialects with a single national language, namely that spoken by educated
Florentines. This in fact was the project he officially put forward in his famous
1868 report to the Minister of Education, Emilio Broglio.
If French language policy was a model for Manzoni, the same cannot be
said of the linguistic theory of the grand siècle. Various scholars (Palmieri
1961, Matarrese 1983, Vecchio 1988, Formigari 1990, Gensini 1992) have
drawn attention to the points at which the writer, especially in the various
152 Stefano Gensini
drafts of his treatise Delia lingua italiana (=DLI), departs both from the
rationalism of Beauzée and from the logicism of Destutt de Tracy, and
develops an acute awareness of the functional characteristics of languages
and dialects.
In this paper I shall thus try to investigate if and how Manzoni's theoreti
cal outlook is consistent with his politico-linguistic project, which from a
cultural standpoint is certainly much more rigid. The State, Manzoni says,
should declare an out-and-out "war on dialects", and the educational system
should be the site of this campaign.
Manzoni's proposals have continued to provoke critics to this day. Now
as then (see Marazzini 1976), they can be divided into 'pro-Manzonians' and
into sympathisers of the great linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli. In his Proemio
to the first number of the Archivio Glottologico Italiano (1873), Ascoli
opposed Manzoni's thesis on the basis of a different analysis of the Italian
socio-linguistic situation. He gave historical justifications for the existence of
so many and such diverse dialects in Italy, attributing the fact that Italian was
not a popular language to Italy's "lack of cultural density". From this diagno
sis Ascoli derived his view that linguistic unity could not be constructed with
the methods proposed by Manzoni. Rather than building on a drastic interven
tion by the State, it was necessary, he felt, to build upon the trend toward
unification that would gradually develop at the social and economic level.
Ascoli did not share Manzoni's view of the primacy of the Florentine idiom
but favoured a cautious policy of bilingualism in schools and in society
(Grassi 1975, Lo Piparo 1979). Anyone familiar with the linguistic history of
Italy over the last hundred years and with the serious language problems that
still afflict the educational system (and not only in Italy) knows that the debate
between Manzoni and Ascoli is anything but out-dated. To discuss some of
the latent conflicts in Manzoni's thought, as I shall do in this paper, may also
be a way of reasoning about how linguistic theory and linguistic policy can be
connected — a connection that needs urgently to be established if institutions
concerned with language and education in Italy and Europe are to develop
satisfactorily in the years to come.
In §§ 1-2.1 shall look at what Manzoni has to say about French rationalist
theories; in § 3.1 shall summarise his politico-linguistic theses and review the
critical debate concerning them; in § 4. I shall investigate the connections
between Manzoni's linguistic theory and his linguistic policy; in § 5. I will
draw some conclusions.
Manzoni's linguistic ideas 153
1. To approach the issue that concerns us here we need to bear in mind the
role that France played in Manzoni's intellectual development (see Gabbuti
1938; De Castris 1965; Trombatore 1972; Dardano 1987). Confining our
selves to linguistic matters, it will suffice here to recall his training as a
grammairien philosophe and a student of Francesco Soave; his great familiar
ity with the authors of the Encyclopédie, with sensationalist and 'ideological'
issues, acquired from his reading of Condillac, and his fréquentation of men
like Cabanis and Destutt de Tracy during his years in Paris; his profound
knowledge of the French language and French society. Manzoni had con
curred with the democratic ideals and linguistic policies of the revolutionary
period, owing his familiarity with these partly to his acquaintance with that
strategic figure, the abbé Henri Grégoire. This wide range of factors con
vinced Manzoni as early as 1820 that a correct relationship between language
and society in a modern nation should include the following conditions:
i) a unitary State in which the capital has a hegemonic function and
adopts a centralised cultural and linguistic policy. The latter, even if it does
not set out to destroy local idioms immediately, must nevertheless, as
Manzoni says on a number of occasions, "ferociously combat" their ambi
tions, and create conditions whereby they are gradually superseded;
ii) a pattern of shared linguistic behaviour based explicitly on a model,
and on close links between the spoken and the written language; this will
ensure that language participates in the impulse towards unity supplied by
civil society and the State.
Given these conditions, Usage1 will establish itself and take root histori
cally, permeating all the ramifications of society and supplying words ('voca-
boli') suitable for all the needs of communication. In so doing, it will render
local dialects increasingly marginal and possibly unserviceable, thereby creat
ing the premises for enhancing its own national and international prestige. The
uniformity of rules, registers and styles so typical of the French language is thus
seen by Manzoni as the enabling condition for cultural and political progress
(Schlieben-Lange 1987).
During his Parisian years and, later, during the period when he entered
the liberal milieu of the Conciliatore
, Manzoni meditated on the profound rift
separating Italy from such a model. He had no hesitation in denouncing the
effects of this situation on the relationship between writers and their readers
— a situation which prevented literature from fulfilling its social and educa
tional function (Caretti 1972, Isella 1984). The most interesting manifestation
154 Stefano Gensini
of Manzoni's views on this topic is found in a letter to Claude Fauriel dated 3

November 1821:
Imaginez-vous au lieu de cela un italien qui écrit, s'il n'est pas toscan, dans
une langue qu'il n'a presque jamais parlée, et qui (si même il est né dans le
pays privilégié) écrit dans une langue qui est parlée par un petit nombre
d'habitants de l'Italie, une langue dans la quelle on ne discute pas verbale
ment de grandes questions, une langue dans la quelle les ouvrages relatifs
aux sciences morales sont très rares, et à distance [...]. Il manque complète
ment à ce pauvre écrivain ce sentiment pour ainsi dire de communion avec
son lecteur, cette certitude de manier un instrument également connu de
tous les deux. (Quoted from Arieti 1970. 1:145-46)
This is the background of his project to write a truly historical novel in

Italian, a language that for centuries had remained "dead among the books":
in September 1821 he began to write Fermo e Lucia (the first version of his
masterpiece I promessi sposi), a work that he completed in the autumn of
1823 with a sense of profound discouragement. It is also the background of
his project for the treatise Delia lingua italiana, which aimed to clarify the
situation of Italian by means of a preliminary definition of what a language is
and how it works in normal conditions — conditions that history had denied to
Italy. From the outset there is thus a close connection between the writer's
creative work and his theorising.
2. Though he had profound cultural and political affinities with France,

Manzoni had serious reservations about the ideas of language most widely
accepted in that country. This is evident from his objections to the articles on
language compiled by Beauzée for the Encyclopédie, and above all from his
criticism of the leading exponent of Idéologie, Destutt de Tracy. A case in
point is the discussion of 'analogy' as a force tending to produce regularity in
language. Manzoni challenges this from a theoretical point of view above all
because his experience as a writer "in search of a language" (Corti 1967) has
taught him that this conception is incomplete and inadequate in practice. We
thus see him painstakingly learning spoken Italian as a second language, and
constructing linguistic tools suitable for narration as he goes along. This is
why by the end of 1823 it is clear to him that a "true and living" language
cannot be acquired through speaking or writing by means of analogy, nor can
it be represented grammatically by this means: chance, an infinite number of
exceptions and 'disanalogies' are the very stuff of a language in use.
The story of Manzoni's first linguistic 'crisis' is too well known to

require further discussion here (see Forti 1954, Nencioni 1983a, Vitale 1986).
There is no doubt, however, that it gave a powerful impetus to his linguistic
practice, leading him increasingly to make spoken Florentine his standard in
the two versions (1825-27 and 1840) of his novel. It acted, moreover, as a
great stimulus to his theorising and conditioned his thinking during his vari
ous drafts of the treatise Delia lingua italiana. (The first two drafts date from
1830-35; the third and fourth from 1837-40, the fifth from 1842-43 as regards
the first chapter, and from 1855-59 as regards the following ones: see Stella
1974). In each of these fields the notion of Usage now acquires a dominant
role. This notion owes much to 18th-century linguistic thought — to Michae
lis, for instance, and the Encyclopédie — but in Manzoni it is enriched by an
awareness of how changeable and unpredictable are the paths taken by the
various languages in the construction of thought.
From this derives an interesting re-examination of the old problem of the
parts of speech. In the fifth and last draft of the treatise, the writer challenges
the logical approach to language originating with Port-Royal according to
which each linguistic form corresponds to a mental operation. In this context
he undertakes to dismantle the theory of the parts of speech accepted in the
tradition both of the Encyclopédie and oî Idéologie. He pays special attention
to Tracy's Grammaire, which aimed to discover general laws of languages
rather than particular laws of this or that tongue. Manzoni thus challenges the
supposed 'undeclinability' of prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. In
order to do so, he lists the exceptions to this theory, language by language, and
gives numerous examples of how each tongue, in order to carry out a particu
lar "office" may make use of either declined or undeclined words (DLI:V.
672,699-700).
As Vecchio has remarked (1988:464f.), Manzoni uses a very flexible
concept of 'sign', applying it to words, grammatical forms, and the arrange
ment of words in speech. All these are in fact devices that can be employed as
"means of signifying" (DLI:V. 633) for concrete communicative purposes.
The outcome of these analyses, which need not be reported in detail here,
is Manzoni's demonstration that linguistic categories are independent of
those of logic. This does not mean he denies that there is a "correspondence
between language and thought" (DLI V. 699). Rather, it leads him to focus on
"that capacity connatural to language of producing the same effect with
different means" (DLLV. 700). As a result, the very idea of a 'general'
156 Stefano Gensini
grammar gives place to an inductive kind of approach. Language 'universais'

must be constructed, if at all, starting from the morphological and syntactical
peculiarities of single languages.
This is a far cry from the theoretical outlook dear to the grammairiens
philosophes.2 The same holds for Manzoni's criticism of the concept of 'rule',
which is found in the third draft of the treatise (DLLIII. 274ff.). Here he
questions the view that there are "rules common to all languages, rules
independent of convention, prior to convention, connatural to language itself,
the consequence of necessary relations between thought and speech".
The writer thus denies that universal 'rules' underlie actual historical
languages, just as he rejects the hypothesis that there is a one-to-one corre
spondence between elements of language and units of logic. Yet he does not
deny, as it might seem at first sight, that language is necessary for thought. He
deduces this principle, however, not from the theories of John Locke and
Condillac, but from those of Antonio Rosmini and Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise
de Bonald, in a characteristic synthesis of Idéologie and Catholicism. Rosmini
and Bonald argued that thought and language were strictly connected and
aimed to prove that both language and the rationality that goes with it are
derived from God rather than from a more or less natural process. What, then,
is universal in the reality of language prior to convention? This is how
Manzoni answers on a slip of paper discarded from the third draft:
Just as the representation of different modes of things and different relations
between things is at once a general necessity, a purpose and an effect of
language, so language must be fitted for this by its very nature, and not by
voluntarily adopted conventions. In other words it must be capable of rules
just as it is needful of rules, which are ways of signifying modes and
relations of things. (DLLIII. 277)
Manzoni notes in passing that it is not a linguist's task to determine

whether these 'different modes' and 'relations' are intrinsic to things them
selves, since this "would be a question of ontology; whereas we are con
cerned with the function of words" (DLL:IV. 460). Immediately after this he
declares that the kernel of language lies in the disposition of the mind to
represent reality, a disposition which manifests itself differently in each
language thanks to the working of different conventions established case by
case by Usage. The fact that he speaks of a disposition suggests that Manzoni
is more interested in the potentiality than in the process of representation
itself. Language, in short, has both a "general necessity and an indeterminate
ManzonVs linguistic ideas 157
power" (DLI:III. 277) with respect to things and to the mind that analyses
them.
Between potentiality and act, between the connatural disposition of
language as a faculty and languages as they are historically manifested, there
is a space for arbitrariness. Arbitrariness is what moulds the plastic material
of language and gives rise to diversity in the conventions of languages. In the
fourth draft we already find Manzoni (who for the moment confines his
argument to words) explaining in what sense Usage is arbitrary: "Thus Usage
is and must be arbitrary with respect to words [...] Since there is no necessary
or overriding reason why a word should, by nature, be what it is, it follows
that a given word may be governed by more reasons than one" (DLI:IV. 380).
Rather than being separate, thought and language are asymmetrical, a fact
which, a priori, prevents languages from being completely regulated by
analogy. This can be seen empirically from the various and random ways in
which speakers agree or disagree about certain usages; it appears — as Vecchio
1988 puts it — in the 'contingent' aspect of the arbitrariness of signs. But there
is also a deeper level of arbitrariness in question here.
In the fifth draft it is stated clearly that arbitrariness is conditioned "on
the one hand by the nature of things upon which and with which it works, and
on the other by man's limited powers" (DLI:V. 667). If the human mind had
an infinite capacity for storing information, language could form itself ana
logically, projecting a network of rational correspondences onto all that is
knowable, which would thus coincide with what is expressible. But what is
the real situation?
The analogies that exist between ideas are incomparably, indeed, unimagin
ably more numerous and varied than those possible between material and
conventional signs [...] Usage may employ a certain number of inflexions
rather than another means that would serve the same purpose; but it may do
so only in proportion to the usual powers of the memory. It may choose
between various syntaxes, but only in so far as none of these outstrips the
power of the human mind to link one object to another by means of further
objects without going wrong or falling into confusion. (DLI:V. 667)
Manzoni's reasoning has a curiously 'cognitive' ring to it which is not

unfamiliar in the philosophy of language of the early Enlightenment (cf.
Dascal 1987:3 Iff.). But when he insists once more on the arbitrary relation
ship between thought and language, one is struck by his tendency to reduce
the latter to its external aspect, the signifier: in other words, language seems to
158 Stefano Gensini
be reduced to a medium for representing knowledge at least partly pre

formed. It is a high price to pay for the notion of an 'asymmetry' between
thought and language, a price that the 'natural' theories of language put
forward by Herder in the Abhandlung of 1772 and by Giacomo Leopardi in
the Zibaldone di pensieri (1817-1832 [1991]) had avoided paying. Each had
suggested, in fact, that language and thought evolved together, phylogeneti-
cally and ontogenetically, adapting one to the other. For the time being,
however, let me simply make the following point: it is from the asymmetry of
the two levels at which analogy is supposed to operate, the level of ideas and
the level of language, that Manzoni derives the decisive argument for his
challenge to rationalistic general grammar. To try and see languages as "the
natural expression of a necessary order of thought" (DLLV. 657) does not
make sense, he argues: languages, being governed by usage, "are accessible
to the feeblest of memories, and can be used by the rawest of intelligences",
and they are variously "adapted to the purposes of reason" (DLI:V. 649). It is
precisely the fact that they are rooted in history, in the needs and practices of
societies, that makes them, through the very logic of their functioning, "radi
cally imperfect". And yet it is precisely because they are imperfect, precisely
because they are "a compendium of analogies and disanalogies" (DLLV.
666), that languages work. The following passage aptly sums up Manzoni's
thinking on this point:
Let us imagine a language in which — as if in execution of a single, general
conception — everything is distributed in autonomous and quite distinct
[grammatical] series, a language in which each series corresponds to a
series of things bearing one or more resemblances to each other and only to
each other. Such a language, I say, would presuppose, indeed would repre
sent, nothing less than an intimate and complete knowledge of things and of
all resemblances between them. But all that man is capable of understand
ing of such a language i0s that humanity, in its present state, is incapable of
possessing it. Instead, it possesses languages which, merely by the fact that
there are more than one of them, reveal that they are radically imperfect and
that confusion is part of their very constitution. They resemble so many
buildings constructed from the ruins of an edifice whose plan has been
mislaid [...]. It is thus hardly surprising to find analogies [...] in conflict
with each other and, as it were, stealing each others' locutions. In fact, many
things that in one of their aspects may belong to one series may in another
aspect belong to another. (DLI:IIV. 518-19)
Driven by his own direct experience to undertake a critique of the

universalist outlook, Manzoni thus ends up by theorising the historical pecu-
liarity of languages — that specificity of rules and conventions which consti

tutes a language as different from all others and which the plight of Italian
displays in an exemplary manner.
3. So far I have examined Manzoni's 'secret' theorising, which is entrusted

to a work he left unpublished. How far can it be considered as coherent with
the politico-linguistic project he was developing at the same time? As I have
remarked, the nucleus of his scheme was the idea of replacing the dialects
with a common tongue drawn from the living usage of Florence. This pro
posal was justified by the following argument:
We all say the same things [in the various towns and cities of Italy]; but we
say them in different ways. The fact that we all say the same things proves
that it is possible to substitute one idiom for all the others; the fact that we
say things differently proves that we have need of this medium. (SL:611)
In commentaries on this passage, it has been argued that Manzoni's
scheme bears the stamp of an élite view of the progress of language and, on
the political level, shows a deep prejudice against Southern Italy (Dardano
1974:73, 70). From the theoretical point of view, his project has been seen as
building upon a "view of language as an abstract nomenclature of concrete
objects" (Ibid.:70) and hence upon the reduction of a historical-natural tongue
to a "means of communication of ideas and concepts which are in some way
external to it" (Lo Piparo 1979:29). Moreover, his idea of Usage has been
censured for being "an indistinct totality devoid of temporal or sociological
reality" (Ibid.:28): in this respect, Manzoni is seen as foreshadowing a theo
retical vice of one kind of 20th-century linguistic structuralism. If we confine
ourselves to the published texts, these objections cannot easily be challenged.
However, if we take into consideration the various drafts of the unfinished
DLI, we shall see that these objections require mitigation or even correction.
In fact, in the light of DLI:
i) it does not appear that Manzoni's conception of language can be
reduced to the question of lexis: on the contrary, he always places lexis,
morphology and syntax in a single semiotic framework;
ii) it does not appear that Manzoni's conventionalism excludes the
historicity and temporality of languages: on the contrary, it is precisely
because they are so deeply rooted in social needs that languages reveal their
'disanalogical' and 'irregular' aspect.
160 Stefano Gensini
iii) it does not seem to be the case that Manzoni is hostile on principle
towards dialects.
The following passage, like many others, shows that Manzoni conceives
of dialects as being languages in all respects; they have their own Usage and
their own rules of operation:
the dialects (against which no one more than ourselves desires to wage a
war to the death) are nevertheless in themselves good, indeed, excellent
things: they all necessarily possess what is required to produce the effect
that they actually produce, namely continuous, complete, and regulated
human converse; [...] in short, they are languages. (Manzoni 1835-36; see
SL:266-69; on the same topic, cf. also his letter to Giacinto Carena [written
in 1847 but published in 1850] and SL:578)
We must conclude, it seems, that Manzoni's admission that dialects are

'essentially' languages, and his project to wage a "war to the death" against
them, are situated on different planes and are not logically interdependent. It
thus behoves us to seek an explanation for this glaring discrepancy between
his linguistic theory and his linguistic policy.
The problem can be approached from various angles. Here I shall tackle
it via the concept of the 'arbitrariness of signs'. It is an approach already taken
by Sebastiano Vecchio in a number of important essays which I shall now
discuss.
4. Vecchio 1988 solves our problem in his own way by arguing that it is
actually formulated badly. On the political level, he argues, we can be
perfectly aware of the cultural importance of dialects and at the same time
convinced of the need to supersede them in the interests of a common national
tongue (see also Bruni 1983); in this respect there is hardly any difference
between Manzoni and Grégoire as a critic of Barère. On the historical and
theoretical level, moreover, we should not apply "the post-Saussurian semio-
logical yardstick" (Vecchio 1988:482) to the theory of the arbitrariness of
signs used by Manzoni. For a thinker trained on the linguistic articles of the
Encyclopédie, arbitrariness is less a matter of the way ideas are formed than
of the fact that the sphere of ideas and the sphere of words are independent of
each other (cf. also Auroux 1979:60). There is thus no point in complaining
that Manzoni lacks a 'strong' concept of arbitrariness like that of Locke (and
later Saussure).
As regards the latter point, it could be objected that a peculiar feature of

Italian linguistics in the second half of the 18th and first half of the 19th
centuries was precisely its acceptance and development of Locke's conception
of arbitrariness. This was a point of departure for thinkers of such different
backgrounds and theoretical outlooks as Antonio Genovesi in his Logica per
gli giovanetti (1766), Cesare Beccaria in his Ricerche intorno alla natura dello
stile (1770), Gianmaria Ortes in his Riflessioni sugli oggetti apprensibili(\115)
and, later, Giacomo Leopardi in his notes in the Zibaldone. Adopting a 'strong'
conception of arbitrariness, all of them had maintained that languages vary in
space and time in a natural and necessary fashion, and that language and thought
mutually condition each other, historically, until they become indissoluble. In
this framework, Manzoni's outlook seems if anything somewhat deviant, and
needs evaluating for its historical and cultural implications. But let us take a
closer look at this issue.
As we have seen, according to Manzoni, the asymmetry that exists
between language and thought enables the various languages to make use of
different means to express the same contents. A standard example is his long
discussion, which begins in the third and continues into the fifth draft, of the
statement Certi ripari sono più dubbiosi de ' pericoli (roughly equivalent to
the English: "some remedies are worse than the disease"). This statement
expressed in an uninflected language with a relatively binding word order like
Italian can be compared with the statement that appears in an inflected, free
word order language like Latin: Graviora quaedam sunt remedia periculis.
According to Manzoni, the second sentence thus expresses the same concept
through different means (DLLV. 635). The fact that Latin uses cases and
certain morphological markers (for example the -ior comparative) whereas
Italian employs undeclined forms and analytical structures, seems to be a
typical proof of the fact that language is independent of thought and thus that
a 'universal' grammar is an impossibility. But in this way Manzoni postulates
the existence of a meaning ("the concept in itself') which in its turn is
independent of the sign that vehicles it. He thus reduces languages to systems
of alternative and competitive rules, which are relatively indifferent with
respect to the conceptual material to be expressed. Manzoni thus escapes
from grammatical universalism by means of a semantic universalism that
brackets off the problem of the truth value of meaning. In this way he avoids
having to link grammar and ontology, and seems to have no doubt about the
fact that meaning itself is pre-linguistic in nature.
162 Stefano Gensini
The difficulty reappears when the writer, in his discussion of the concept
of 'grammatical rule', examines the nature of the meaning process. It is thus a
strategic crux, both as regards his demonstration of the semioticity of lan
guages (given that for Manzoni any kind of linguistic entity can be described
in terms of signs), and as regards his critique of general grammar.
As I have remarked, the function of the sign does not depend on a logical,
rigid scheme, and hence each language follows its own paths in linking
semiotic reality and thought. It is clear, however, that the function of signs
depends in its turn on the fact that the mental operation that forms its content
remains unchanged. (Nor does it matter whether the mind acts on the essences
or simply on the modes of things.) That it is possible to consider a given
mental content in the abstract is the pre-condition for conveying it in different
yet equivalent forms of language:
In fact all the modes and relations of objects of thought, in short, all that can
be signified by any kind of grammatical forms, can also by its very nature
be considered in the abstract, independently of its application to a special
object: it can thus have its own proper word; and this word, when associated
with other words, according to one rule or another of grammar, can modify
them according to our intentions. (DLI:IV. 401 )3
What we have here, then, is a sophisticated version of semantic conven

tionalism. Another typically conventionalist idea is that the ultimate function
of signs is to indicate a referent:
Now, it is in the very nature of being that there is no thing which has not a
natural relation, or cannot acquire an artificial relation, with any other
thing. It follows that in order to indicate any thing at all, more than one sign
can be used; in other terms, no sign is of itself necessary. (DLI:V. 633)
This approach has inevitable politico-linguistic consequences. It is clear

in fact that a concept of arbitrariness as the mutual indifference of signifier
and signified leads us to underestimate the way in which languages mediate
intellectual processes and thus to reduce their cultural function to that of mere
instruments.
Confirmation of this can be found in the fifth draft of the treatise, in a
preliminary sketch, later discarded, of the first chapter. Here Manzoni cites
the objection of those who stress the "real differences" between languages,
which are "brought about by the different circumstances of those who use
them". He then declares that he does not doubt that "one language may have
fewer words than another"; on the contrary, he considers it morally absurd to
Manzonïs linguistic ideas 163
suppose that "two languages can have the same number of words meaning the
same things" (DLLV. 736). This was a potentially explosive observation and
coincided with the opinion of a shrewd critic of Manzoni's views, Gino
Capponi (1869:668-69). However, it is immediately defused by Manzoni's
observation that languages, though they differ as a result of the different
conventions adopted by their speakers, are all equal and equally powerful
from the functional point of view. Thus the decisive issue of whether things
are actually the same for everybody is immediately shelved. Here is what
remains of all this in the final fair copy:
It is words, not projects for words, that [a foreigner] asks us for, and he
thinks he is asking us for the simplest, most natural thing in the world;
because on the one hand he knows, or rather takes it for granted, that one
language may have more or fewer words than another, but that all languages
necessarily have words signifying the things which its speakers talk about
every day. (DLI:V. 548)
The impact of cultural differences on languages thus plays a very mar
ginal role not only in Manzoni's linguistic policy but in his theory of language
too. This is not — as was once believed — because he failed to perceive the
temporal and historical dimension of languages but because he did not suffi
ciently allow for the way meanings are mediated by language. Manzoni
certainly did not deny that there are "things exclusively Arabic, Chinese,
Indian, or savage" that have to be named with "Arabic, Chinese, Indian or
savage words"; but these after all are minor, accidental features. The core of
what has to be said and is said every day is, in his opinion, common to all
peoples owing to the 'similarity' of minds and customs. Even in Italy we will
find "words that express things peculiar" to one region or another; "there
cannot be many of them, but whether few or many, they are irrelevant to our
point".
I am talking about things which, even if we have not been to the part of Italy
our guest comes from, we know for certain to be as common there as they
are here; I mean common things, and modifications or relations of these that
are equally common and, as it were, necessary and inevitable; everyday
occurrences, habitual operations, opinions and feelings, which are frequent
everywhere because of the similarity of human affairs and the similarity of
human minds. What else shall I add? I am talking about material objects,
whether artificial or natural; things we see every day as we walk the streets,
things we have at home, things which belong to the house itself; imple
ments, tools, furniture, clothing, food, animals, plants, and a hundred other
things common all over Italy. (DLLV. 542)
164 Stefano Gensini
These Statements bring us back to Manzoni's Relatione (1868) to the

Minister of Education, Broglio, the starting point of this paper. In fact Man-
zoni uses practically the same wording in the report as in his treatise: "a
means for saying in the same way what we all say, but in so many different
ways" (SL:611), "many ways of signifying the same thing" (DLI:V. 588), etc.
Linguistic theory and policy by now have completely merged. Once again
France is cited as a model because of the success with which its national
language "combats" dialects: it matches each local word with a word of its
own and thus "translates" the various dialects, and "replaces [all these] with
its unity" (DLI:V. 577-78). The outcome can easily be foreseen: as Manzoni
says in a rough draft of the Relazione, "it is not fanciful to suppose that what
in France is universally acknowledged in principle to be the only French
language, will, in time, become the sole, universal language of France"
(DLI:V. 757). Manzoni projected the same dream onto the distant future of
Italy: he believed that the prospect of a common national language was
inseparable from the country's prospects of political and civil development,
to which intellectuals and the educational system should give all possible
support.
5. In the theoretical structures underpinning Manzoni's thinking there are

thus a number of nexes that explain why a writer so alert to elements of
irrationality and 'disanalogy' in language might incline towards such a rigid
political solution. I would like to suggest that the subterranean 'conflict' in
Delia lingua italiana is a result of the survival of some cumbersome features
of conventionalism side by side with Idéologie purged of its naturalistic
elements. This conflict can, I think, be glimpsed in the conclusions of the
writings in which Manzoni sets forth his projects, such as the letter to Giacinto
Carena or the Relatione addressed to the Minister of Education, Broglio. Once
again it becomes clear why authors like Leopardi, Carlo Cattaneo and Ascoli,
who were profoundly influenced by the secular, naturalistic tradition of the
18th century, had such a different view of the past and possible future of the
Italian language, and took paths that were very different from Manzoni's. On
this point, some essential suggestions made by Sebastiano Timpanaro (1969)
are still entirely valid today.
By way of conclusion, I want to suggest that Manzoni's linguistic inves
tigations can be read as the story of a paradox or defeat. Eager to see post-
Risorgimento Italy take on a 'European' (which, for him, meant French)

linguistic configuration, Manzoni came up against, on the one hand, the
stubborn resistance of the socio-linguistic structure, and on the other, a ruling
class and a State incapable of implementing his courageous, if debatable,
project (see on this De Mauro 1983, Formigari 1990). As the author of /
promessi sposi, a novel that broke radically with the Italian rhetorical tradi
tion, it was his fate to become, in the schools of united Italy, an arid stylistic
model for the younger generations (Cf. Raicich 1981). To this day Italian
schools are struggling to get rid of this celebratory and profoundly false image
of the Milanese writer. And to this day there are scholars intent on using
Manzoni's theories to support neo-purist educational and linguistic policies:
in this respect, a reading of some of the papers presented at the conference on
Manzoni (Milan, 1985: see Vitale 1987) is extremely edifying. The indiffer
ence of the Italian ruling classes to matters of language is also still with us. To
mention only the most glaring example: to this day no law has been passed for
the protection of language minorities, though this is laid down by the Repub
lican Constitution of 1948. (Only those covered by individual international
agreements, such as the German-speaking minority of the Province of Bol
zano, are at present protected.)
Given the singular fate of Manzoni's investigations of language, it would
surely be useful to re-examine his profoundly innovative aspirations and the
problems he left unsolved — and not simply in order to set the record straight.
The choice of a given theory of language is not a neutral one in relation to a
country's linguistic and cultural policy. This obvious fact is perhaps worth
recalling today, given the dramatic national conflicts that have taken place
over the last few years and months: they are conflicts of ethnic groups and of
cultures, but they are also conflicts of languages.
NOTES
1. For the similarities between Manzoni's position and that of Vaugelas, see Vineis 1976
and Albrecht 1985.
2. For a comparison with the theoretical outlooks of Beauzée, see Auroux 1988.
3. There is an earlier version of this passage in the corresponding section of the third draft.
166 Stefano Gensini
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SOMMARIO
Questo articolo affronta un tema molto discusso nella storiografia linguistica

italiana degli ultimi anni: il rapporto che corre tra le proposte politico-
linguistiche di Alessandro Manzoni, formulate nella Relazione del 1868, e le
sue concezioni teoriche sul funzionamento del linguaggio verbale. Taie rap
porto è apparso a molti critici problematico,  addirittura contraddittorio. Da
una parte infatti Manzoni propone allo Stato italiano di sostituire una lingua
comune (il florentino parlato dalle persone coite) ai diversi dialetti d'Italia, ai
quali bisognerebbe "muovere guerra a morte". Dall'altra, riflettendo sulla sua
esperienza di scrittore e sviluppando, nell'incompiuto trattato Della lingua
italiana, una vera e propria teoría del linguaggio, egli appare sensibile alia
peculiarità storica delie lingue.
L'articolo individua la difficoltà segreta del pensiero linguistico man-
zoniano nel convenzionalismo semantico, sia pur sofisticato, che lo informa.
Allontanandosi dalla lezione di Locke, Manzoni tende a indebolire la nozione
di arbitrarietà, e cosí finisce per sotto valutare Topera di mediazione che le
lingue variamente esercitano sul pensiero. Ciò spiegherebbe perché Manzoni,
pur considerando i dialetti sistemi linguistici autosufficienti, ritenga possibile
e giusto sradicarli per mezzo di una lingua imposta per decreto statale. E
spiegherebbe perché lo scrittore, cercando di emulare in Italia l'esempio della
politica linguistica francese, finisca col sottoscrivere una prospettiva rígida
mente monolingue.
L'articolo discute inoltre le implicazioni storiche e attuali di tali pro-

blematiche, in riferimento alle ben diverse posizioni di Graziadio Isaia Ascoli
e a una possibile prospettiva di plurilinguismo nella società e nella scuola
italiane.
RESUME
Cet article affronte une question qui a fait l'objet de nombreuses discussions
ces dernières années dans le cadre de l'histoire de la linguistique en Italie: il
s'agit de déterminer quel est le rapport entre les propositions politico-linguis
tiques d'Alessandro Manzoni formulées dans sa "Relazione" de 1868, et ses
conceptions théoriques sur le fonctionnement du langage verbal. De nom
breux critiques ont en effet montré que ce rapport est problématique sinon
contradictoire. En effet d'un côté Manzoni propose à l'Etat italien de substi
tuer une langue commune (le florentin parlé par une couche cultivée) aux
divers dialectes d'Italie, d'où la nécessité de déclarer à ceux-ci une guerre de
destruction. Mais d'autre part lorsqu'il réfléchit sur son expérience d'écrivain
ou qu'il développe dans son traité (inachevé) "Delia lingua italiana" une
véritable théorie du langage, il se révèle sensible aux particularités historiques
des langues.
La difficulté secrète de la pensée linguistique de Manzoni se situe selon
cet article au niveau du conventionnalisme sémantique, aussi complexe qu'il
soit, qui est à sa base. S'éloignant peu à peu de l'enseignement de Locke,
Manzoni tend à affaiblir la notion d'arbitraire du signe et finit ainsi par sous-
estimer l'œuvre de médiation exercée de façon variée par les langues sur la
pensée. Cela expliquerait comment Manzoni, bien qu'il tienne les dialectes
pour des systèmes linguistiques autosuffisants, considère ensuite comme
possible et justifié de les extirper au moyen d'une langue imposée par décret
national. Cela expliquerait donc pourquoi l'écrivain, cherchant à promouvoir
en Italie l'exemple de la politique linguistique française, finit par souscrire à
une perspective strictement monolingue.
L'article met aussi en évidence les implications historiques et actuelles
de la problématique, en se référant notamment aux positions bien différentes
de Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, et conclut sur les possibilités d'un plurilinguisme
au sein de la société et des écoles italiennes.
Old Debates and Current Problems
Völkerpsychologie and the question of the
individual and the social in language
Giorgio Graffi
University ofPavia
In memory of Luigi Rosiello (1930-1993)
1. Introduction. The history of linguistics between the hankering after

forerunners and erudition as an end in itself
It is neither rare nor novel to feel a certain dissatisfaction towards studies of

the history of linguistics. Giulio Lepschy, for example, wrote twenty years
ago:
Questi lavori non sono infatti tanto stone della linguistica, quanto lavori di
tipo diverso, una specie di ricerca dei propri antenati intellettuali, effettuata
dal proprio punto di osservazione e con in mente i propri problemi. Non
sorprende che il risultato non sia soddisfacente, per quanto riguarda la storia
della linguistica. (Lepschy 1981 [1971]:133)
It is worth remembering that the works Lepschy was referring to were
studies in the history of linguistics undertaken by comparative philologists,
structuralists and transformationalists. His criticism was therefore not di
rected only towards the works of Chomsky and his followers, but towards the
majorities of the histories of linguistics, whether general or referring to
particular periods.
In the last twenty years, the research into one's intellectual forerunners
or, as is sometimes said in a more sanguine expression, the hankering after
forerunners, has certainly diminished, also owing to the criticism (sometimes
172 Giorgio Graffi
balanced and judicious as in the case of Lepschy and sometimes irate and
exaggerated) cast in its direction. The result of this change in perspectives
does not yet seem especially promising for the development of a genuinely
interesting history of linguistics. Although it may be true that historical
distortions have been avoided in the works of recent years, it remains also true
that most of these works have fallen into rather sterile philologism and
erudition. This results in a feeling of frustration among many scholars, as was
recently expressed by Simone in the following terms:
Per la verità, la valutazione che una parte notevole di questi studi stimola
non è completamente edificante: molto facile trovarvi scritti piatti ed
insipidi, corne se questo ambito fosse stato invaso da ricercatori senza
respiro, che hanno magari trovato un testo raro ma non sanno farne altro che
riassumerne il succo. (Simone 1992:VII)
Taking the point further, the history of linguistics seem to oscillate

between the devil and the deep blue sea: hankering after forerunners and
sterile if respectable erudition. If this is to be its destiny, and maybe it is, it
seems a rather sad one. However the fact that many authoritative scholars are
aware of this situation, and are facing it, shows that the need to understand
and evaluate the history of their discipline is given considerable importance
by linguists. It is necessary therefore to approach this research asking what it
can offer to the linguist as such — how the analysis of the treatment of a
linguistic problem in the past can contribute to a better understanding of the
phenomena of language, but without over-burdening the concepts of the past
with those of the future.
This is the framework within which this paper operates, attempting to
show how two scholars, Hermann Paul and Noam Chomsky, found analogous
solutions to the same problem: that of the individual and the social nature of
language. We are discussing, it should be pointed out, an analogous but not an
identical solution, and we are discussing the solution to one problem rather
than a complete analogy between the theoretical positions of the two scholars.
If we were to do this we would also be falling into the trap of hankering after
forerunners. It is, therefore, legitimate to compare today's solutions with
those of previous periods whilst never forgetting that chronological and
cultural differences always play their part.
Old Debates and Current Problems 173
2. The debate on Völkerpsychologie and its current relevance
Völkerpsychologie ("ethnopsychology" or "demopsychology") is a notion

which was elaborated by two scholars: M. Lazarus and H. Steinthal (cf.
Lazarus & Steinthal 1860). Both of them were philosophers and psychologists
and the latter was also a linguist who wrote, among other things, important
studies on typology. They believed that Völkerpsychologie should constitute a
necessary integration of individual psychology which in turn they drew from
Herbart. In fact, in their opinion, a whole series of psychological phenomena,
in particular those of a linguistic nature, cannot be explained in terms of
individual psychology, but only of inter-personal relations within a commu
nity.
About one generation after Lazarus and Steinthal the idea of Völker
psychologie was picked up by Wundt and inserted into the framework of his
monumental psychological and scientific system. Wundt contrasted individual
psychology based on experiment, with Völkerpsychologie based on observa
tion. The aim of the latter discipline, according to Wundt, is to examine the
products of the spirit which originate historically, such ás language, mythologi
cal representations, customs, relatively constant psychological objects (cf.
Wundt 1905:28). The first volumes of the work dedicated by Wundt to
Völkerpsychologie are indeed about language (Wundt 1912, the first edition
dating back to 1901). There followed works dedicated to myth and customs.
Völkerpsychologie retains in Wundt the same double function it performed in
Lazarus and Steinthal: on one hand it represents the condition for existence and
the functioning of language, and on the other it constitutes the basis for the
explanation of the diversity of single languages. Consequently, while Wundt's
system of individual psychology detached itself clearly from that of Lazarus
and Steinthal — especially regarding the fundamental importance given to
experimentation — his notion of Völkerpsychologie was not in fact particularly
innovative. However, the authority and prestige which Wundt enjoyed in the
scientific world—especially in Germany—at the turn of the century were such
that his conception of language could only find considerable support. This
explains the vigorous polemics used against him by linguists like Hermann
Paul. Whether one accepts the legitimacy of Völkerpsychologie or not, the
phenomena with which it deals, being intrinsically contradictory, present a
fairly complex problem as Delacroix pointed out when writing, with reference
to Wundt:
174 Giorgio Graffi
Il n'est pas aisé, dans la pratique, d'accorder ces deux thèses, vraies toutes
deux, que le social dépasse l'individuel, loin d'en être une simple efflores
cence, et que, du fait de la réunion et du groupement des hommes, il est
impossible qu'il naisse un produit spirituel, dont les germes ne seraient pas
dans l'individu. (Delacroix 1930:59)
Völkerpsychologie found its keenest critic in Hermann Paul who ex
pressed his opposition in some of the opening pages of his Prinzipien der
Sprachgeschichte (Paul 1920; the first edition dates back to 1880). Initially
Paul directed his polemic towards Lazarus and Steinthal, though later on he
had no alternative but to include Wundt, to whose ethnopsychological theo
ries he dedicates an essay in which he affirms:
Nach meiner Ueberzeugung kann es nur eine Individualpsychologie geben.
Ein unmittelbarer Zusammenhang zwischen seelischen Zuständen und Vor
gängen findet nur innerhalb der Einzelseele statt. (Paul 1910:364)
According to Paul, problems "deren Lösung der allgemeinen Sprach
wissenschaft zufällt" (Paul 1910:365) are: i) the way in which linguistic
activity takes place, ii) language learning, iii) language change, iv) the split
ting of languages into dialects, and v) language origin. The analysis of these
problems shows, Paul believed, that there is no evidence in favour of the
existence of Völkerpsychologie. This assumption that individual psychology
and individual linguistic activity are the only objects possessing authentic
scientific reality, leads him to conclude that there are as many languages as
there are individuals ("In Wirklichkeit gibt es eigentlich soviele Sprachen wie
Individuen" [Paul 1910:368]). Regarding this, it is essential to remember
what I have called elsewhere (cf. Graffi 1991:58) "the assumption of the
constitutional uniformity of individuals". It is summarised in this quotation:
"Die grosse Gleichmässigkeit aller sprachlichen Vorgänge in den verschie
densten Individuen ist die wesentlichste Basis für eine exakt wissenschaftliche
Erkenntnis derselben" (Paul 1920:19; original emphasis). This standpoint
explains how the observation of individual linguistic activity — indeed lin
guistic self-observation — is Paul's chosen path in the analysis of language.
Die psychische Seite der Sprechtätigkeit ist wie alles Psychische überhaupt
unmittelbar nur durch Selbstbeobachtung zu erkennen. Alle Beobachtung
an andern Individuen gibt uns zunächst nur physische Tatsachen. Diese auf
psychische zurückzuführen gelingt nur auf Analogieschlüssen auf Grundla
ge dessen, was wir an der eigenen Seele beobachten haben.
Immer von neuem angestellte exakte Selbstbeobachtung, sorgfältige
Analyse des eigenen Sprachgefühls ist daher unentbehrlich für die Schulung
des Sprachforschers. (Paul 1920:30)
The assumption of constitutional uniformity of individuals combined

with that of linguistic use (Sprachusus) gives Paul the possibility of providing
a solution to the five problems listed above without admitting the existence of
Völkerpsychologie and in general of any supra-individual entity. In Paul's
sense linguistic use is a sort of average derived from the comparison of single
linguistic organisms (cf. Paul 1920:29). It excludes, therefore, those aspects
of individual linguistic activity which are not shared by a plurality of speak
ers. Paul himself defines as "Darwinian" his concept of linguistic use and its
modification: the most "suitable" (zweckmässig) forms survive while the
other disappear (cf. Paul 1920:32). Moreover Paul observes that the real
object of linguistics is the linguistic activity of each and every individual —
but "in ihrer Wechselwirkung auf einander" (Paul 1920:24; original empha
sis).
Paul thus adopts a fundamentally "dialogic" concept of the process of
linguistic communication probably owing to the influence of Wegener (cf.
Knobloch 1988:218-9) and founded on the concept of Verkehr (which can be
defined as "interrelation", or "interchange").
Wie kommt es, dass, indem die Sprache jedes Einzelnen ihre besondere
Entwicklung hat, sich gerade dieser grössere oder geringere Grad von
Übereinstimmung innnerhalb einer bestimmten Gruppe von Individuen
erhält? Es ergibt sich leicht, dass hierfür die grössere oder geringere Inten
sität des Verkehrs von entscheidender Bedeutung ist. (Paul 1910:369)
The individual lies at the basis of every linguistic phenomenon. That
does not contradict the fact that interrelations between individuals fulfil an
essential role in the creation of those entities we call languages or dialects or
in the explanation of the historical changes they undergo.
The debate on Völkerpsychologie thus faced problems which are funda
mental to today's linguists, i.e. the possibility of explaining the apparent
intrinsic inconsistency of a phenomenon such as language which on one hand
is the manifestation of a mental or cognitive capacity, while on the other it
does not seem to be able to exist independently of society or at least of a
plurality of individuals. The upholders of Völkerpsychologie gave greater
importance to the latter of these two aspects while Paul favoured the former.
In his highly knowledgeable study of linguistic psychologism at the turn of
the century, Knobloch upholds a position similar to that of this paper:
Wer einen eher soziologischen Begriff von Sprache hat und das Verbind
lich-Verbindende, die gesellschaftliche Institution Sprache in den Vorder-
176 Giorgio Graffi
grund stellt, der wird bei Wundt (in den programmatischen Erklärungen
jedenfalls!) manches Brauchbare finden. Wer auf die gemeinsame biologi
sche Ausstattung der Individuen und auf den streng 'privaten' Charakter
ihrer Erfahrung setzt [...], der hat in Paul, jedenfalls partiell, ein tüchtigen
Vordenker. (Knobloch 1988:219-220)
3. Chomsky and the abstraction of the "homogeneous speech

community"
It is well known how Chomsky had to repeatedly argue against the assump
tion that language is essentially a social phenomenon and that it is therefore
impossible to analyse it removed from the community in which it is used. It is
equally well known that the solution he initially offered was the hypothesis of
the "homogeneous speech community" (cf. Chomsky 1965:chapter 1.1.),
which met with a chorus of criticism. Chomsky's response to this criticism is
often reminiscent, at least in form, of Paul's objections to Völkerpsychologie.
For example, in Rules and Representations (Chomsky 1980) he observes that
those who deny the scientific legitimacy of the abstraction of the "homoge
neous speech community" are obliged to assume that i) "people is so consti
tuted that they would be incapable of learning language in a homogeneous
speech community", or that ii) "though people could learn language in a
homogeneous speech community, the properties of the mind that make this
achievement possible do not enter into normal language acquisition in the real
world of diversity, conflict of dialects, etc." (Chomsky 1980:25-26; cf. also
Chomsky 1986:17). Therefore, as it was to Paul, Völkerpsychologie was not
necessary to the solution of general linguistic problems, so also Chomsky
believes that an analysis of the reality of a speech community is irrelevant to
what he considers the fundamental problem of linguistic theory, i.e. the
explanation of the acquisition of language.
One can in fact say that what matters to Chomsky is not so much the
identification of a homogeneous speech community, so much as a consider
ation of language as a mental capacity possessed by the individual. If we
examine the development of Chomsky's argument regarding this problem
over the last decade, we can see how the founder of generative grammar
moves with increasing conviction in this direction. Already one sees in Rules
and Representations (Chomsky 1980:217-219) that affirmation that the no
tion "language" is not easily definable "as an object of rational inquiry". It is
countered with the notion of "grammar", as meaning "knowledge of ideal

speaker-hearers". This contrast between language and grammar is picked up
again in Knowledge of Language (Chomsky 1986:19-24), using the terms of
"E-language" versus "I-language". "E-language" is language as understood
by Bloomfield: "the totality of utterances that can be made in a speech
community". "I-language" is however a mental capacity: "some element of
the mind of the person who knows the language" (Chomsky 1986:22). One
notices, incidentally, that by substituting for "grammar" the term "I-lan
guage" for describing that particular type of mental capacity, Chomsky
renounces the systematically ambiguous use of the term "grammar" which he
had used for many years. Grammar is now defined exclusively as "a theory of
the I-language" (cf. Chomsky 1986:22).
Returning to the main point of this paper, one can see in Chomsky's most
recent works a change of emphasis from the "homogeneous speech commu
nity" to "I-language". In Chomsky & Lasnik (1991) the initial "I" is said to
stand for "internal, individual and intensional" properties. "It is individual in
that it deals with Jones, and with language communities only derivatively, as
groups of people with similar I-languages". Chomsky's observations follow
the opposite direction from those of many preceding works and seem to be
relatively similar to those of Paul. Above all, one can see that the characteris
tic of "individual" in the above definitions does not appear, at least not so
clearly, in earlier works by Chomsky. Consequently his point of departure is
no longer the abstraction of an ideal homogeneous speech community from
the real speech communities which are not homogeneous, to then arrive at the
concept of the "ideal speaker-hearer" who has a mental capacity called
"grammar" or "I-language", but rather it is the immediate assumption of the
"I-language" as a proper and scientifically legitimate object of linguistic
inquiry. Finally, Paul's assumption of constitutional uniformity of individuals
derives automatically in Chomsky from his concept of language as a geneti
cally determined mental faculty.
4. Is Paul a forerunner of Chomsky?
The above considerations inevitably lead us to put this question. A positive

answer would return us to the discredited and fruitless activity of hankering
after forerunners. A negative answer raises legitimate doubts about the sig-
178 Giorgio Graffi
nificance of the operation we have undertaken of comparing Chomsky with

Paul.
One should nevertheless recall that Weinreich, Labov & Herzog (1968)
had already seen in the author of Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte a forerun
ner of the one of Syntactic Structures, even though they attributed the same
defects to both. Cf., for example, as follows:
[Hermann Paul] developed the view that the language of the individual
speaker-hearer encompassed the structured nature of language, the consis
tency of speech performance, and the regularity of change. (Weinreich,
Labov & Herzog 1968:104)
Procedures for overcoming the actual observed diversity of speech behavior
are not suggested any more than in the work of Paul or Bloomfield; [...]
Chomsky declares such diversity to be theoretically irrelevant. (Weinreich,
Paul [...] thought of a Sprachgefühl as a generative device. (Weinreich,
Koerner seems to adopt an analogous stance (1973:114) when comment
ing on section of Prinzipien (Paul 1920:30) regarding the linguist's self-
observation, discussed in 2. He writes that "this means that the linguist is his
best informant, a belief which is held again by Chomsky in our time".
Paul's interpretation, given by Seppänen (1984:10-11 & elsewhere), is
different: he underlines that to Paul the fundamental problem is to reconcile
the two mutually exclusive points of view — that of the individual and that of
the social. Paul accomplishes this through the thorough analysis of the influx
which linguistic use and mutual understanding have on the linguistic behav
iour of individuals (cf. Seppänen [1984:14] and § 2 of this paper vis-à-vis the
concept of Verkehr in Paul). For a fuller evaluation of Paul, these observa
tions of Coseriu are worthy of note:
Concretamente existen sólo actos lingüísticos {Sprechakte), existe sólo el
hablar {das wirkliche Sprechen, das Gespräch) la actividad lingüistica
{Sprechtätigkeit) [...]. Todo esto lo vio muy bien Humboldt, al afirmar que
el lenguaje es enérgeia {Tätigkeit, actividad); y lo vio también el viejo
Hermann Paul — a pesar de que muchos lo consideran todavía como "típico
representante teórico de la escuela neogramatica" — al distinguir entre "los
procesos reales de la vida del lenguaje" y las abstracciones que se llaman
"lenguas". (Coseriu 1962:17-18)
Chomsky does not feel tied in any particular way to Paul, whose exami
nation of analogy he refers to, interpretable as a generative mechanism (Paul
1920:110), and as such interpreted by Weinreich, Labov & Herzog (1968).
Chomsky expresses himself on the matter with considerable reserve:

He [i.e., Paul] makes no distinction (just as Humboldt makes no clear
distinction) between the kind of "creativity" that leaves the language com
pletely unchanged (as in the production — and understanding — of new
sentences, an activity in which the adult is constantly engaged) and the kind
that actually changes the set of grammatical rules (i.e., analogic change).
But this is a fundamental distinction. (Chomsky 1964:22)
It seems that the essential difference between Paul and Chomsky lies in
Chomsky's systematic lack of interest in the function of language in a speech
community. For Paul, "linguistic use", though derivative with respect to
individual linguistic activity, is nevertheless an important topic to study. The
"interrelation" (Verkehr) is a fundamental notion for understanding the way
in which collective languages originate. Chomsky finds no place for such
considerations.
On the basis of the above observations one can conclude that the title
question of this section is of limited interest and significance. One should rather
ask the question: "on what does Paul base his theory of language?" He bases it
on an assumption of a psychological capacity which is strictly individual. In this
sense Paul and Chomsky adopt very similar positions. They differ in many other
respects, such as the nature of this individual capacity and also its relation with
the activity of the different speakers within a community. Chomsky is interested
in the former, but not in the latter. Paul is interested in both, but his instruments
and his concepts are very different from those of Chomsky. Paul's interest in
the second point explains Seppänen's (1984:10) interpretation, which opposes
Paul to Saussure, Bloomfield and Chomsky. Psychologism lies at the heart of
the accusation of partial "Schleicherism" directed by Seppänen towards Paul.
To Seppänen any position which seeks to examine language with the methods
of natural science is "Schleicherian". And such a position is also adopted by
Paul when he analyses the functioning of individual linguistic activity accord
ing to the associative mechanisms of Herbart (cf. Paul 1920:6 & 26-27). One
can debate the legitimacy of linking the psychologism of Paul (and of the
neogrammarians in general) with the Schleicherian concept of language as a
biological entity extraneous to the individual. In any case, Paul's aim is to base
linguistics also in the natural sciences, and in this sense Seppänen's interpre
tation seems correct, though this of course does not mean accepting his value
judgments as well.
The greater importance given by Paul to individual linguistic activity, as
opposed to "linguistic use" explains Coseriu's interpretation which, in my
180 Giorgio Graffi
opinion, causes Paul to overlap too much with Humboldt and overlooks his
evident legacy from Herbart and Steinthal, this being psychologism. The
insistence of both Paul and Chomsky on the fundamentally psychological
nature of language explains the interpretation of Weinreich and his col
leagues. This seems in any case to be rooted in a misunderstanding in that
neither Paul nor Chomsky attempt to deny the heterogeneity of the linguistic
facts, but rather to deny its significance in the explanation of individual
linguistic activity.
5. Conclusion
The conclusion to be drawn in this paper is that the comparison, and in some
cases the identification of linguistic standpoints in different periods, does not
necessarily constitute an unwanted hankering after forerunners. Indeed, this
form of comparison can prevent the history of linguistics from being reduced
to narrow and purely academical philological analysis (it is in any event not a
novelty to find analogies between neogrammarians and generative linguists
— cf. Rosiello [1986]). In other words, this paper attempts to argue that the
history of linguistics can be interesting to today's linguist precisely because it
provokes a re-thinking of current problems — providing, it has to be said, that
no attempt is made to distort history.
Regarding the central theme of this paper, Paul's solution to the problem
of the relationship between the individual and the social in language is more
linear than Chomsky's. What they have in common is that they are the keenest
supporters of the linguistic activity of the individual over the linguistic use of
the community. Paul arrives at this position relatively quickly, while
Chomsky's itinerary takes him through the abstraction — harmless, neverthe
less substantially useless — of the "homogeneous speech community".
One may wonder why problems in linguistics of the past remain those of
the present — in other disciplines such as physics or chemistry this is
improbable, not to say impossible. This situation has been described by
Simone, borrowing the concept of "omnicontextuality" {onnicontestualità)
from Galvano della Volpe:
Certo, in tutti gli ambiti di studio esiste una onnicontestualità orizzontale, in
quanto ciascun testo dialoga con altri testi che gli sono contemporanei; ma
sono poche le discipline che abbiano anche una onnicontestualità verticale,
che cioè si ricolleghino per mille aspetti (temi, problemi, termini) con i testi
del passato, anche remoto. Tra queste precisamente la linguistica. La sua
onnicontestualità è piena, bidimensionale, intrinseca. (Simone 1992:XII)
So why should there be this "omnicontextuality" in linguistics? In an

swer to this one can suggest a simple conjecture: it is due to the fact that in
linguistics there has not yet been a scientific revolution, in the authentic
Kuhnian sense of the phrase — apart, perhaps, from that following Plato's
Cratylus: the assumption that linguistic signs are conventional. There is no
paradigm which identifies the principles of linguistics and the problems
which are really significant in this science. Cf. Kuhn on pre-Newtonian
optics:
[...] anyone examining a survey of physical optics before Newton may well
conclude that, though the field's practitioners were scientists, the net result
of their activity was something less than science. Being able to take no
common body of belief for granted, each writer on physical optics felt
forced to build his field anew from its foundations. In doing so, his choice of
supporting observation and experiment was relatively free, for there was no
standard set of methods or of phenomena that every optical writer felt
forced to employ and explain. Under these circumstances, the dialogue of
the resulting books was often directed as much to the members of other
schools as it was to nature. That pattern is not unfamiliar in a number of
creative fields today, nor it is incompatible with significant discovery and
invention. It is not, however, the pattern of development that physical optics
acquired after Newton and that other natural sciences make familiar today.
(Kuhn 1970:13)
It seems to me that the current situation of linguistics is not so different

from pre-Newtonian optics. There is little agreement among linguists on
which methods to adopt or which phenomena to consider important. And
similarly, at least in certain cases, the works of linguists tend to be directed to
other schools of linguistics rather than at the actual study of language. This
isn't necessarily a negative situation but it does exist. One therefore reaches
the conclusion that linguistics will remain "omnicontextual" until such time
as a paradigm is put into place within it, and this has not yet happened despite
many affirmations to the contrary. Chomsky himself made a similar point a
few years ago, observing with regard to Kuhn's work (1970) as follows:
I think it is wildly misused outside of natural sciences. The number of
scientific revolutions is very small: two maybe three if you press it, or
perhaps a few more. To find one outside natural sciences is very hard. [...]
My own feeUng is that linguistics has not even reached anything like a
182 Giorgio Graffi
Galilean revolution. Its first revolution is maybe somewhere on the horizon.

(Chomsky 1982:40)
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. 1982. The Generative Enterprise. A Discussion with Riny Huybregts and Henk
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. 1986. Knowledge of Language. New York: Praeger.
& Howard Lasnik. 1991. "Principles and Parameters Theory". J. Jacobs et al.
(eds.). Syntax: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research. Berlin: de
Gruyter.
Coseriu, Eugenio. 1962. "Sistema, norma y habla". Teoría del lenguaje y lingüística.
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Delacroix, Henri. 1930. Le langage et la pensée. Paris: Alcan.
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land von 1850 bis 1920. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
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wissenschaft 1: 1-73.
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373.
. 1920. Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Halle: Niemeyer.
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Wundt, Wilhelm. 1905. Grundriss der Psychologie. Leipzig: Engelmann.

. 1912. Völkerpsychologie. I. Die Sprache. Leipzig: Engelmann.
SOMMARIO
L'entusiasmo per i "precursori" delle teorie linguistiche contemporaneee e la

conseguente "caccia" ai medesimi, passioni entrambe risalenti ai tardi anni
'60, hanno provocato una comprensibile reazione contraria, che potremmo
definire "fobia" nei confronti di qualunque operazione del genere. Tuttavia,
come tutti gli atteggiamenti fobici, anche questo è da evitare: il punto non è,
infatti, quello di trovare specifici antecedenti di teorie attuali, quanto piuttosto
domandarsi se i problemi discussi in una data epoca delia storia delia lin
guistica siano analoghi, se non identici, a quelli oggetto del dibattito con
temporaneo. Il caso specifico affrontato in questo lavoro è il dibattito sulla
cosiddetta Völkerpsychologie e il suo ruolo nella spiegazione dei fenomeni
linguistici, dibattito svoltosi soprattuto fra Hermann Paul e Wilhelm Wundt:
esso, lungi dal costituire una pagina superata e polverosa nella storia delia
linguistica, ha in realtà per oggetto dei problemi ancor oggi cruciali per la
nostra disciplina. Infatti, le pagine di Paul dedicate alla confutazione delia
Völkerpsychologie ricordano abbastanza da vicino quelle scritte da Chomsky
per sostenere la legittimità (e l'innocuità) delia sua astrazione di una "comu-
nità linguistica omogenea" e, soprattutto, quelle più recentemente dedicate
alla nozione di "lingua-I". Non si tratta dunque di fare di Paul un precursore di
Chomsky, né tantomeno di ipotizzare un influsso del primo sul secondo: è
l'analogia dei problemi a imporre questo parallelismo. Naturalmente, c'è da
chiedersi perché mai in linguistica, a differenza di quanto accade in altre
discipline più "dure", gli stessi problemi tendano a ripresentarsi più o meno
irrisolti: una possibile ragione di questo fatto è vista nella mancanza, in
linguistica, di un "paradigma" nell'autentico senso kuhniano del termine.
RESUME
L'enthousiasme pour les "précurseurs" des théories linguistiques contempo

raines et la conséquente "chasse" à ceux-ci, passions les deux qui remontent
aux années '60, ont provoqué une compréhensible réaction contraire, que l'on
pourrait définir "phobique", à l'égard de toute opération de ce genre. Comme
184 Giorgio Graffi
toutes les attitudes phobiques, celle-ci aussi est toutefois à éviter: le point
n'est pas tant, en effet, de trouver des antécedents spécifiques aux théories
actuelles, que plutôt de se demander si les problèmes discutés à une époque
donnée de l'histoire de la linguistique sont analogues, si non identiques, à
ceux qui sont l'objet du débat contemporain. Le cas spécifique affronté dans
ce travail est le débat sur la Völkerpsychologie et son rôle dans l'explication
des problèmes linguistiques, débat qui a eu lieu surtout entre Hermann Paul et
Wilhelm Wundt: loin de représenter une page isolée et poussiéreuse dans
l'histoire de la linguistique, il a en réalité pour objet des problèmes cruciaux
pour notre discipline encore aujourd'hui. Les pages de Paul dediées à la
réfutation de la Völkerpsychologie rappellent en effet d'assez près celles
écrites par Chomsky pour soutenir la légitimité (et l'innocuité) de son abstrac
tion d'une "communauté linguistique homogène" et, surtout, celles plus ré
cemment dédiées à la notion de "langue-I". Il ne s'agit donc pas de faire de
Paul un précurseur de Chomsky, ni d'autant moin de supposer une influence
du premier sur le second: c'est l'analogie des problèmes qui impose ce
parallélisme. Il reste naturellement à se demander pourquoi en linguistique, à
différence de ce qui advient dans les autres disciplines plus "dures", les
mêmes problèmes tendent à se représenter plus ou moins irrésolus. On peut
voir une possible cause de ce fait dans l'absence, en linguistique, d'un
paradigme au sens authentiquement kuhnien du terme.
The Question of the Significatum
A problem raised and solved
Frédéric Nef
University of Rennes I
1. Statement of the Problem
I shall call significatum in this paper what is being signified by a proposition,

in order to distinguish this from a substantive, or verbal, signified, i.e., what is
being signified by a noun or a verb. We take for granted that the substantive
signified is generally identified with a person, in the case of a name, or with a
class of individuals, in the case of a noun. We can't find such an obvious
answer in the case of a statement, or of a proposition.1
Here is the problem whose history I shall be following: if a statement
means something as a whole which cannot be reduced to the sum total of the
meanings of its various parts, what can be the ontological and logical status of
that something? Statements are referred to physical and mental facts, but their
meanings are neither physical (they are not things of the world) nor mental
(they are not mental states or things). So, if the meaning of a statement is
neither mental nor physical, what is it?
The problem of the significatum, that crux semanticae, is connected to a
whole batch of issues: the issue of propositional holism (i.e., the claim that a
statement is not one with the sum total of its various parts, as far as concerns
meaning and significance)2, the issue of how mental meaning is — whether
the signified is mental or extra-mental? — and the issue of the relations of
ontology and semantics. This issue happens here to the extent that it is
extremely difficult to specify the ontological status of the signified: whether it
is a thing? an entity? nothing?
186 Frédéric Nef
What will follow does not amount to a history of the significatum, which
has yet to be written. Many of its chapters remain very much in the dark, such
as the descent from the stoic to the Medieval doctrines in regard to this
concept. I shall rather be trying to show how modern semantics has made it
possible for us to re-read ancient semantics while eventually getting rid of the
problem. I intend to show that a history of semantics is improved by including
a history of its problems, which lets us ask concretely the question of reading
antiquity through the modern as well as emphasize that problems do some
times come to an end, and even a tragic one as does the significatum in the
philosophizing of Wittgenstein and Quine. Still, as always, this vanishing of
the problem clarifies also its being raised in the first place.
2. A short history of the problem in ancient semantics (Cf. Nef 1993)
2.1 The Stoics
The Stoics introduce the significatum (lekton) as carrying the state of affairs
(pragmata):
Speech again differs from a sentence or a statement, because the latter
always signifies something, whereas a spoken word, as for example blituri
may be unintelligible — which a sentence never is. And to frame a sentence
is more than mere utterance, for while vocal sounds are uttered, things
(pragmata) are meant, that is, are matters of discourse (lekta). (Diogenes
Laertius VII-57, 1968:167)
Thus we have in this text a distinction between lexis and phoné on the one
hand, and lexis and logos on the other. Which amounts to a distinction
between an inarticulate sound [phoné), an articulate sound {lexis), and within
the realm of articulate sounds between something endowed with semantic
content or discourse (logos) and something which is not so endowed (lexis).
The latter distinction is brought to match the Platonic one between pronounc
ing and speaking (cf. Sophist: 262d 4).
Utterances are pronounced; statements and discourses are spoken. Lekton
comes in when one has to specify what is being spoken, by analogy with what
is pronounced (phonai). In an early stage, states of affairs (pragmata) are
thought of as the things naming is applied to:
pronouncing/phonai = naming/pragmata.
The Question of the Significatum 187
Lekta are later thought of as the things carried by the pragmata.

How can we claim the states of affairs carry (tunkanei) the things spoken
(lekta)? It is taken for granted that a name is carried by a flesh and blood
individual, a name-carrier whom the Stoics exactly name tunkanon. The text I
quoted draws the analogy "name/name-carrier = thing spoken/state of af
fairs". The analogy is not quite accurate since a name is matched by an
incomplete lekton, still it allows here to clarify the status of lekta, which stand
halfway between logos and state of affairs. But what are those evasive things
spoken-lekta, really? We shall find some elements of an answer in Sextus
Empiricus:
There was another disagreement among philosophers [concerning what is
true]: some took the sphere of what is true and false to be 'the signification',
others 'utterance' and others 'the process that constitutes thought'. The
Stoics defended the first opinion, saying that three things are linked to
gether, 'the signification', 'the signifier' and the 'name-bearer'. The signi
fier is an utterance, for instance 'Dion' ; the signification is the actual state
of affairs revealed by an utterance, and which we apprehend as it subsists in
accordance with our thought, whereas it is not understood by those whose
language is different although they hear the utterance; the name-bearer is
the external object, for instance, Dion himself. Of these, two are bodies —
the utterance and the name-bearer; but one is incorporeal — the state of
affairs signified and sayable, which is true or false. (Long & Sedley
1987:1.195-196)
I claim that Sextus used the case of a name, instead of a sentence which
might have seemed more consistent, because the problematic of the name
underlies solving the non-physical nature of lekton.
Lekton is what can be expressed (l'exprimable3), what can be spoken;
from an ontological point of view, it is an incorporeal4 ; from an epistemic
one, it is the state of affairs as apprehended by thought; from a linguistic one,
it is the meaning of a logos. Within nature, there are only bodies. Incomplete
expressibles — i.e., verbs — are incorporeal attributes of the bodies.
Strictly speaking, the expressible does not exist — it just subsists. Galen
relates that for the Stoics there is a distinction between to on and to huphistos.5
Such an ontological characterization depends on an ontological status:
They [the Stoics] say that a 'sayable' is what subsists in accordance with a
rational impression, and a rational impression is one in which the content of
the impression can be exhibited in language. (Long & Sedley 1987:1. 196)
Subsistence6 denotes an ontological mode, namely the mode of objects of

discourse and thought, which rightly speaking do not exist. According to the
188 Frédéric Nef
Stoics, there exists a whole line of incorporeals that do not exist (fictitious
beings, entities signalled by deictics, void, time, etc.) and thus require a broader
term such as "subsist". The Stoic huphistasthai may be compared (Long &
Sedley 1987:164) with Meinong's bestehen1, which indicates, among other
things, the ontological mode of fictions: a Centaur subsists, it has a Being-so
{Soseiri) even though it has no existence in a narrow sense (Cf. infra about
Meinong).
The Stoic distinction between name and noun is based on the difference
between a common quality (koinen poioteta) — that of being a man or a horse
— and a particular quality {idion poioteta) — that of being Diogenes or Socrates
(Ibid.:70 [VII, 58]). What is that particular quality? Diogenes Laertius8 specifi
cally says: "a particular quality such as (oion): Socrates, Diogenes". It is
assumed it is not a quality which is special to an individual, but in fact the
property causing an individual to have this name.9 I should repeat what a quality
is according to the Stoics, specifically to Chrysippos. A quality is always
corporeal: either it is common {koinon poion) or particular {idion poion). A
particular quality is then something {ti) corporeal — the Stoics knowing only
objective particulars.10 Quality is one of the four fundamental ontological kinds
of bodies.11 A particular quality should then be understood in a purely material
way.12 This can be understood in at least two ways : first as one individual's
property of having such and such an outline in space, second as the material
property of being the bearer of such a name. Barring further details, it is difficult
to decide. One should in any case emphasize that by drawing that distinction
between two kinds of qualities, the Stoics recorded the radical difference from
noun to name, a difference already alive with Plato and Aristotle but without
any ontological match. Along this line, just as with their doctrine of kategore-
mata, the Stoics anticipate Frege.
2.2 Abelard
Abelard argues the contrast of noun and verb as recorded in Aristotle (De int.
16b 6) is irrevelant:
Sicut enim 'curro' vel 'currens' cursum circa personam tanquam ei presen-
tialiter inherentem demonstrat, ita album13 circa substantiam albedinem
tam<quam> presentialiter inherentem demonstrat; non enim album nisi ex
presentí albedine dicitur. (Abelard 1970:122, 1. 22-25)
What else is then the verb's specificity but its time-reference, included,
according to Abelard, within any predication? Abelard's answer is: complete-
ness of sense (sensus perfectio), a characteristic feature of complete sentences

as opposed to incomplete ones. E.g., the difference from "A man is running"
to "A running man" is as follows:
Perfectas autem illas dico quas Priscianus constructiones appellat, quarum
videlicet et partium recta est ordinatio et perfecta sensus demonstratio, ut:
'homo currit'. Imperfecta autem est que in dispositione dictionum compe-
tenti imperfectum sensum demonstrat, ut: 'homo currens'. Compentens
enim est substantivi et adjectivi constructio, cum ad eundum casum, ad
idem genus et eundem numerum copulantur. Sed nondum in eis completa
est sensus perfectio. Adhuc enim premissa oratione prolata suspensus
audientis animus aliquid amplius audire desiderat, ut ad perfectionem
sensus perveniat, velutis 'est', aut aliquod aliud compentens verbum. Preter
verbum namque nulla est sensus perfectio (Abelard 1970:148, 1. 19-29)
Abelard's perspective is here the reverse of the Stoics'. You remember
Diogenes Laertius's instance of completeness of statement : if I have "writes"
as a statement, then I need a name, e.g. "Socrates", to have a proposition
(axioma) "Socrates writes"; in a more modern fashion, the Stoics regard the
verb (or predicate) as incomplete, unsaturated, needing to be completed to
have a proposition, whereas Abelard assumes that the verb only completes,
meaning that the name only is incomplete. Technically, the two ways are
equivalent; it is a matter in both of choosing two primitives: either name and
sentence (with the Stoics), or verb and sentence (Abelard); the stakes how
ever are high as regards the part of the verb in the analysis of meaning.
Abelard gives it a central part:
Perfectio itaque sensus maxime pendere dinoscitur in verbis, quibus solis
alicuius ad aliquid inherentia[m] secundum varios affectus animi demon-
stratur; preter quam quidem inherentiam orationis perfectio non subsistit.
(Abelard 1970:149, 1. 20-23)
Thus the analysis of the meaning of a sentence engenders the important
concept of dictum propositionis (Cf. De Libéra 1981:77-82). A proposition is
at the very least made up of a noun and verb, but there is no such thing as
amatch between this noun-verb combination and any actual combination —
which implicates the existence of a dictum propositionis, halfway between
proposition and physical reality (Cf. Jolivet 1980:80).
Unlike what will be the case with Russell (cf. infra 3.3.), there is no direct
matching of proposition and things. There does exist a relation from words to
things through intellections of things, there does take place a makeup of the
intellections of things in the intellection of the meaning of the proposition. But
190 Frédéric Nef
Abelard does not infer from it that one might have the fact of the proposition
through a mere makeup of the facts of the words, for the simple reason that the
proposition does mean things, but things tied in a state of affairs.
About dictum propositions, Jolivet affirms :
Ce qu'exprime une proposition n'est pas une chose: c'est bien un objet,
mais non un être; on parlera à son propos de quasi res [...] il n'est rien du
tout (nihil omnino) absolument autre chose (nulla omnino rem), il n'est pas
une chose existante — essentia —. Si une proposition désignait une chose,
il faudrait qu'elle soit un nom. (Jolivet 1980:81-82)
Since a dictum propositionis is almost nothing and yet quite a different

thing, what is it then? Along with the concept of complexe significabile, it acts
as go-between or missing link between the Stoics' lekton and the Sachverhalt
or state of affairs.14 Such connections are no less ontological than semantic:
e.g. from a semantic point of view, lekton wholly differs from dictum propo
sitionis, to the extent that it can be the expressed say of a name 15 ; but
strikingly, they are nearly identical from an ontological perspective, since in
both cases I am able to think this "non-existence of the signified" (Jolivet's
phrase) through the concept of subsistence. More than a "set"16, the signified
of a proposition is a structured whole; a set is not properly structured. But that
structured whole is not a thing (or a collection of things). The signified of
"Socratem esse homo" is not an ens, or a mere modification of the mind17, it is
an ideal object. Opposed to this view would be a version of semantic labeling:
a noun indicating a thing, a verb indicating a process, a makeup making a
predication to indicate what happens to the thing. But according to those who
place a middle term between sign and reality, between propositions and
things, it is exactly "what happens to the thing" that you cannot have through
a computation or combination of references to particular things by elements
of the proposition. Socratem indicates (or calls) Socrates, homo indicates (or
calls) the property of being a man, esse indicates the operation of intrinsecal-
ity of the property in the subject; but the statement Socratem esse homo
neither indicates nor calls a concrete reality (Socrates's humanness as a
concrete thing); the statement means what is said by the proposition. The
point of this way of seeing things is that we can still make sense of "Socratem
currere" in the sentence Socratem currere falsum est (it is false that Socrates
is running), even though Socrates is in fact not running. The same would hold
for a modal sentence like "Socrates currere possibile est" ; even in the case of
Socrates's not running in fact (where it is still possible) the proposition makes
sense.
Dictum propositionis is used to describe modal propositions. Inquiring

into the conditions of truth for modal propositions led Abelard to distinguish
between two meanings or two readings of such propositions: divided meaning
(per divisionem) or modality de re (applied to the thing) and composed
meaning (per compositionem) or modality de dicto (applied to dictum). The
following which was ascribed to Aquinas allows us a nice distinction of these
two meanings:
Of modal propositions one kind concerns the dictum, another concerns
things. A modal (proposition) concerning the dictum is one in which
thewhole dictum is subjected and the mode predicated, e.g. 'that Socrates
runs is possible'. A modal (proposition) concerning things is one in which
the mode interrupts the dictum, e.g. 'for Socrates running is possible'
(Socratem possibile est currere). (Bochenski 1970:183, text 29.09)
You see why de re meaning is called "divided", since the mode interrupts
dictum :
SOCRATEM possibile est CURRERE
DICTUM modus DICTUM
Such a distinction between de re and de dicto meanings led to two further
kinds of development: on the one hand regarding the primitive meaning of the
modality — de re or de dicto', and on the other regarding the relations of
consequence from one to the other kind of modal propositions — does a de
dicto one imply a de re, or is it the other way around?
Abelard identifies the significatum with the infinitive mood proposition
matching what is being said in the statement, an impersonal and intemporal
proposition. He fails however to provide a specific description of the onto-
logical properties of the significatum. This is the problem that complexe
significabile theorists will most significantly want to address. With Abelard,
dictum propositionis was a quasi-noun naming a quasi-thing. Complexe sig
nificabile theorists will carefully distinguish the meanings of nouns from the
meanings of statements, based on the distinction between what is in a com
plex way and what is in an uncomplex way. Their distinctions of modes of
beinghood and objecthood open indeed the path toward modern Realists.
2.3 Complexe significabile: Gregory of Rimini
As I only dealt with one famous author in order to introduce dictism, I will
also study just one writer, more familiar than other complexe significabile
192 Frédéric Nef
theorists, namely Gregory of Rimini.

The origin of the doctrine of complexe significabile takes us back to the
medieval interpretation of some difficult passages of Aristotle's, notably Cat.
12b 6-15 et Cat. 14b 17-24 :
For an affirmation is an affirmative statement and a negation a negative
statement, whereas none of the things underlying an affirmation or negation
is statement. These are, however, said to be opposed to one another as
affirmation and negation are, for in these cases, too, the manner of opposi
tion is the same. For in the way an affirmation is opposed to a negation, for
example 'he is sitting' — 'he is not sitting', so are opposed also the actual
things underlying each, his sitting — his not sitting. (Aristotle 1963:34)
Thus Aristotle draws a distinction between affirmative proposition {logos

kataphatikos) or negative proposition {logos apophatikos) and what is under
neath the proposition, the thing {pragma). The proposition is expressed in the
affirmative or negative assertion "the man is sitting" vs. "the man is not sitting",
whereas the thing is expressed in the infinitive "to be sitting" vs. "not to be
sitting". Aristotle then calls "things" signifieds of contradictory propositions.
The second passage is as follows:
For there being a man reciprocate as to implication of existence with the
true statement about it : if there is a man, the statement whereby wesay that
there is a man is true, and reciprocally — since if the statement whereby we
say that there is a man is true, there is a man. And whereas the true
statement is in no way the cause of the actual thing's existence, the actual
thing does seem in some way the cause of the statement's being true; it is
because the actual thing exists or does not that the statement is called true or
false. (Aristotle 1963:39-40)
Gregory of Rimini holds the object of knowledge to be something and a

complex thing:
[...] the total signified of the proposition is either something {aliquid) or
nothing. In the latter case, nothing is an object of science which has then no
subject. Which is contrary to what is said. In the former case, it is either a
being in the soul {ens in anima) or a being outside the soul {ens extra
animam). In the former case, it is either complex or incomplex. As it
appears not incomplex, thus complex. (Gregory of Rimini 1981:396)
It is "something", i.e., it is not an ens, while it is not nothing. Gregory

picks up Aristotle's doctrine of truth:
[...] It is not by reason of man not being that the following proposition :
"man is an ass" is false, but because man is not an ass. Neither is it by
reason of man being, or of whiteness being, or yet of man and whiteness

both being that is true the proposition "man is white", but because man is
white. And so it is that the noun "thing" is here understood to be the total
signified of this proposition namely for "man being white". (Gregory of
Rimini 1981:40)
Gregory's argument goes as follows: "the total signified of a proposition

is either something (aliquid) or nothing". If it is something, it is either mental
or extra-mental; if mental, it is complex or uncomplex. Gregory's answer is
that the significatum is something, it is mental, it is complex (or more
accurately signifiable in a complex way). How is it something? Here he
introduces his own dialectic of the three meanings of aliquid, res, ens. In the
first meaning, all that is signifiable in a complex or uncomplex way is a thing
(res) or something (aliquid). According to Gregory, in this meaning does
Aristotle mention a "thing" signified by the proposition (cf. supra). In the
second meaning, something, being, and thing "are understood as all that can
be signified (significabile) in a complex or uncomplex, but true, way18, i.e.
through a true utterance" (Ibid.:398). In those two meanings, may it be said
that the significatum is a thing, is something, or just is. In the third meaning,
the words thing, something, or being, mean "some essence, or existing entity"
(Ibid.). In this meaning, the opposite of thing, something, or being, is: nothing
(nihil), whereas this does not hold in the first two meanings. In the third
meaning, the significatum is not something, not a thing, not a being, thus can
be called "nothing". These two points may thus be claimed of the significatum
"man-being-animal" (matching the proposition "man is animal" or the propo
sition "every man is an animal"): it is something (in the first or second
meaning), it is nothing (in the third meaning).
Gregory sets the problem of the nature of the significatum within a
discussion of the object of science. It has shifted from the realm of semantics
to the realm of epistemology. Whether the significatum is a mental entity is
picked up in this context, in which the point is to make sure science concerns
necessary and atemporal objects. To that extent, complexe significabile is not
straightforwardly identified with a mental entity. Its ontologically paradoxi
cal is specified through the distinction between being, something, and thing.
Science has un object that is not a being, and the significatum is that object.
194 Frédéric Nef
3. Reformulating and removing the problem in modern semantics
3.1 Bolzano, Meinong
Bolzano identifies the meaning of a statement with the proposition in itself

{Satz in sich [Bolzano 1985-1990:1. § 28]). Bolzano and Frege make opposite
claims: with Frege, the thought is the meaning of a proposition, whereas
according to Bolzano, the proposition in itself is the meaning of a thought.
The mostly terminological point of this remark should not however keep us
from realizing how profoundly alike are Bolzano and Frege. We might in fact
say Bolzano's proposition is very close to Frege's thought, notwithstanding
the different ways both writers use the term proposition.
Like the Stoics, Abelard and Gregory of Rimini, Bolzano grants the
significatum a specific ontological status. It is shared by mathematical ob
jects. They "subsist not as something that exists, but however as a certain
something" (WL, I, 48, Kambartel ed., p.66). This is in fact the status of
representations in themselves {Vorstellungen an sich).
Bolzano then attributes objective representations a specific ontological
status; they are something, but are not a being, which leads us back to
Gregory's distinction between res, ens and aliquid. Meinong's ontology will
pick up and take further this kind of distinction: it signals the accomplishment
of the ontology of the significatum, an ontology of subsistence, the quasi-
being, the paradoxical object.
In order to account for the specific nature of the significatum, Meinong
draws a distinction between the object or objectum {Gegenstand) and the
objective {Objektive). The object exists whereas the objective subsists. What
Chisholm calls homeless objects includes objects of thought, intentionalia,
objectives and incomplete objects. The significatum is an objective. These
are, on Meinong's view, its characteristics: it is merely something, but not an
existing. The significatum of the sentence "Snow is white" will then be
"Snow be white", namely an objective of inherence (as opposed to the simple
objective: "There is snow"). Now, about "snow be white", as emphasized by
H. Elie:
On ne peut dire [...] qu'il veut dire quelque chose, ni qu'il signifie quelque
chose, ni qu'il correspond à quelque chose, ni qu'il prédique quelque chose
de quelque chose: il n'est pas une activité mentale susceptible de faire
quelque chose, il est simplement quelque chose, à savoir "l'être blanc de la
neige". (Elie 1937:148)
Objectives are beyond existence and non-existence. They fall under

subsistence, not existence. Still, as existence can be positive (existence) or
negative (non-existence), so can be subsistence positive or negative. All
objectives do not then subsist. E.g., the objective "the antipodes to exist" does
not exist, it does or does not subsist. It will subsist say, if the objective is a
relation such as "bigger than". Whether in a mental stance of belief that is
positive — "John believes the Antipodes to exist" — or negative — John does
not believe the Antipodes exist" — the objective "the antipodes to exist" does
not subsist. Subsistence and factuality go in fact together: "An objective that
subsists will be also described as a fact (Tatsache)" (Meinong 1901:69). The
objective "bigger than" may be included in the makeup of a fact, such as "3 is
bigger than 2" — it is a fact that 3 is bigger than 2 — but it is not a fact that the
Antipods exist.
Chisholm also compares Bolzano's Satz an sich, Frege's Gedanke and
Russell's proposition (Chisholm 1982:4), but Meinong however explicitly
rejected identifying the objective and the state of affairs (cf. Chisholm: Ibid.):
Vielleicht aber wäre es förderlich, das Wort "Sachverhalt" für den so
wichtigen Spezielfall der tatsächlichen Objektive in Verwendung zu neh
men. (Meinong [1901] 1977:101)
Bolzano made Frege's anti-psychologism possible through his distinc

tion of representations and propositions in themselves from subjective repre
sentations and expressed propositions. In order to simplify the semantics of
the significatum, Meinong even enlarged ontology with an extra middle
region, beyond non-existence and existence.
3.2 The Frege-Russell conflict
Two different kinds of semantics have recently been put in contrast, accord
ing to Kaplan's views (Kaplan 1975): a Fregean semantics and a Russellian
one. Their opposition is partially founded on the matter of the significatum:
with Frege, the significatum is thought; with Russell, it is the very state of
affairs.
Frege summarised his doctrine of mediation through meaning in the
following diagram in his famous letter to Husserl, written on May 24, 1891:
196 Frédéric Nef
Proposition proper name concept word

sense of the sense of the sense of the
proposition proper name concept word
meaning of the meaning of the meaning of the object
proposition proper name concept word falling
(truth value) (object) (concept) under the
concept
(Frege 1980:63)
Any correctly phrased expression in a logically perfect language refers to
an entity (a truth value, an object, a concept) but only through its meaning.
For my present concern, I find enlightening the controversy between
Bergmann and Klemke (Klemke ed. 1963:42-76) about Frege's ontology.
Bergmann offered a summary of Frege's ontology based on the opposition
existing/non-existing. Objects (individuals, numbers, truth values, meanings,
thoughts...) are existing. Functions (mathematical functions, concepts, rela
tions...) are non-existing. Indeed in Bergmann's view, any Fregean entity is
either an object or a function. He finds functions to be objective, not objectai.
In his view, Frege "would have accepted that all which he calls an object is
existing" (Ibid.:70). Klemke questions that assertion and suggests regarding
Frege's ontology as structured not by the opposition existing/non-existing,
but by the one between reference and non-reference, or more exactly between
referential and non-referential entities. The former are either objects (indi
viduals, numbers, etc. as above) or functions (mathematical functions, etc. as
above). The latter are meanings and thoughts.
Frege locates thought in a third realm: it is neither a thing of the outer
world, nor a representation (an idea). Any thought demands a bearer so that it
may be grasped, but it remains independent from its bearer. A bearerless
thought cannot be grasped, but it is still a thought: this constitutes its ideal
objectivity. The thought which is expressed in Pythagoras' theorem is true in
an atemporal fashion, regardless of whether it is being thought of as true by
anyone. Thus, the thought expressed in that theorem demands no bearer.
Does Frege have an ontology of thought ? What I just recorded about it
does not seem to vouch for its ontological characterisation, in the sense that such
a characterisation prevailed for Gregory of Rimini's complexe significabile or
Meinong's Objektiv. Frege is not saying thought is a certain kind of objecthood
or is matched by a specific mode of being. He is just saying that thought differs
from representation, in that it is atemporal and objective. Frege's ontology is
one of saturation of function by object. Its main opposition is one of saturated

vs. non-saturated, not existence vs. subsistence. Frege does acknowledge the
significatum exists to the extent that thought is the meaning of the sentence or
the statement, but he will not furnish at great ontological expenses a special
room for thought. Bolzano's distinction of subjective and objective represen
tations turns radical, the relation of thought and its bearer is made more specific,
still thought, or its objective representation in Bolzano's sense (a representation
that may lack a subject), has no specific ontological status. What status it has
just comes from the necessity of a mediation through meaning.
Russell's semantics altogether gets rid of such a mediation through
meaning, but still fosters the problem of the significatum. Russell's semantics
is one in which names directly denote individuals, without a mediation
through meaning:
It seems to me that only such proper names as are derived from concepts by
means of 'the' can be said to have meaning, and that such words as John
merely indicate without meaning. (Russell 1901:502)
Russell identifies Frege's Gedanke with the propositional concept (Ibid.:
503). He thus claims that the sentence "Caesar died" asserts the propositional
concept "Caesar's death", instead of the thought, or in Meinong's term the
objective, "Caesar to die". Russell believes truth values can be dropped : "It
may seem doubtful whether the introduction of truth-values marks any real
analysis". (Ibid.)
Russell's argument goes like this : what is being asserted is, as just said,
"Caesar's death" instead of "the truth of Caesar's death", which would fit
another propositional concept, asserted in "Caesar's death is true", which
differs from the proposition "Caesar died".
3.3 The vanishing of the Problem: the later Wittgenstein and Quine
I still have to demonstrate how the problem of the significatum loses its
meaning in the later Wittgenstein's and Quine's philosophizing.
Wittgensteing's notion of use makes pointless resorting to any state of
affairs; and the thesis of the indeterminacy of translation gets rid of the
significatum viewed as a stable and unequivocally determinable thought. If
the significatum can no longer be viewed as a state of affairs or even as a
thought, the final aporia passed on about it by the conflict of Fregean and
Russellian semantics, then the very meaning of the problem vanishes.
198 Frédéric Nef
Dummett makes the following remarks :

L'usage d'une expression ne devrait pas être caractérisée comme la concep
tion des conditions de vérité qui guident l'utilisation, mais de façon directe.
[...] Cette conception remet en question le concept d'état de choses: dès que
nous avons dit quelles sont les conséquences du fait que quelqu'un a
compris quelque chose d'un coup [...] nous serons délivrés de la contrainte
d'en appeler à un "état de choses" pensable indépendamment et qui rendrait
l'énoncé vrai. Affirmer qu'un tel état de choses existe revient simplement à
dire que la personne a compris la chose d'un coup; et on arrive à savoir de
quel état de choses il s'agit, simplement en décrivant l'expression "com
prendre d'un coup" de la façon indiquée. (Dummett 1991:173)
In this sense can it be said that Wittgenstein's critique of truth-condi

tional semantics, Fregean semantics, Russellian semantics or Tractarian se
mantics 19 constitutes the first blow at the very notion of significatum.
Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of translation constitutes the second
blow, the decisive one, by denying the existence of any such thing as a
meaning, and so also of any such thing as a thought in Frege's sense.20 Taken
in its strong sense, which claims that equally acceptable translations may
match a native language sentence with autochton sentences with different
truth values, the thesis of the indeterminacy of translation makes pointless any
resorting to meaning.
(translated by Christian Fournier)
NOTES
1. The topic under discussion is broached (starting with the earliest study) in Elie 1937;
Jolivet 1980; De Libéra 1981; A. de Muralt's Introduction to Gregory of Rimini 1986; De
Libéra 1991.
2. Although Frege argued that there was such a thing as a propositional signified, while
supporting the existence of a principle of compositionality. His view is that the parts of a
statement match the parts of thinking.
3. Bréhier's translation ([1908] 1989:19-22; 1950:68ff.).
4. Along with void, time and place.
5. Long &Sedley 1987:163.
6. Sub-sistence is formed on the same pattern as ex-sistence. It is thusfittingto translate this
stoic notion.
7. Russell translates this term as "susbsist" in his critique of Meinong. Cf. the following :
"Similarity, e.g. does not exist, but subsists {besteht); similarly, quadruplicity does not
exist where there are four nuts" (Russell 1973: 28).
8. Referring to Diogenes of Babylon and Chrysippos.
9. Here I borrow from the minimal theory of the meaning of a name, which claims the
meaning of a name is for the the bearer of that name just to have that name (instead of
some other). This point is discussed in Nef 1993.
10. The phrase is used by Strawson.
11. Cf. Simplicius in his Commentary upon Categories (66, 32-67, 2) and Plotinus, VI, I, 25.
Those are not categories strictly speaking, but kinds of being {géné ton onton), differing
from Aristotelian "categories" which are types of predication. Cf. Graeser 1978.
12. Mates (1953: 20) relates particular quality to Carnap's individual concept. According to
Carnap, the meaning of a name is an individual concept, i.e., the set of one individual's
own properties in the course of his existence — its denotation being the flesh and blood
individual.
13. "album" means either "white" or the color white; the latter is here intended.
14. I find these connections in Jolivet 1980: note 126, p, 82, beginning with: "The history of
what Abelard called dictum propositionis remains to be written."
15. Further, lekton is matched by a representation, whereas there is no intellection of dictum
propositionis.
16. Ibid.:83. Jolivet shifts from Abelard's phrase hoc totum indicating with an impersonal
turn the all that is true to the concept of set, with fixed limits.
17. As argued, for instance, by Rescher 1979, ch. 8.
18. Which is a problem since theoretically only a complex proposition can be true: an
uncomplex sign, or uncomplex term, must be untrue. I leave this out.
19. From my point of view here, Tractarian semantics is Russellian: it does not involve any
mediation through meaning.
20. These few lines from a recently published logic textbook may be taken as a sign of the
vanishing of this problem: "Ce n'est cependant pas l'énoncé déclaratif en tant que tel qui
est vrai ou faux: 'Socrate est un homme' figure bien dans 'il est vrai que Socrate est un
homme', mais rapporté en style indirect (ce que le latin exprime en employant la
proposition infinitive 'verum est Socratem esse hominem'). Ce qui est déclaré vrai ou
faux est plutôt ce que dit l'énoncé et qui pourrait être dit autrement: c'est précisément ce
qu'on peut appeler la proposition. On n'est pas pour autant obligé de faire de celle-ci une
entité supplémentaire". (Ruyer 1990: 29)
200 Frédéric Nef
REFERENCES
A. Primary sources
Abelardus, Petras. 1970. Dialectica, ed. by L. M. De Rijk. Assen: Van Gorcum.
Aristotle. 1963. Categories and de Interpretatione, transl, by J. L. Ackrill, Clarendon
Aristotle series. Oxford : At the Clarendon Press.
Bochenski, Joseph M. 1970. A History of Formal Logic. New York: Chelsea.
Bolzano, Bernard. 1963. Grundlegung der Logik, ed. by F. Kambartel. Hamburg: Felix
Meiner.
. 1985-1990. Wissenschaftslehre, I-III, ed. by J. Berg. Stuttgart- Bad Canstatt:
Fromann-Holzboog.
Diogenes Laertius. 1968. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. EngUsh transl, by R.D. Hicks.
London: William Heinemann Ltd.
Frege, Gottlob. 1980. Philosophical and Mathematical Correspondance, ed. by G. Gabriel
et al. English edition by . McGuiness, transl, by H. Kaal. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Gregory of Rimini. 1981. Lectura super primum et secundum Sententiarum I. Berlin: De
Grayter. Partial French transl, by A. de Muralt, in: Philosophes Médiévaux des XIHè
et XP/è siècles. Anthologie de textes philosophiques, ed. by R. Imbach & M.-H.
Méléard, 1986. Paris: Union Générale d'Editions. Bibliothèque médiévale, 10:18, n°
1760:375-404.
Long, A. A. & Sedley, David. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. L Translations.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Meinong, Alexius. 1901. Ueher Annahmen (= Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe IV, ed.
by R. Haller. Graz: Ak. Druck, 1977).
Russell, Bertrand. 1901. The Principles of Mathematics. London: George Allen and
Unwin Ltd.
. 1973. "Meinong's Theory of Complexes and Assumptions". Essays in Analysis.
New York: George Braziller.
B. Secondary sources
Bréhier, Emile [1908]. 1989. La Théorie des Incorporels dans l'Ancien Régime. Paris:
Vrin.
. 1950. Chrysippe et l'ancien Stoïcisme. Paris: PUF.
Chisholm, Roderick. 1982. Brentano and Meinong Studies. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
E)e Libéra, Alain. 1981. "Abélard et le dictisme". In Abélard: Le dialogue, la Philosophie
de la logique (= Cahiers de la Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie 6: 59-99).
. 1991. "Roger Bacon et la référence vide". In Lectionum varietates. Hommage à
Paul Vignaux (1904-1987). Paris: Vrin.
Dummett, Michael. 1991. Introduction à la philosophie analytique, transi, from the
German by F. Pataut. Paris: Gallimard.
Elie, Hubert. 1937. "Néo-réalistes du XIVème et du XXème siècles. Etude critique et
comparative des doctrines de Grégoire de Rimini et de Meinong et Russell". In Elie
1937. 173-184.
. 1937a. Le complexe significabile. Paris: Vrin.
Graeser, Andreas. 1978. "The Stoics Categories". Les Stoïciens et leur logique. Paris:
Vrin, 1978: 199-221.
Jolivet, Jean. 1980. Abélard, théologie et arts du langage. Paris: Vrin.
Kaplan, David. 1975. "How to Frege a Russell Church?". Journal of Philosophy 72. 716-
729.
Klemke, Elmer D. 1968. Essays on Frege. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Laugier-Rabaté, Sandra. 1991. L'anthropologie logique de Quine. Paris: Vrin.
Mates, Benson. 1953. Stoic Logic. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nef, Frédéric. 1993. Le Langage, une approche philosophique. Paris: Bordas.
. 1990. "Sémantique des noms propres et essentialisme". Critique 479: 319-337.
Rescher, Nicolas. 1979. "The Ontology of the Possible" In The Possible and the Actual,
ed. by M. Loux Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press.
Ruyer , Bernard. 1990. Logique. Paris: PUF.
Sebestik, Jean. 1992. Logique et Mathématique chez Bernard Bolzano. Paris: Vrin.
SOMMARIO
Un esempio di storia concettuale nel campo delia semantica è offerto dalla

comparsa, dallo sviluppo e dalla finale dissoluzione del problema del
significato proposizionale. Che cosa è significato da una proposizione? Qual è
il suo statuto ontologico? Si tratta di un oggetto? Questo esiste? Sussiste? La
storia di questi interrogativi viene rintracciata in questo articolo presso gli
Stoici (emergere delia problematica), Abelardo, Gregorio da Rimini, Bolzano,
Meinong, Frege (suo sviluppo), Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine (dissoluzione).
Gli Stoici pensano il significato proposizionale sotto il nome di lekton, i
medievali sotto il nome di dictum propositionis, complexe significabile, Bol
zano ne parla come di Satz an sich, Meinong come Objektive, Frege come
Gedanke, Russell come state of affairs. L'Autore cerca, sotto queste filiazioni
lessicali e concettuali, di scoprire la trama d'un tema fondamentale per la
storia e la natura delia semantica.
Si tratta di una questione in larga misura ontologica. Ciö che stimola a
riscoprire la storia del significato proposizionale è la necessità, per gli oggetti
incompleti, qual è questa entità, di distinguere tra esistenza e sussistenza. Il
significato proposizionale è una quasi-cosa,  un quasi-niente che sussiste. La
sua dissoluzione accompagna la scomparsa di questa distinzione ontologica,
la cui pertinenza resta intatta.
202 Frédéric Nef
RESUME
Un exemple d'histoire conceptuelle en sémantique est fourni par l'émer

gence, le développement et la disparition finale du problème du signifié
propositionnel. Qu'est-ce qui est signifié par une proposition? Quel est son
statut ontologique? S'agit-il d'un objet? Existe-t-il? Subsiste-t-il? Ces ques
tions l'A. en retrace brièvement l'histoire chez les Stoïciens (émergence de la
problématique), Abélard, Grégoire de Rimini, Bolzano, Meinong, Frege (dé
veloppement), Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine (disparition du problème).
Les Stoïciens pensent le signifié propositionnel sous le nom de lekton, les
médiévaux sous le nom de dictum propositionis, complexe significabile,
Bolzano sous le nom Satz an sich, Meinong sous le nom d'Objektive, Frege
sous le nom de Gedanke, Russell sous le nom de state of affairs. L'A.
s'efforce sous ces filiations lexicales et conceptuelles de découvrir la trame
d'un enjeu fondamental pour l'histoire et la nature de la sémantique.
Cet enjeu est en grande partie ontologique. Ce qu'invite à redécouvrir
l'histoire du signifié propositionnel c'est la nécessité pour des objets incom
plets, telle cette entité, de distinguer entre existence et subsistence. Le signifié
propositionnel est une quasi-chose, ou un quasi-rien qui subsiste. Sa dispari
tion est solidaire de la disparition de cette distinction ontologique, dont la
pertinence reste entière.
The Embarassment of Communication
from Mandeville to Grice
Francesco Aqueci
University of Messina
1. A cross-road of research: the notion of dialogue
The notion of dialogue today is the meeting-point of intense exchanges

between disciplines and fields of research such as pragmatic linguistics,
analysis of speech, analysis of literary texts and — through the theory of
argumentation — cognitive research into the structures of discursive thought,
new philosophical theorizations on the foundations of rationality, hermeneu-
tic research and, finally, the debate on the revival of ethics. It has been so for
at least thirty years now, and organizations, seminars and periodical publica
tions have produced an enormous amount of research and work.1 So it is
comprehensible that a univocal meaning of this notion is extremely problem
atic. With a degree of approximation it may however be said that with the
word dialogue we refer either to an empirical almost "cold" meaning which is
typical of linguistic-pragmatic research, or to a "warm" normative meaning,
typical of ethical-argumentative research which is philosophical in character.
An example of the first meaning is the definition given in linguistics,
where dialogue is understood as "the enunciation composed of terms pro
duced by different elements which are linked together because of different
structural and textual profiles" (Simone 1990:399). Thematic structures then
become the object of study and can be described in terms of topic/comment or
of knowledge which may be described in terms of information/new etc., and
the play of "turns of words" followed by "manoeuvres on knowledge" etc.
204 Francesco Aqueci
An example of the second meaning is the idea of dialogue given by

someone like Habermas when he says that we cannot have "a monologic
application" of the principle of universalization of a moral norm, because this
has to depend on the discursive agreement expressed by all the elements that
are involved (Habermas 1983:74). The pragmatic conditions of access to
dialogue, the acquisition of knowledge necessary to participate in the dia
logue and the possibility of their free use, thus become the object of research.
P. Grice's theory of conversation or of conversational maxims, which I
will take into consideration here, fully belongs to this current of dialogic
studies and is placed, as we will see, halfway between the two meanings. In
addition to a very strong linguistic-decriptive interest there is, in fact, a
remarkable philosophical-normative dimension. This theory, enunciated in
1967 during the famous William James Lectures, given by Grice in Harvard,
was, perhaps because of its composite nature, the constant reference point of
pragmatic, argumentative discussions in the 70's and 80's.
Unlike Neale (1992) who carried out an exhaustive and excellent survey
of Grice's philosophical and linguistic thought, I will take into consideration
only Grice's theory of conversation, leaving out the problems of the theory of
meaning. I will then analyse this theory in its philosophical presuppositions
and not in its details which are already largely known. I will subsequently
give a synthetic exposition so that even the reader who is not acquainted with
the texts by Grice will be able to follow my reasoning. I will start with
questions Neale has already posed, when he wonders about the bases of
Grice's assumption that people usually observe his maxims while talking
(Neale 1992:530); or again when he faces the question of the different status
the rules have in Grice's theory, and particularly the rule about sincerity
(Neale 1992:531); or finally when he wonders about the kind of rationality
that Grice presupposes in discursive activity (Neale 1992:532).
With particular emphasis on this latter point, after referring to the still
unpublished works by Grice on ethics and philosophical psychology 2 , Neale
points out that "it is quite certain that as Grice's work on ethics and philo
sophical psychology becomes more widely available, there will be a resur
gence of interest regarding the question of the precise location of the Theory
of Conversation within a larger scheme" (Neale 1992:532). I believe how
ever, that without waiting to get to know those works, we can already investi
gate the kind of rationality Grice presupposes in the speaker, and thus give an
assessment of his Theory of Conversation and, more generally, of his idea of
verbal communication.
The Embarassment of Communication 205
I will also consider other solutions which have been put forward in order
to solve problems posed by Grice, which may serve to overcome some limits
intrinsic to his idea of linguistic rationality. The theory of dialogue of the
Italian philosopher Guido Calogero will contribute to the issue.
2. Description and foundation of dialogue: Grice
Grice's reflection on conversational maxims has originated from the need to

overcome the dispute between formalists and anti-formalists about the logical
characteristics of natural language. His strategic move consists in emphasiz
ing the social character of language, where "social" is to be understood as the
specific sense of cooperation between rational subjects. In order to do so he
gives a pragmatic interpretation of what is implicit in conversation: a factor
which shifts the attention to the role of the listener in the making of meaning.
Not everything is evident in Grice's thinking, however: what is to be under
stood by cooperation? What does he mean by rational subjects? What kind of
rationality does he refer to? In this exposition we will try to clarify these
problems as they arise.
Grice distinguishes between saying and what we imply when we say
something. In other words, he differentiates between the conventional-literal
meaning of words and what we want to mean when we utter those words.
What we want to imply, that is the implicature, may be a conventional
implicature ("He is not very nice; he is English"; implicit: unfair latin preju
dice against English people), or an unconventional implicature ("He works a
great deal": said of someone who does not like working at all).
Among unconventional implicatures there are those which Grice defines
as conversational implicatures. These are connected with the cooperative
nature of conversation and are the ones I referred to above. But in which sense
can we describe conversation in terms of cooperation? In Grice's opinion our
linguistic exchanges are, at least to a certain extent, works of cooperation
towards a common aim or aims, somewhat analogous to what occurs in non
verbal cooperative interactions such as mending a car with someone else (if I
need four screws I expect you to hand me four and not two or six).
Grice uses this analogy to establish a general principle which those who
participate in a linguistic exchange not only adopt as a rule for their own
behaviour, but also expect others to adopt. The principle is as follows:
"Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at

which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged". (Grice 1989:26)
This is what Grice calls the Cooperative Principle. It entails a set of more
specific maxims and sub-maxims whose observance also means the obser
vance of the principle itself.
Thus cooperation means collective action with a purpose and ruled by
mutual expectations of cooperation. Rationality, in turn means to pursue
efficiently one's own aims.
Grice groups these maxims and sub-maxims using as labels the tradi
tional Kantian categories, Quantity, Quality, Relation and Modality. Both the
presentation of this Cooperative Principle as the categorical imperative and
the allusion to Kant's philosophy may have contributed to the misunderstand
ing of Grice's theory as influenced by the universalistic Kantian reason.
Accepting the opinion of Sperber & Wilson (1986), who see in the concept of
relevance the focus of Grice's conversational theory, I will use different
labels so as to group Grice's principles and take into account:
a) Informative relevance
a) 1. Make your contribution as informative as required (for the
current purposes of exchange).
("Where is Mum?" "At home" and not "At home or at the market")
a) 2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is re-
quired.
(Examples of this rule are difficult to find as it overlaps with some of the
principles which follow. It is possible to imagine a context in which the
maxim is purposely violated, for example an espionage context where a
person known for not being very talkative monopolizes the conversation so as
to prevent a particular interlocutor from talking, lest he should ruin the plan.
This intentional violation of the principles, is, as we will see later, of
fundamental importance in Grice's theory).
b) Sincerity
b) 1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
("I resign" said by someone who has already decided not to hand in
his resignation).
b) 2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
("I think he will resign in the next few days" said by someone who
does not have adequate information to say what he does about someone else's
behaviour).
c) Argumentative relevance
c) 1. Be relevant.
(A: "I resign", said by someone who does not have the intention of
resigning.
B: "Yes, and I am a camel" as an answer to someone who everyone
knows will never resign.
N.B. Here also the intentional violation of the maxim should be
noted).
d) Rhetorical relevance
d) 1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
d) 2. Avoid ambiguity.
d) 3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
d) 4. Be orderly.
In Grice's opinion the behaviour of the speaker towards these maxims
can vary as follows:
- A speaker may cooperate only to the extent of clarifying that he is
unable to cooperate any further ("I cannot say anything more; my lips are
sealed"; "No comment");
- He may be in conflict as to which maxims to adopt ("Be as informative
as required" vs. "You must have adequate proof for what you say": A:
"Where is Mum?", B: "At the market", even if you do not have adequate
proof to say that);
- He may violate a maxim. In some such cases we will then have deceit;
this being the case of a lie which violates sincerity.
Grice considers this maxim so important that he is not sure whether to
include it in the list of maxims, and this not only because its violation would
be more strongly disapproved of than the violation of any other maxim, but
also because "other maxims come into operation only on the assumption that
this maxim of Quality is satisfied" (Grice 1989:27). This seems to be a moral
conception of the maxim of Sincerity. Grice chooses however to include it in
the list of maxims because "so far as the generation of implicatures is
concerned it seems to play a role not totally different from the other maxims"
(Ibid:27). This can be observed in the case of its exploitation, which means
an ostentatious violation such as in the following sentence: "Good friend you
are!" said to someone who has behaved as Cain did. In this and in other
similar cases we find the origin, as Grice emphasises, of very well known
figures such as irony, metaphor etc. The variation between a normative
interpretation in a moral sense and a functional interpretation of the maxim of
Sincerity characterizes all of Grice's theory, as we will see later on.
The exploitation or intentional violation of a maxim is the typical situa
tion of what Grice calls conversational implicature. The interlocutor is in the
situation of having to reconcile the fact that the speaker has said what he has
said with the fundamental assumption that he observes the Cooperative
Principle as a whole, while talking. This is a fundamental assumption, as it
defines the meaning of cooperation. So if he violates a maxim we have to ask
why he has done so.
The conversational maxims and the mutual cooperative expectation build
a system that allows us 'to save' the obtained information or even to give it a
sense going beyond the literal meaning allowing us to deduce the implicit
meaning, which is contained in the literal meaning. In other words, with a
procedural principle such as the mutual cooperative expectation, the maxims
are not there to be observed, but rather to be violated: only through their
violation are we able to convey the implicit meaning which makes the dialogue
progress.
So far we can say that Grice seems to have the ambition of describing
that harmless and essential immorality which is to be found within the
discursive mechanisms of ordinary conversation. But as we have already seen
with regard to the maxim of Sincerity, Grice seems to swing between a
normative necessity and a functional one. A fundamental problem is, as Grice
says, to understand "what the basis is for the assumption [...] that talkers will
in general proceed in the manner that these principles prescribe" (Grice
1989:28). One answer could be that it is a "well-recognized empirical fact that
people do behave in these ways" (Ibid.:29). But Grice is not satisfied with this
answer which seems a little "dull" to him though "adequate" from the descrip
tive point of view (Ibid.:28). He considers himself, on the other hand "enough
of a rationalist to want to find a basis that underlies these facts, undeniable
though they may be" (Ibid.:29). He would therefore like to be able to consider
the "standard type of conversational practice not merely as something that all
or most do in fact follow but as something that is reasonable for us to follow,
that we should not abandon" (Ibid.:29). It seems to me beyond doubt that the
rationality to which Grice appeals is different from the instrumental rational-
ity that looks for the reasons of a certain behaviour, reasons which make that
behaviour rightful. We are therefore more in a field of ethical rationality, as
opposed to an instrumental one.
We could expect to find at this point the normative basis of this different
rationality. However, as the destiny of the maxim of Sincerity interpreted in a
functional and not normative sense shows, Grice eventually accepts a mere
description of the empirical fact that people, during a conversation behave in
a certain way without looking for the reasons as to why they should behave in
a certain way while talking.
Consequently, it is interesting to try to understand why Grice does not
face the problem openly, although he puts forward the need for a normative
rational basis.
3. The double face of communication: Mandeville
I will try to answer this question taking into consideration that page of the
Fable of the Bees by Bernard de Mandeville, where he analyzes the interac
tion between "a spruce Mercer" and "a young Lady his Customer that comes
to his Shop" (Mandeville 1705-1729:403). It is important for us because it
gives us the possibility of discussing the maxim of Sincerity of which Grice,
as we have seen, doesn't give a steady formulation.
In his description Mandeville is very systematic: first he analyses the
"scenic resources" of the two protagonists: the appearance of the "young
Lady"; the representation she gives of herself and her expectations; the zeal
with which she uses her qualities, in a situation in which she is not a purpose
but a means ("The thoughts of Love are here out of the Case"); her wish to
distinguish herself socially. As for the mercer, his gallantry, kindness and
patience are all things which are determined by self-interest. After this
description Mandeville shows us the characters acting.
Their purposes are respectively to sell silk at the best price and to buy it
as cheap as possible. This means mutual utility, namely the actual gain and the
possibility of enjoying something desired. In other words it is an exemplary
case of cooperation in Grice's sense.
Mandeville invites us to notice alongside the verbal cooperation, a paral
lel and hidden semiosis which only the playing ability of the actors can hide.
If we wrote the screenplay (in its technical sense), of this picture of everyday
life, we could find for every explicit cue, an antiphrastic comment with
respect to the literal meaning. Public communication goes on through im
pulses given by parallel and hidden semiosis. For Mandeville therefore, social
communication is a performance in which speakers are actors who play the
roles of definite characters. So we have the 'truth' of public performance and
the 'truth' of a spontaneous private communication which acts as a counter
point to the explicit, official communication.
In Mandeville's opinion these features of social communication have
their foundation in the general reason of human actions, which is anything but
rational. "There is no difference — Mandeville says — between Will and
Pleasure", as "it is impossible that Man [...] should act with any other view but
to please himself while he has the Use of his Organ" (Mandeville 1705-
1729:401). After all our thoughts "free and uncontroul'd" reveal nothing but
this natural search for pleasure. Public expression of these thoughts through
speech would make social cooperation impossible. So public cooperation can
only be insincere (Ibid.:402).
To go back to Grice, we have seen that he gives only a functional
interpretation of the maxim of Sincerity, although he puts forward the neces
sity of a normative foundation. In this way he is able to explain some effects
of speech (for instance the irony of the sentence "Good friend you are!").
In Mandeville's opinion the main principle is that without insincerity
communicative interactions among people would not be possible: if we
express our hidden thoughts ("You may simper all you like, but I will make
you pay this yard of silk to the last penny"), the dialogue breaks off.
Thus, Grice handles sincerity as a semiotic mechanism which is neutral
from an ethical point of view, whereas Mandeville considers it as an element
that can hinder social cooperation. Hence the necessity for a hypocritical
moral behaviour. The two perspectives do not seem to have anything in
common apart from the point they set out from.
However, if we go into details we will see that what Grice refers to, is
Mandeville's public communication: the semiotic system he describes seems
to refer to the public performance the actors play, as a counterpoint to private
and spontaneous communication.
This is true to the extent that, according to Grice's theory itself, we often
put an end to the dialogue, that is to say, we stop cooperation, in order to save
the appearances of the public performance, that is, so as to continue protect
ing the more general social cooperation, or as Mandeville would say, the
prevailing hypocrisy. It is the case of someone who wants to keep the

conversation he is holding private and when an undesirable person arrives he
changes the topic and violates the maxim of argumentative pertinence. In this
way he conveys to the interlocutor that "this is a delicate matter". As has been
observed (Green 1989:127), it is evident that we have here an interruption of
the conversation as it was evolving; but doing so, we save appearances and
avoid the embarassment of excuses or explanations etc. To sum up, the
semiotic system described by Grice seems to be the escape from embarass
ment due to any possible breach which may arise in Mandeville's public
communication. This complementarity shows however, that the presupposi
tions of Grice's reflection are to be found in Mandeville's scepticism (or
negative ethical rigorism: virtue requires such a perfection that it is not
suitable for mankind). Although, we have also seen that Grice has the need for
a normative universalistic Kantian foundation. The fact that this need is
substantially unanswered is due to his not being totally aware of his own
philosophical presuppositions. Pushed also by the descriptive need, Grice
ends up describing only the verbal veil that, as Mandeville says, we lower
onto our most private volitions.
As we can see thefinalresult is not brilliant: we have a theory of dialogue
that does not tell us whether the parallel and hidden semiosis exists or not, if it
is pertinent or not in the description of the dialogue. We are confronted with a
descriptive flaw. On the other hand we are faced with the need for a philo
sophical foundation — need which we have renounced without even having
put up a fight.
From this point of view the solution suggested by Goffman seems more
satisfactory; echoing Mandeville's topic of social life as a performance, he
recognizes the existence of the two dimensions of social communication, but
he emphasizes the capacity of the speaker to co-ordinate them (Goffman
1959:169).
Alongside this Solomonic solution we have to consider more radical
solutions which bet on an ethically 'stronger' dialogic concept of sincerity
and go far beyond Mandeville's idea of communication. I refer to Guido
Calogero's dialogue theory that includes a particular conception of philoso
phy of language that has been so far largely ignored, and whose critical
consideration, which can be referred to here only briefly, may provide useful
suggestions for contemporary research.
4. Dialogue as "a will to understand"
The core of Guido Calogero's linguistic-philosophical reflection is represented

by the notion of "linguistic interpretation" which coincides, as Calogero
himself expressly says, with "the whole problem of language", with "semantics
as the science of expression and communication" (Calogero 1948:21). How
ever, this "hermeneutics of the sign", or "semantic interpretation of words and
signs" (Ibid.), as Calogero calls it, is from the outset also an ethical notion; it
is in fact characterized by "its constitutive attention to personality", "its specific
direction towards others' conscience" (Ibid.). In this sense the linguistic
interpretation is coextensive of the idea of "dialogic situation", by means of
which Calogero will define that situation in which "we presuppose another
conscience or truth facing our own, which in turn implies a certain interpreta
tion and comprehension" (Calogero 1950:14).
In Calogero's opinion the formation of dialogue, like moral experience,
cannot be the object of logical demonstration. Going back to his enquiries
regarding the historical genesis of logical forms in Greek culture, Calogero
maintains that the principle of non-contradiction, the semantic coherence, the
figures of syllogism are nothing but "schemes meant to hinder undue diver
sions in the adoption of meaning of words during a conversation" (Calogero
1946:160). As "appeals to fairness" and "norms" of the linguistic play, they
help us only to improve the communicative efficiency of conversation, so that
during conversation verbal abuse does not prevail (Ibid.).
So the logical norms are norms of correct conversation and their value
depends upon our previous will to understand. As Calogero expressively says
"it is not logic that supports morality, but on the contrary morality that makes
logic possible, on account of it being a particular ethics of discussion"
(Ibid.: 160).
How the will to understand can arise is a problem that goes back to the
more general ethical enquiry that Calogero carries out parallel to his dialogic
research. It will suffice here to show the importance he attributes to the
eloquence emanating from the example in the establishment of morality and
hence of the will to understand (Ibid.: 168) - a point which finally will turn out
to be relevant for the issues we are facing here.
5. Language, dialogue and humanistic rationality
Calogero's theory of dialogue is based not only upon ethical speculation, but
also upon a linguistic speculation which centres upon the refusal of Benedetto
Croce's identification of art and language, intuition and expression. Expres
sion, Calogero says, "is not only an intuition but a functional relationship
between two intuitions where one is sign and the other is sense, one is symbol
and the other meaning" (Calogero 1947:173-4). Once he has given autonomy
to expression, Calogero can affirm the instrumental and communicative
character of language (Ibid.: 181) which is not based upon a contract3 but on
the character of linguistic signs which is historical and arbitrary at the same
time (Ibid.: 125, 179, 180).
These linguistic assumptions allow him to tackle the problem of the
relationship between logic or syllogistic and language in a way which is new
as compared to Croce, and which proceeds in a dialogic direction.
Following Croce, Calogero admits that both syllogistic and grammar are
nothing but "arbitrary schematizations of the only living reality of language
done for this or that practical purpose" (Calogero 1947:219). However, he
wonders whether affirming the simple "living reality of language" may not
open the way to irrationality. His answer is "that the only real rationality is
reasonableness. And this is not taught through schemes" but once again
through "the will to understand" (Ibid.:229). In Calogero's opinion the age-
old teaching of logic has had one function, namely that of teaching "the
seriousness of critical attention, the honesty of discussion" (Ibid.:230); yet
this is not a question of logic but rather the "object of that particular chapter of
philosophy of praxis constituted by the morality of conversation, the ethics of
language" (Ibid.:231).
So once again we have that connection of ethics, logic, and linguistics
which builds dialogue. Its highest form is "scientific dialogue" (Ibid.: 198);
this is a topic that gives Calogero scope to sum up all the reasoning behind his
concept of language.
To have language, Calogero says, it is not enough to have a voice emission
or more generally, transmission of sign, but it is necessary that "we have the
consciousness of what we want to mean by that sign" (Ibid.: 188). There are
cases in which the communicative intention is transparent ("The cat has
scratched me". Absurd question: "What does cat mean?"); in other cases
instead, nothing is immediately comprehensible ("Classical thought consid-
ered divinity as indifferent and self-sufficient "). Unlike those "who are used
always to show their "meanings" in the world of asemantic intuition" (Ibid.:
191), Calogero maintains that in these cases linguistic interpretation is not
pathological but physiological. The point is to understand the concrete value of
each term which is only partly determined by general use and is for the
remaining part — often greater than the former — formed by the "variety of
mental experiences" of each speaker (Ibid.: 192).
What binds these personal, irreducible semantic universes — in a way
which is never final but always open (Ibid.: 198) — is again dialogue. This can
be had through written or spoken discussions; in any case by "talking", that is
to say, through language as an instrument of communication. Through lan
guage in fact, the speaker opens out to "the world of everyday life" (Ibid.:244).
All the more so when language departs from "direct ideation" (Ibid.: 169),
which is peculiar to the most concrete and elementary experience, and becomes
"spoken ideation" through the use of abstract terms (Ibid.:245), which corre
spond to essential "concepts" for developing of thought and argumentation.
These additional clarifications by Calogero give a particular meaning to
his definition of language as an instrument of communication. Language in
fact, is not subservient to thought conceived of as as a world of pre-formed
meanings. On the contrary, language in dialogue having parted from direct
ideation and having become embodied in spoken ideation, is considered as the
necessary condition for the articulation of abstract thought.
A few remarks must however be made on this point. We have seen that
Calogero not trusting the idea of contract, resorts to the altruistic-voluntary
principle; he considers language not as already fixed in a system, but in the
moment in which an act of will generates a communicative intention. On the
other hand, we have also seen his insistence on the complexity of communica
tive intention and on the always open character of linguistic interpretation. All
this — together with his polemic against those who are surprised at the
incessant interpretative effort required by humanistic disciplines — means
that Calogero is trying to draw the outline of a humanistic rationality which
because of its linguistic character differs both from logic-formal rationality
and from technical-instrumental thought (or 'ability').
This rationality does not produce calculations or objects of everyday use,
but is the matrix of all those ideological, moral and normative discussions
which shape "the world of everyday life" (Calogero 1947:244) and which we
have access to, through language itself. It is the universality of this rationality,
its abstract character, proudly claimed by Calogero, which generates always

new meanings, by means of the deliberate search for an agreement which
should never be taken for granted between particular subjects bound to
equally particular stories and contexts. Calogero heralds here some of the
topics which nowadays are peculiar to hermeneutics and to the 'procedural'
theories of argumentation.
6. For a genetic theory of dialogue
Considering everything that has been said so far, Calogero's refuting of what
he calls "Vico's classical idea, taken up again by Croce, regarding the priority
of poetic language over oratorical language" (Calogero 1947:245) turns out to
be badly put. As he writes in a long passage which is worth reading, his thesis
is that the terms should be inverted:
language is not first poetic and then oratorical, but first oratorical and then
poetic. First we talk and then we sing; first we comply with the immediate
practical necessities, then we learn to overcome greed, and melancholy in
the experience of art. The poor primitive "beasts" went much beyond
themselves when they transformed their presumable original language of
mere expressive signs of the most elementary passions — hunger, anger,
terror, greed — similar to the language we can hear from animals, into a
richer one, that is able to indicate objects and representations, so we cannot
expect them to have been poets! (Ibid.:245)
Calogero shows here on the one hand that he lets himself be distracted by
Croce's aesthetical-gnosiological interpretation; and on the other, the limits
of his own reflection. Had he come closer to Vico, he would have realised that
what he calls "direct ideation", precisely because of its link with concrete-
ness, and in some cases even with the archaism of our daily toil (Calogero
1948:20), has a somewhat residual relationship with poetic licence, in the
same way as it is understood — through the phylogenetic point of view — by
Vico, that is, as a language of minds still deeply involved in sensibility,
suffocated by passions, buried in their bodies (Vico 1744:174-175). But to do
so Calogero ought to have improved what he calls "the concrete and aseman-
tic images of life" giving more importance to fantasy and feelings.
Drawing closer to Vico he would have probably noticed that his "scien
tific dialogue" is typical of the human nature described by Vico as intelligent,
therefore modest, benevolent and reasonable, subservient to the laws of
conscience, reason and duty (Vico 1744:476) — a "human nature" which in

Vico's cyclical trilogy comes after "divine" and "heroic nature", in which
sesibility is mixed up with religion and ferocity (Ibid.:258, 475).
But in this case also, Calogero should have wondered about the genesis
of that act of good will which he considers to be at the basis of all his dialogic-
moral reflection. This genesis, as I mentioned earlier, is traced back in a
passionate but rather general way to the persuasive strength emanating from
the moral example that engages man's whole being.
Such a general statement however, does not explain how we go from
sensuous virtue to virtue proper of human nature whose law, as Vico says, is
conscience and duty. So those social-discursive mechanisms that accompany
and promote the change to dialogic rationality remain in the shadow. In this
way the great building of "oratorical language" appears to hang in a vacuum,
when it is not confused with the elementary referentialistic communication of
the most daily or 'primitive' situations that has nothing of the semantic
complexity of "oratorical language" as Calogero himself theorises it.
ín conclusion although it is not possible to reduce Calogero's dialogic
rationality to an awkward rationalism, his final polemic with Vico means that,
even if we go back to the ethical nature of dialogue, a satisfactory model
cannot be built without considering its genesis.
A solution to this problem seems to be given by Jean Piaget's theory of
dialogue where his research on children's language, thought and morality
finds a socio-genetic synthesis (Piaget 1977). Even Piaget starts from a
presupposition similar to Calogero's, namely that, "la logique est la morale de
la pensée, et la morale est une logique de l'action" (Piaget 1978:328). But the
genetic inspiration, that is very close to Vico's and upon which he bases his
thought, brings him to explore precisely those fields which Calogero had left
in the shadow or perceived indistinctly — the change from sensuous virtue to
that human nature whose law is give by duty and conscience, the way in
which this change leads to the establishment of the norms of correct conversa
tion; the linguistic and cognitive mechanisms involved in this change.
Apart from some rare articles the closeness between Piaget's genetic
research and Vico's genetism has not been systematically studied. And yet
not only could this study bring to light an "unknown" Piaget (Apostel 1986),
but it could also help to divulge that heritage of bright and avante-garde
discoveries that Vico made regarding the genesis and the structures of discur
sive thought. Of course there is always the risk that the cold light of later
thought could destroy the charm of a text, and this is particularly true of a
'heroic' thought such as Vico's.
A determined acceptance of the humanistic inspiration of Vico's ge-
netism could help to avoid, at least partly, this risk; a historical root that could
be useful both for a critical interpretation of Piaget's system which is not
devoid of rigidity and late- and neo-positivist poisons, as well as for new
explorations led by accumulated methodological consciousness of linguistic
processes in the genesis of dialogic rationality.
NOTES
1. An idea of this is given by the proceedings of conferences published since 1986 by

Niemeyer {Dialoganalyse 1986, 1989,1991) or the collective volumes edited by Publica
tions de l'Université des Langues et Lettres de Grenoble {Essais sur le dialogue 1980,
1984, 1987, 1989). For a recent synthesis of studies on dialogue, see: Vernant 1992.
2. Something is already being published, however. Cf. Grice, 1991.
3. The contract hypothesis leads to the peculiar situation of having to "presuppose that
people already understand one another in order to come to an agreement when giving
names to things" (Calogero 1946: 328). The same aporia can be found in juridical
contractualism which considers law as the result of the contract when, on the contrary, it
is the contract that presupposes law (Ibid.) where this is to be understood as a "verbal
enunciation of a request made to others" (Ibid.: 264) that must be subsequently under
stood and interpreted (Ibid.: 299). As we see here, on the one hand law appears as an
aspect of the more general process of linguistic interpretation; on the other, with the
rejection of the contract hypothesis, we go back to that altruistic voluntarism which builds
with a single movement, dialogue, morality and right.
REFERENCES
Apostel, Leo. 1986. "The Unknown Piaget: from the theory of exchange and cooperation
toward the theory of knowledge". New Ideas in Psychology All : 3-22.
Calogero, Guido. 1950. Logo e dialogo. Milano: Edizioni di Comunità.
. [1946] 1960. Etica {= Lezioni di Filosofía II). Torino: Einaudi.
. [1947] 1960. Estetica (= Lezioni di Filosofía III) Torino: Einaudi.
. [1948] 1960. Logica {= Lezioni di Filosofa I) Torino: Einaudi.
Green, Georgia M. 1989. Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Grice, Paul. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
. 1991. The Conception of Value. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City & New
York: Doubleday Anchor Books.
Habermas, Jurgen. 1983. Moralbewusstsein und kommunikatives Handeln. Frankfurt am

Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Mande ville, Bernard de. 1705-1729. The Fable of Bees or Private Vices, Public Benefits.
With a Commentary Critical, Historical and Explanatory by F.B. Kaye. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1966 (reprint of the first edition 1924).
Neale, Stephen. 1992. "Paul Grice and the Philosophy of Language". Linguistics and
Philosophy, 15: 509-559.
Piaget, Jean. [1932] 1978. Le jugement moral chez Venfant. Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France (5th ed.).
. [1965] 1977. Etudes Sociologiques. Genève-Paris: Droz (3rd ed.).
Simone, Raffaele. 1990. Manuale di Linguistica. Bari: Laterza.
Sperber, Dan & Wilson, Deirdre. 1986. Relevance. Communication and cognition.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Vernant, Denis (ed.). 1992. Du dialogue (= Recherches sur la philosophie et le langage
14). Paris: Vrin.
Vico, Giambattista, 1744. La scienza nuova (giusta l'edizione del 1744), Ed. by F.
Nicolini. 2 vols. Bari: Laterza, 1974.
SOMMARIO
Nelle massime conversazionali di Paul Grice, la massima delia sincerità ha un

ruolo ad un tempo funzionale e normativo. Grice, tuttavia, benché interessato
a scoprire le ragioni per cui i parlanti dovrebbero ad essa attenersi, non riesce
poi a fondarla normativamente.
È possibile spiegare questa inconseguenza risalendo ad un brano delia
Favola delie api di Bernard de Mandeville, in cui si descrive l'interazione tra
un mercante di sete e una sua giovane cliente. Qui viene offerta una rappresen-
tazione della comunicazione sociale proprio nel senso di Grice, cioè come
scambio cooperativo finalizzato al perseguimento efficiente di scopi. La
conclusione di Mandeville, secondo il quale l'uomo agisce spinto dalla ricerca
egoística del piacere, sembra però il contrario di quella di Grice: poiché
l'esplicitazione dei pensieri nascosti che f anno da inevitabile contrappunto alla
comunicazione pubblica renderebbe impossibile la cooperazione sociale, la
comunicazione pubblica non puö che essere insincera.
Il contrasto tra queste due prospettive è però solo apparente. In effetti, la
massima della sincerità di Grice si riferisce a ciö che Mandeville chiama la
comunicazione pubblica, e, in generale, le massime conversazionali di Grice
sono un modello comunicativo inconsapevolmente mandevilliano. Da ciö
deriva probabilmente l' impossibilità-di esibire le ragioni che dovrebbero
indurre i parlanti ad attenersi alla massima delia sincerità normativamente

intesa.
Tali ragioni sono invece ricercate in un modello di dialogo come quello di
Guido Calogero che, muovendo da un presupposto filosofico non egoistico ma
altruistico, è costruito attorno al principio della "buona volontà di intendere".
Tuttavia, la polemica di Calogero contro Vico circa l'origine del dialogo o
"linguaggio oratorio", mostra che un modello adeguato del dialogo non può che
muoversi in una direzione decisamente genetica.
RESUME
Dans son modèle de l'échange verbal, Paul Grice attribue à la maxime de

sincérité un statut en même temps fonctionnel et normatif. Cependant, bien
qu'il soit intéressé à découvrir les raisons pour lesquelles les locuteurs
devraient la respecter, il n'arrive pas à en assurer une fondation normative.
La Fable des abeilles de Bernard de Mandeville peut nous aider à
expliquer cette inconséquence, en particulier le passage où est décrite l'interac
tion entre un marchand de soies et une de ses jeunes et jolies clientes. Ici, comme
d'ailleurs chez Grice, la communication sociale est représentée comme un
échange coopératif visant à atteindre efficacement des buts. Cependant, la
conclusion à laquelle parvient Mandeville semble être à l'opposé de celle de
Grice: l'explicitation des intentions secrètes qui accompagnent en contrepoint
la communication publique détruirait la coopération sociale; la communication
publique ne peut donc qu'être hypocrite.
Mais le contraste entre ces deux perspectives se révèle n'être qu'appa
rent. En effet, la maxime de sincérité de Grice se réfère à ce que Mandeville
appelle la communication publique. Le modèle de Grice est donc en définitive
un modèle mandevillien de la communication sociale. C'est peut-être la
raison pour laquelle Grice n'arrive pas à indiquer ce qui devrait obliger les
locuteurs à respecter la maxime de sincérité en son contenu normatif.
Or, c'est précisément ce que tente de faire le philosophe italien Guido
Calogero, avec son modèle du dialogue fondé sur la "bonne volonté de
comprendre". Cependant, la polémique qu'il engage contre Vico à propos de
l'origine du dialogue ou "langage oratoire", montre qu'un bon modèle du
dialogue ne saurait se passer de la dimension génétique.
The Semiological Sources of Semantics
Sylvain Auroux
CNRS URA 381. Université de Paris VII
During the last decade of the 19th century and the first of the 20th there is
a marked revival of interest in the meaning of words and in the concept of
sign, of which the words of natural languages are seen simply as particular
cases. It is no longer possible to undertake a "semantic" approach to language
(under whatever name) in abstracto, without putting forward hypotheses
about the nature of the linguistic sign, about the nature of language (or even of
languages), or about the way language is connected with the mind or the
interlocutionary process. The period is marked by the almost simultaneous
appearance of the "semantics" or "significs" of Lady Welby, of Saussure's
"semiology" (cf. Engler 1980: 4), and of the works of G. Frege, E. Husserl,
and B. Russell (among the rest).
Undoubtedly, the origins of this great outburst of activity are at once
social (related to the demands of international communication, as indicated
by the vogue for creating artificial languages), scientific (problems of logic
and mathematics), and philosophical (how can we conceive of meaning now
that the naivety of Cartesian dualism is no longer easily acceptable?).
However, although the demand may be a general one, it receives the
most diverse theoretical responses. The confusion among authors as regards
the disciplines involved is bewildering. Lalande, for example, in the article on
semiology in his famous Vocabulaire Critique de la Philosophie (1902),
draws equally upon the semiology of Saussure, the significs of Lady Welby,
and the semantics of Bréal. These are treated as equivalent by Charles Morris
too. Clearly, there is a great deal of interaction between researchers working
in this broad domain. Lady Welby, for instance, promoted the English transla
tion of Bréal's book (Auroux & Delesalle 1990). Later on she was to move
away from semantics, while her disciples . . Ogden and I. A. Richards
222 Sylvain Auroux
criticised Bréal in their fundamental work, The Meaning of Meaning (1923).

If in 1896 it was possible to imagine that semantics would bridge the gap
between words and things, Ogden and Richards now felt that this hope had
failed. Examining the work of linguists (mainly of Bréal and Saussure, in
whose writings they see little more than empty verbiage and fanciful con
structions), they dismiss the results of philology as disappointing and propose
shifting the theory of meaning from the province of linguistics to that of logic,
the training of linguists being considered quite inadequate to the task.
In the discussions about the nature of the sign and of meaning, the role of
the communication situation, and the causes of semantic change, a great deal
is at stake for the sciences of language. It will suffice to note that the domain
of a science of meaning does not belong a priori to linguistics: it is equally the
concern of philosophers, logicians and psychologists.
Modern semanticists — following the lead of the German criticism that
met the first appearance of Bréal's work — often consider it superficial and of
little interest to semantics (see, for example, Baldinger 1984). From a histori
cal point of view, things appear somewhat different. By shifting linguistic
inquiry from the province of morphology and sound change to the sphere of
meaning, Bréal displaces the theory of language itself.
In order to make it clear that the establishment of a new domain of
positive research is not the only thing at stake in this displacement, we may
simply note that semantics is from the outset a critique of traditional compara
tive grammar. In the preface to his Essai, Bréal points out that if we limit
ourselves to vowel and consonant changes we reduce linguistics to a second
ary branch of psychology.
The historical study of changes in meaning not only brings to light
phenomena that phonetic etymology leaves unexplained, but exposes a truly
contingent factor in evolution which the concept of sound-law tended to
efface. The modes of change are no longer seen as affecting just sound units
or isolated words, but lexical units in their mutual relations. The birth of
semantics must thus be considered an outcome of developments that are
internal to linguistics and to the profound upheavals which linguistics under
went at the turn of the century. It should be seen in an evolutionary perspec
tive leading, on the one hand, to the work of the Swiss dialectologist J.
Gilliéron on La faillite de l'etymologie phonétique (1919), and, on the other,
to the Saussurean conception of linguistic value.
Almost all semasiologists and semanticists described the phenomena of
change starting with concepts whose sources lay in earlier works; typically
the concepts of tropes and synonymy (on Reisig, see Schmitter 1987: 123,
127) or the old idea of the empiricists according to which the concrete
genetically precedes the abstract. It is thus to Dumarsais's Traité des Tropes
(1730) and to abbé Girard's Justesse de la langue française (1718) that we
must look for the beginnings of modern studies that lead to the establishment
of semantics.
Dumarsais attempts to isolate the various processes (the tropes or figures
of speech) whereby the words of a given language move away from their proper
or original meaning, that is to say, change their meanings, whether this change
occurs in their use or in their history. The arbitrariness of the link between a
sound and its meaning, together with divergences in the use of figurative
expressions, explain the difference between languages (cf. Albrecht 1981). The
theory of tropes is actually the first treatise devoted to the theory of linguistic
meaning (cf. Auroux 1979). On reflection it will be clear that once meaning has
been reduced to the idea, it follows inevitably that a theory of meaning applied
to real languages will be a theory of meaning change: at first sight, what is stable
in language is the sound unit, not the meaning. Abbé Girard's contribution to
the growth of semantics concerns synonymy: by positing the axiom that it is
impossible for two words in a given language to be perfectly synonymous, he
made it necessary to describe the lexicon in terms of contrasts or "oppositions".
The idea then soon arose among his followers (see Auroux 1984) that any new
word introduced into a language either produces a change of meaning in words
that are synonymous with it, or changes its own meaning (cf. Nicolas 1980).
This principle received various, non-equivalent, formulations and was used
extensively by semanticists (Darmesteter 1887: 139; Bréal 1897: 27-28 on the
loi de répartition; Grasserie 1899: 398; 1908:411-12,503; Meillet 1906: 37 on
the répartition du sens) until it became a model for Saussure's conception of
value.
Semantics, and the theoretical discussions that accompanied it, could
only come to birth, however, in the context of a specific tradition. Since the
18th century, there had existed in Germany an important intellectual tradition
that I shall call "semantic" for want of a better name. An offspring of the
hermeneutic school of thought (J. A. Ernesti, Institutio Interpretis Novi
Testamenti, 1761; S. F. M. Morus, De Discrimine sensus  Significationis in
Interpretando, 1787), this tradition culminates in the work of Schleiermacher.
Its essential goal is the interpretation of texts, in other words, discourses. It is
characterised by the idea that if words have fixed meanings (significado in
224 Sylvain Auroux
Ernesti's vocabulary), texts have a sense (sensus) which cannot be deduced

from the meanings of words. Hermeneutics is concerned with the sense of
texts. Unlike the German hermeneuts, the great theoreticians of the 18th
century who continue to influence Darmesteter or Bréal (Dumarsais, Con-
dillac) are theoreticians of meaning. It follows that the theoretical apprehen
sion of semantic phenomena takes place at the level of the value assigned to
the word in the language, and not in the act of interpretation based upon the
sense of texts. Semasiologists make a similar option when they take lexicog
raphy as a basis, but they abandon it when they tackle the psychological or
communicational sources of meaning changes (Nerlich 1988).
The classical precursors of semantics reduced the theory of the sign to
one of linguistic meaning, i.e. to a theory of the process linking sound, idea
and external object. This ternary structure (cf. fig. 1) serves as a pattern for all
theories of language origin (Auroux 1979: 53). It works in a completely
different way from the ternary structure of Ogden and Richards (cf. fig. 2)
used today (with adjustments) by numerous semanticists (cf. Baldinger 1984:
XV) with the exception of generativists. The relationship between word and
object is always mediated by the idea; in other words, reference in the modern
sense has no role (it is thus clear why Ogden and Richards reject linguistics in
favour of logic). What we have is an ideist (representationalist) theory of
knowledge. The object serves essentially to explain how the idea can arise
and be connected to the word. We move from ideas to objects, assembling
several ideas in a more comprehensive and less extensive idea (the so-called
law of Port-Royal).
sound thought or reference
object. . . idea symbol referent

fig. 1 (Auroux 1979a: 33, 39) fig. 2 (Ogden/Richards 1923)
One of the consequences of this situation is the reduction of the ternary
structure to a binary one (sound, idea) in the concrete applications of grammar
or lexicography. The idea is the meaning of the word and it is by being linked
to an idea that a group of sounds is able to become a word. This conception is
the basis of French work in semantics. It leads researchers to link the investi
gation of language to the study of the working of ideas — what Destutt de
Tracy called idéologie. The status of ideas, however, is extremely ambiguous.
On the one hand, they are elements in thought process; on the other, they
constitute the unity underlying the different uses of the same word. While the
two are not without links, they clearly cannot be seen as identical. Moreover,
it is an ambiguity that involves a confusion between onomasiology with
semasiology. It will give rise to controversy when semantics is officially born.
In this respect it is interesting to compare Chavée's article on "Les
familles naturelles des idées verbales" (1867) with Bréal's famous lecture on
"Les idées latentes du langage", delivered at the Collège de France the
following year. In the first case, linguistic analysis is expected to provide a
general theory of the mind, whose properties are seen as rooted in the
biological structures peculiar to each race. In the second, the conventionalist
outlook typical of Bréal's position is already in place: what this entails is the
primacy of language.
Chavée's school was to react against the conceptions of Bréal: Grasserie
(1899) maintains that the idea plays an active role through a kind of "gram
matical animism". The idea is thus situated on the dividing line between
semantics and positive ideology. In La Sémantique Intégrale (1906: 33),
Grasserie expresses his position clearly: "L'idée seule est l'objet de la séman
tique, l'idée en tant qu'expressible, et qu'exprimée, mais le mot demeure et
doit demeurer son simple écran".
Ogden and Richards were convinced that meaning cannot be tackled
without a satisfactory theory of signs ([1923] 1966: 48). In effect it is a theory
of linguistic signs that is in question here. Lady Welby (1911) reduced
semantics to a branch of significs: she saw it simply as an application of
signifies limited to philology, since it is concerned neither with defining types
of meaning nor with studying their expressive value.
In the first published text in which the Saussurean notion of semiology
appears, it is clearly distinguished from semantics. The encompassing disci
pline is no longer signifies in relation to semantics, but semiology in relation
to linguistics, the latter including semantics (Naville 1901: 104; see Engler
1980: 4-5). When, during his second course on general linguistics (1908-09),
Saussure returns to the question of semiology, he is careful to note, in a
passage written down by Riedlinger and which is also found in the manuscript
sources: "aucun rapport avec la sémantique science des sens <des mots> de la
langue, par opposition à celle des formes" (CLG/E: 49). The Swiss linguist
rebukes Bréal for being incapable of saying what he is talking about:
226 Sylvain Auroux
Lire Sémantique <de> Bréal, p. 29-35, par exemple; il arrive un moment où

on voit d'une part qu'il ne peut rien rester "dans l'esprit" de telles aus-
führungen, et en même temps que cela tient à ce qu'il est toujours question
de ce qui se passe entre les termes du langage, ou pour suivre — il faudrait
d'abord savoir ce qu'ils sont, ce qu'on prend comme étant, avant de parler
de phénomènes entre les termes existants. (Notes sur la linguistique géné
rale, CLG/E, fasc. 4: 41)
Let us introduce some general definitions at this point. We will use the
term theory of signs for any theory which explains what it is to be a sign, and
whose class of relevant phenomena includes natural languages but is broader
than the class of natural languages. We will use the term theory of meaning
for any theory that tries to explain what it is to mean, at least for a certain class
of signs. Within these conditions we can say that semantics is not a theory of
signs, but a theory of linguistic meaning; Saussurean semiology (which can be
applied, for example, both to naval signals and to forms of politeness: cf.
Engler 1968: 44-45), is a theory of signs, not a theory of meaning. As regards
significs, it is a theory of meaning clearly co-extensive with a part of the
theory of signs; but (unlike Peirce's semeiotic) it is not properly a theory of
signs.
Bréal's semantics is thus not a theory of signs, either. It is irrevocably
linked to natural language and the century-old practices of lexicographers. Its
generality (and its historical and cultural importance) derive from the fact that
it entails a conception of natural language. By this I mean that it takes a (more
or less explicit) stance on traditional problems of language philosophy: the
conventional origin of languages, the impossibility of thinking without lan
guage (which does not imply that thought can be reduced to language), the
independence of linguistic reality from the will of the speaker, etc. Clearly,
behind this attitude and these assumptions lies a concept of the linguistic sign.
It is a traditional, dyadic concept: the word is the sign of the idea. But the idea
inevitably has to give up its essentially psychological quality. This postulate
seems to me to be an essential point of arrival of semantics; it corresponds to
the need to furnish the discipline with an ontologically and intersubjectively
stable object. Lalande (1902: Préface) — from an entirely Durkheimian
standpoint — neatly expresses one of the possible variants of this postulate:
Les sens d'un mot ne sont pas les valeurs d'une variable indéterminée, dont
nous pourrions disposer à notre gré. C'est une réalité, qui, pour n'être pas
matérielle, au sens précis du terme, n'en possède pas moins la consistance
parfois très dure que présentent certains faits sociaux. Les mots sont des
choses, et des choses fort actives: ils sont "en nous sans nous": ils ont une
existence et une nature qui ne dépendent pas de notre volonté, des propriétés
cachées même à ceux qui les prononcent ou les comprennent.
Semantics had no need whatsoever of a general theory of signs, or even
of meaning; it was sufficient for it to say how a linguistic sign worked (chiefly
by analogy) in language, i.e. within the set of social conventions governing
human discourse. It is this conception of the linguistic sign that is at the centre
of Saussure's thinking; no doubt this is why he too uses a dyadic model:
(acoustic image/concept) or (signifier/signified). The semiological viewpoint
introduced by the Genevan linguist does not consist in the construction of a
theory of the different types of signs, but above all in the argument that all
signs (only conventional elements are recognised as such) must have a certain
number of properties in common (CLG/E: 49). Saussure concludes from this
that we must first of all study those properties of human language which are
shared with other sign systems: "Si l'on veut découvrir la véritable nature de
la langue, il faut la prendre d'abord dans ce qu'elle a de commun avec les
autres systèmes du même ordre" (CLG/E: 51).
Saussure himself did not produce a serriiological theory, but his position
assumes that what he says about languages as sign systems holds for any other
kind of system. The implication is that the decisive feature is not a general
theory of signs but the conception of the linguistic sign considered in general
terms.
A conception of this kind inevitably led semantics away from rhetoric,
unlike the pragmatic orientation of many conceptions of signification (cf
Ogden & Richards [1923] 1966: 281-82). The difference can be seen immedl-
ately with regard to the place occupied by the subject of the utterance, to
which Bréal devotes chapter XXV of his book, under the title of "l'élément
subjectif'. What the linguist is referring to are the means available in lan
guages for a speaker to express what he thinks while distinguishing this from
what he is expressing himself about: "Si je dis en parlant d'un voyageur: "A
l'heure qu'il est, il est sans doute arrivé", sans doute ne se rapporte pas au
voyageur mais à moi" (Bréal 1897:235).
Bréal is not concerned with the speaker's intention outside its linguistic
manifestation: for a linguist this constitutes something indefinable. Following
Saussure, we might say that it has nothing to do with the parole. The work of
the linguist is similar in a sense to writing dictionary items: it consists in
defining the possibilities or the constraints of usage. When I speak, what
228 Sylvain Auroux
interests the linguist is not what I want to say at this precise moment, but what
I have to say in order to say it and what I cannot not say. It is these
consequences that the heirs oí significs were to reject, seeing them as fictions:
As a philologist with an inordinate respect for linguistic convention, de
Saussure could not bear to tamper with what he imagined to be a fixed
meaning, a part of la langue. This scrupulous regard for fictitious "ac
cepted" uses of words is a frequent trait in philologists. (Ogden & Richards
[1923] 1966: 6)
Their criticism is directed specifically at the binary conception of the

sign: its drawback lies in the fact that, by definition, it includes the process of
interpretation in the sign (Ibid.: 5). While this remark is sharp enough to
enable us to pick out the exact point of divergence, the position it attributes to
their adversary is mistaken; the dyadic model does not bring the process of
interpretation into the sign, it disregards the process of interpretation. Lin
guistic semiology does not use a dyadic model out of ignorance but out of the
rejection of a triadic model. On one occasion, to my knowledge, Saussure
made reference to a triadic model — in an unpublished note defining the
onymique (the case of nouns which, like /tree/, /stone/, etc., give the impres
sion that language is a nomenclature). This is presented as an exception to the
general theory:
<le cas> particulier de l' onymique dans l'ensemble de la sémiologie, où il y
a un troisième élément incontestable dans l'association psychologique du
sème, la conscience qu'il s'applique à un être extérieur assez défini en lui-
même pour échapper à la loi générale du signe. (Engler 1968: 37)
Recently, Peirce and Saussure have been contrasted with regard to their
theories of signs (cf. Deledalle 1979: 29-49). This contrast does not simply
concern Peirce, nor does the difference lie merely in the richness of Peirce's
classification of signs. The contrast between a triadic model and a dyadic
model is in itself more of a consequence than a principle. The difference goes
much deeper. In one case, usage is incorporated hic et nunc; what the sign can
signify cannot be fully specified outside its context of use, whether this
includes external objects, psychic processes, or the act of referring. In the
other case, usage is disregarded and a regulated, abstract order of reality is
presupposed — which does not mean, however, that this is not contingent on
usage. The two paradigms are irreducible and define in different ways what
can be rationally known about symbolical systems.
Bréal's semantics recognises the autonomy of linguistic elements pre

cisely in the sphere of meaning. This amounts to saying that the word is by
definition always adequate to the thought:
Plus un mot s'est détaché de ses origines, plus il est au service de la pensée:
selon les expériences que nous faisons, il se resserre ou s'étend, se spécifie
ou se généralise. Il accompagne l'objet auquel il sert d'étiquette à travers
les événements de l'histoire, montant en dignité ou descendant dans l'opi
nion, et passant quelquefois à l'opposé de l'acception initiale: d'autant plus
apte à ces différents rôles qu'il est devenu plus complètement signe. (Bréal
1897:182)
Saussure arrives at autonomy through the concept of value, one of whose

best-identified sources is undeniably the theory of synonyms (cf. Auroux
1985 for a detailed demonstration), which is reproduced by semasiologists
and semanticists. In a given language, there are no perfect synonyms: all
synonyms are distinguished by nuances which set them in contrast. When one
language borrows a form from another language and this form is synonymous
with one already existing in the first language, no matter how semantically
close the two terms are at the outset, they will tend to become distinguished by
nuances (Cf. Guizot 1809:XX-XXI; Grasserie 1908). Saussure is even more
radical and generalises this position to include the system of signs constituting
a language. The concept intrinsic in a linguistic sign does not exist in itself but
is defined by the relationship the sign sets up with other signs, what Saussure
calls its value. A value cannot remain identical when other signs are inte
grated into the system; two elements cannot be identical if they belong to
different systems. The only reality of a sign, its objective identity, is its value.
The phenomena brought to light by students of synonymy are no longer
mysterious: they derive from the very nature of the linguistic sign. Strictly
speaking we should no longer say, as we did at the birth of semantics, that a
word changes its meaning, but rather that a linguistic sign ceases to exist and
gives place to another.
In an article published in 1927, the young L. Weisgerber (he was born in
1899) raised the issue of whether the theory of meaning is not a dead end for
linguistics. The study of the meaning of words can teach us nothing about
psychological regularities, or about their connections with things outside
language. Semantics can only be the handmaid of lexicography and should be
limited to the relations whereby, in the system of a language, concepts delimit
each other. The same idea of definition by contrast, extended from the identity
230 Sylvain Auroux
of one word to the mutual relationships of a group of words, leads J. Trier

(1931) to the notion of a semantic field.
Both in Germany and France linguistic semantics thus achieves genuine
independence from logic or psychology by becoming differential However,
this conception risks leading semantics into serious difficulties, for example
by ruling out the concept of polysemy, or, quite simply, by leaving the
question of reference outside linguistics. This is perhaps why the ternary
model of Ogden and Richards has remained an essential theoretical tool both
for logicians and linguists, even when the latter work within the framework of
a differential semantics.
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Marsais zum Problem des kontrastiven Metaphorik und Idiomatik". Logos semantikos
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. 1979a. La sémiotique des Encyclopédistes. Paris: Payot.
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, Claude Désirat & Tristan Hordé (1982). Les Idéologues et les Sciences du
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& Simone Dellesalle. 1990. "French Semantics of the Late Nineteenth Century and
Lady Welby's Significs". H. Walter Schmitz (ed.). Essays on significs. Amsterdam &
Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 105-131.
Baldinger, Kurt. 1984. Vers une sémantique moderne. Paris: Klincksieck.
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Bréal, Michel 1868. "Les idées latentes du langage". Now in Mélanges de mythologie et
de linguistique. Paris: Hachette, 1878. 295-322.
. 1897. Essai de sémantique. Paris: Hachette.
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Darmesteter, Arsène. 1887. La vie des mots étudiés dans leurs significations. Paris:
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Deledalle, Gérard. 1979. Théorie et pratique du signe. Introduction à la sémiotique de
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576.
Di Cesare, Donatella. 1980. La semantica nella filosofla greca. Roma: Bulzoni.
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. 1973. "Rôle et place d'une sémantique". Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 28. 35-
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de Saussure 29. 45-73.
. 1980. "Sémiologies saussuriennes. II: Le canevas". Cahiers Ferdinand de
Saussure . 3-36.
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Scarecrow Press, Inc.
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mots", Revue Philosophique 48. 391-416, 495-504.
. 1908. Essai d'une sémantique intégrale. Paris: Leroux.
Guizot, François. 1809. Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel des Synonymes de la langue
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. 1985. "Quelques observations sur les sources de la sémiologie saussurienne".
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Lalande, André. 1902. Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie. Paris: Alcan.
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Naville, Adrien. 1901. Nouvelle classification des sciences. Paris: Alcan
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SOMMARIO
Nel momento in cui, grazie a M. Bréal, la semantica acquista un nome, un

certo numero di discipline più o meno abortite (sematologia, semasiología,
signifies, semiología, ecc.) le fanno concorrenza nel progetto di studiare il
signifícato dei segni linguistici. In quest'articolo si tenta di mostrare tre cose:
i) che malgrado una certa sovrapposizione tematica, occorre distinguere le
teorie del segno dalle teorie del signifícato; ii) che in origine non c'è una
chiara differenziazione tra le due; iii) che l'origine tecnica delle teorie del
signifícato è da ricercare nella retorica (teoría dei tropi) e nella teoría dei
sinonimi.
RESUME
Lorsque la sémantique reçoit un nom par la grâce de M. Bréal, quantité de

disciplines plus ou moins mort nées (sématologie, Sémasiologie, signifies,
sémiologie, etc.) lui font concurrence dans le projet d'aborder la signification
des signes linguistiques. Dans cet article, on s'efforce de montrer trois choses:
i) que malgré un recouvrement thématique, on doit distinguer les théories du
signe et les théories de la signification; ii) qu'aux origines, il n'y a pas une
claire différence entre les deux; iii) que l'origine technique des théories de la
signification se trouve dans la rhétorique (théorie des tropes) et la théorie de la
synonymie.
The Language User in Saussure
(and after)1
Raffaele Simone
Third University of Rome
Saussure était un intellectualiste convaincu; son

tempérament scientifique le poussait à chercher [...]
ce qu'il y a dans toute langue, et dans le langage
en général, de régulier, de géométrique, d'architectural...
Charles Bally, Ferdinand de Saussure
et l'état actuel des études linguistiques, 1913 (in Bally 1925:157)
1. Linguistics with and without user
With a very simple, though quite plausible, opposition I shall distinguish

linguistic theories into two vast classes: those including the language user as
an integral part and those ignoring him. The basic goal of the latter is to
envisage (i.e., describe and possibly explain) linguistic systems as such,
namely, as abstract semiotic organisations set apart from any user. The
former, on the other hand, aims basically to grasp the interactions between
users and the language system, and the effects they may have on linguistic
structure, both from the synchronic and the diachronic point of view. Many
recent and contemporary linguistic theories can fit without any particular
difficulty into one or the other of such classes, even if at the price of some not
crucial simplification. (These two paradigms will be called henceforth "user-
centered" and "language-centered", respectively.)
Face to such an opposition it is easy to argue that linguistics has always
manifested a certain distrust towards user-centered theories. For reasons it
could be useful to scrutinise historically and epistemologically, linguistics has
234 Raffaele Simone
typically tended to put this paradigm to a margin, and it has even created a set
of typical criticisms precisely to drop it out. One of those criticisms — which
is normally felt as negative when used in history of science and philosophy —
is that of "psychologism": user-centered theories would appear as exceed
ingly psychologically-oriented, that is aiming to the search rather of indi
vidual variations than of inter-individual regularities. More criticisms are
available, though, in this framework: according to another very frequent one,
user-centered theories are viewed as too informal while the others are formal,
being able to use formalisms apt to make the procedures of analysis rigorous
and full-fledged. In sum, the dropping out of the user from the field of
linguistics seems to be a guarantee of the validity of the theory involved.
Structural and post-structural linguistics offers a good terrain for verify
ing those claims, both from the historical and the epistemological point of
view. Everyone knows, for instance, the statements of Bloomfield and his
followers in favor of behaviorism as the basis of their fundamental assump
tions. A psychological basis is required for linguistics, in this framework; but
this cannot mean for it to include any concern with language user as such. As
a consequence, it is not possible to say that classical structural linguistics
incorporates the user and his traces on language among its basic assumptions
in any significant way. In that perspective, indeed, the user is a sort of
makeshift device, a conceptual reservoir where to heap up atypical facts,
asymmetric phenomena, and other extra-systemic objects, hardly reducible to
formal regularities.
The main inconvenience with the user is that he intrudes a typical factor
of disturbance, from which theoretical linguistics has always striven to stay
off— variation. To some extent, the effort to keep the user outside its scope is
a typical sign of the fear of variation that linguistics has manifested on many
occasions in its recent history. One of the few exceptions to this, within the
range of structural linguistics, is André Martinet's work, at least where he
discusses the "economy" of sound change. Here the interest in the language
user (under the specific form of the Principle of Least Effort) is quite notice
able and offers the scaffolding of the whole argumentation (Martinet 1955).
Generative linguistics proceeds along a similar path and possibly in an
even more contradictory way. Chomsky's pleas for including linguistics into
psychology as one of its parts, and for viewing psychology as an overall
model of which linguistics is just a specific manifestation, are as widely
known as Bloomfield's defence of behaviorism. Also this position should
The Language User in Saussure and after 235
bring to considering the language user and his peculiar properties as crucial
elements in the building up of the theory. But once again it is impossible to
say, in spite of those declarations of principle, that generative linguistics has
really included the user as one of its theoretical primes. On the contrary,
constantly ignoring variation phenomena has been one of the earliest and
most frequent criticisms levelled against generative grammar, since the early
development of sociolinguistics. To the same conclusion, moreover, bring
other fundamental assumptions of generative linguistics, in particular the
view of language as a strictly formal system, one that can be almost entirely
described by more or less powerful algorithms — a system where anything
not reducible to such algorithms is put apart in a specific area of grammar,
called, pour cause, "peripheral grammar". This is another interesting instance
of the fear of variation I mentioned earlier.
On the other side there is the class of user-centered theories, which is
very variegated on its own. In fact, there are several ways of incorporating the
language user into linguistic theory. One can find obviously exaggerated
ways, where the whole language organisation is reduced to psychological
mechanisms, and, on the other hand, rich and insightful approaches, accord
ing to which incorporating the language user into the primes of theory allows
to shed light on several linguistic phenomena which would remain out of
reach otherwise. In the modern linguistic tradition an example of the latter
orientation is undoubtedly Henri Frei's Grammaire des fautes (Frei 1929), a
pretty old, isolated, and never appropriately evaluated piece of work, where
the user's "needs" are used for grasping and explaining facts that would even
remain hard to observe, like simplification phenomena.
But, in every case, user-centered linguistics has been kept isolated if not
ridiculed, so that its influence on today's research is to be considered as very
restricted. We can therefore argue, without going into more detail, that in the
tradition of structural linguistics the appeal to the user and the recourse to
several psychological theories used to define his main features have been
used just as a statement of principle. No significant theoretical consequence
has been derived from that as far as the organization of the theory and its
analytical techniques are concerned.
We face therefore a paradoxical situation: the language user, though
admitted into the field of relevant variables by many directions of research,
has had in fact no real effect on the foundations of linguistics. Though
pretending to take him into account, linguistics ignores him.
236 Raffaele Simone
2. Possible roles of the language user in linguistic theory
What is the sense of taking the user into account when formulating a language
theory? What does this reveal about the nature of language? Before answer
ing such questions I must preliminarily say that the phrase language user is
taken to refer not to the isolated individual, but rather to the categorial
speaking subject (the sujet parlant, in Saussure's terms) characterised basi
cally by three features:
(a) he is a processor of information and knowledge;
(b) as a knowledge and information processor, he is crucially defined by
a set of biological limitations (of memory, attention, perception, etc.);
(c) he is the seat and the source of specifiable pragmatic needs: ex
changing goods and services, having interactions of several kinds with his co-
specifics (like informing, persuading them, etc.), and so forth.
On these premises we can sketch an answer to the questions asked above.
This answer results from putting together some statements that almost every
one in linguistics would easily accept as commonplaces, or even as concep
tual primes of current research:
(a) incorporating the language user into the foundations of language
theory can contribute to show whether he does or does not exert any pressure
on the language structure and impose a specific form to it;
(b) defining the possible impositions made on language by its users can
help identify the functions any language must fulfil if it wants to be a crucial
communication means of the human species; in other terms, the language user
and the impositions he produces offer a crucial basis for the search of
linguistic universals;
(c) in the perspectives claiming that the grammar of languages can vary
only within specific limits, the analysis of the role of language user should
allow to specify the variety of forms which language is likely to take, or, if we
want to put it otherwise, the parametric field within which it can vary.
In a statement like (a) one can easily recognize the core program of that
trend of linguistics we use to call generically "functional"; in (b) that of
linguistic typology; in (c) that of the last version of generative linguistics. In
other words, several directions of current linguistics do claim, if not properly
a strict concern with language user, at least the generic requirement for them
to be globally "user-oriented", i.e., to take the user into account in some way
and to some extent. The same requirement can be found, analogously, in
domains surrounding linguistics and sharing its interest in language, like

cognitive sciences at large. The recent development of such areas of research
can be explained indeed precisely on the basis of a sort of user-centered
assumption: the actor of cognition, the "seat" of it, so to say, is the speaker;
language, as one of the main tools of cognition, is modelled by its user
somehow. In conclusion, many directions of modern language sciences do
claim to have the language user among their basic notions; but in fact the
actual use of this notion is very poor, isolated and marginal.
How can we explain, then, that contemporary linguistics, in spite of its
deliberate program to be user-oriented, ignores almost completely this com
mitment? A possible answer would be to link this issue to a more general one
— that of the different ways to view the problem of arbitrariness of language.
Actually, the advocates of a language-centered paradigm seem to coincide
with those of the paradigm of arbitrariness, that is, of the idea that language is
completely independent on, and indifferent to, external reality. Conversely,
the supporters of the user-centered paradigm seem to be co-extensive with
those of the paradigm I have called "of substance", according to which
language cannot be explained if not in connection with the determinisms that
the user with all his limitations imposes on it (cf. Simone 1990, for a detailed
discussion of these paradigms.) In other words, the decision about whether to
include or not include the user into the foundations of linguistic theory
depends on a more general set of presuppositions.
Waiting for a full interpretation of this complex issue, I think that among
the historic and epistemological causes of this negligence of the user by
linguistics, two factors can be quoted, which are deeply rooted in the early
past of our discipline and still influential: a striking ambiguity of Ferdinand de
Saussure on this point and a one-sided interpretation of his thought in this
connection.
3. The two paradigms in Saussure
What is, then, the place of Saussure vis-a-vis the opposition of paradigms we
presented above? Before going into a more detailed discussion, let me give a
very sketchy preliminary answer. In Saussure the language-centered and the
user-centered paradigms co-existed throughout, though with significant oscil
lations, thus giving place to a nagging and unsolved ambiguity. This oscilla-
238 Raffaele Simone
tion was in fact solved just by his followers (possibly mainly by Hjelmslev) in
favor of the language-centered paradigm. The emphasis on the language-
centered paradigm as the only legitime interpretation of Saussure was so
strong that it was able to set aside another very conspicuous and active line of
Saussurean tradition — represented by Bally (see for instance Bally 1925)
and Frei (Frei 1929), which was neatly user-centered. As a consequence, the
language-centered one has eventually been considered as the only possible
interpretation of Saussure's thought and established as a standard among the
fundamental assumptions of modern linguistics.
I don't have the possibility to dwell on the second part of this statement
here, regarding the Hjelmslev's interpretation and dissemination of Saussurean
thought. Therefore I shall concentrate only on the first part of it, i. ., on the
typical Saussure's oscillation between the two paradigms and his eventual
adoption of the language-centered one.
In Saussure's thought, the language-centered paradigm manifests itself
in two particular connections on the one hand, his interest in the theory of
linguistic form (with the associated theories of valeurs and oppositions) and,
on the other one, in the construction of a rigorous methodology for linguistics
as a science. The first concern is one of the most typical Saussurean interests,
that of defining the systemic character of language. The second one is an
aspect of his commitment on the foundation of a scientific linguistics (Simone
1970).
Conversely, the user-centered paradigm describes Saussure's steady at
tention for the interactions between speaker and language, for the effects he
produces (both individually and as a member of the masse parlante) on the
organisation and diachrony of language. The only mention of his emphasis on
the linguistics oí parole is sufficient to give an idea of Saussure's concentra
tion on this dimension. In discussing such topics, he normally uses two
different notions of "speaker": on many occasions he sees him as a sociologi
cal and historical actor, usually associated into a mass (the well known masse
parlante); in other cases, he adopts rather a psychological concept of speaker
and he actually views him as a mental processor, concentrated on the acquisi
tion and organisation of his linguistic knowledge and oft the production of his
language behavior. To the issue of interactions between speaker and lan
guage, several other quite crucial ones are connected in Saussure: the theory
of sign arbitrariness and its limits, and the consideration of analogy and
language change.
Throughout Saussure's work the two paradigms appear under different

forms. With an oversimple formulation, we can describe this oscillation as
follows: (a) both paradigms are interwoven throughout in CLG and in manu
script sources; (b) in some other texts, like the Introduction to the Second
Course of General Linguistics (1908-190 9), the language-centered paradigm
appears virtually on its own, particularly when Saussure discusses the main
aspects of the methodology of linguistics; (c) in the reflections collected in the
Notes manuscrites it is the user-centered paradigm that takes over neatly. This
attribution of different weights to the components of Saussurean thought is
undoubtedly rough, for it is always possible to find passages where the
distribution of the factors is not so clear; but by and large it seems quite
justified.
Now I would like to take into consideration just the user-centered para
digm as it appears in Saussure, and in particular to follow up how he deals
with the presence and the role of the speaker in language. When I say speaker
I don't refer to the society of speakers in any sociological or historical sense,
but to the speaker as I have tried to define him above, namely, as a limited
processor of knowledge and information, subject to specifiable pragmatic
needs. One has not to argue these concepts to be too modern to be easily
applied to Saussure. What may be modern in those references is just terminol
ogy; the issues involved were already very neatly defined and intensely
debated under different forms in Saussure's times, as we shall see later.
4. The user-centered paradigm in Saussure
To be sure, it would be of no use to look for passages where Saussure explicitely

refers to the speaker in the sense I have defined above. (When speaking of the
sujet, he mostly refers to isolated individuals.) But there are moments when
Saussure alludes to some dimensions of the speaker's behavior that can be
directly linked to the notion of speaker we have defined. Such passages deal
with issues of crucial importance in the framework of Saussurean linguistics:
sound change (and language change in general), associative relationships, the
arbitrarmess of signs, and analogy. I would like to devote to those issues some
more detailed remarks.
Following Saussure's arguments on those issues, it will not be so hard to
grasp a typical uncertainty. Driven by models that were in circulation at his
240 Raffaele Simone
epoch, Saussure could not pass over mentioning and discussing some of the
speaker's effects on language. But his own approach forced him finally to get
rid of this perspective as marginal or unable to support convincing explana
tions. This happens in all the passages I referred to earlier, except one (on the
arbitraire relatif) that we will see in some more detail. As a result, in the
background of Saussure's remarks one sees a steady tension between the need
of taking into account the speaker according to the suggestions of psychologi
cal research of his time (Lepschy 1974; Amacker in press), and his striving to
limit it, to circumscribe its field of validity.
4.1 Explanations of language change
The Principle of Least Effort was perfectly familiar to Saussure, for he had
intense and regular contacts with the field of psychology, where he had also
some friends (Lepschy 1974). Moreover, the Principle of Least Effort was in
circulation also in linguistics proper, where some (like Otto Jespersen) used it
as a possible explanation of several facts, from diachrony to language organi
sation. This principle offered to Saussure (as well as to other linguists of his
time) a up-to-dated, relatively powerful explanatory model. But, in spite of its
relevance, this principle had the shortcoming, for Saussure, to be one of the
most conspicuous manifestations of the psychologically-biased concerns of
contemporary linguistics. In brief, it did not allow to get strong generalisa
tions, but only occasional regularities.
As a consequence Saussure could not simply dismiss this issue, but was
forced to commit himself several times about it. But he did it always with
some hesitation and a certain haughtiness. He dealed with it, for instance,
when discussing the classic topic of language change ("un des problèmes les
plus difficiles de la linguistique", CGL 202) in the second Chapter of the
Third Part of CLG.
Here, in fact, a whole set of commonplaces associated with the "psycho
logical" explanation in linguistics is just mentioned before it is completely
dismissed:
On a fait intervenir [as an explanation of change] la loi du moindre effort,
qui remplacerait deux articulations par une seule, ou une articulation diffi
cile par une autre plus commode. Cette idée, quoi qu'on dise, mérite
 examen: elle peut élucider la cause du phénomène dans une certaine
mesure, ou indiquer tout au moins la direction où il faut la chercher.
(CLG-.204)
But, immediately later, after discussing a certain number of cases of

sound change that could be explained on the basis of the Least Effort,
Saussure adds a note of uncertainty: "Seulement on pourrait mentionner
autant de cas où il se passe exactement le contraire" (Ibid.).
Later on, he takes up the discussion of explanation in terms of Least
Effort again:
Ces remarques ne prétendent pas réfuter la solution proposée [i.e., in terms
of Least Effort]. En fait on ne peut guère déterminer pour chaque langue ce
qui est plus facile ou plus difficile à prononcer. S'il est vrai que l'abrègement
correspond à un moindre effort dans le sens de la durée, il est tout aussi vrai
que les prononciations négligées tombent dans la longue et que la brève
demande plus de surveillance. (CLG: 204)
After a series of examples, he gets rid of this question almost completely
concluding that
Il y aurait là une vaste étude à faire, qui, pour être complète, devrait
considérer à la fois le point de vue physiologique (question de l'articula
tion) et le point de vue psychologique (question de l'attention). (CLG: 205)
In spite of this commitment, Saussure will never do that research, that
therefore is not simply put off but properly abandoned.
Another point where Saussure involves a possible model of speaker as
one of the factors influencing language change is the issue of changes induced
by children's bad pronunciation. He reminds that such an explanation is "en
faveur depuis quelques années" and presents it as follows:
c'est après beaucoup de tâtonnements, d'essais et de rectifications que
l'enfant arrive à prononcer ce qu'il entend autour de lui; là serait le germe
des changements; certaines inexactitudes non corrigées l'emporteraient
chez l'individu et se fixeraient dans la génération qui grandit. (CLG: 205)
But once again he does this possible explanation away by noting that
Ces constatations méritent toute attention, mais laissent le problème intact;
en effet on ne voit pas pourquoi une génération convient de retenir telles
inexactitudes à l'exclusion de telles autres, toutes étant également naturel
les; en fait le choix des prononciations vicieuses apparaît purement arbi
traire, et l'on n'en aperçoit pas la raison. En outre, pourquoi le phénomène
a-t-il réussi à percer cette fois-ci plutôt qu'une autre? (CLG:205-206; italics
mine)
The fact is that Saussure considers the whole class of the "psychological"
explanations of language change (but in fact mainly sound change, according
242 Raffaele Simone
to the trend of his epoch) as too little secure. In particular he finds it

insufficiently powerful. Its predictions can be validated in some cases though
remaining uneffective in others, precisely like the explanation in terms of
incorrect pronunciation:
Cette observation [scil.: pourquoi ce phénomène s'est manifesté une fois
plutôt qu'une autre?] s'applique d'ailleurs à toutes les causes précédentes,
si leur action est admise: l'influence du climat, la prédisposition de la race,
la tendance au moindre effort existent d'une façon permanente ou durable;
pourquoi agissent-elles d'une manière intermittente, tantôt sur un point et
tantôt sur un autre du système phonologique? (CLG:206)
4.2 The "rapports associatifs"
Another subject in connection with which one can find "psychological"

motifs referred to is the question, quite central to Saussure, of those relation
ships between elements that he calls rapports associatifs. Here the back
ground of his reflections is quite evidently a psychological one, starting from
the very term associatif Jakobson (1967) reminds that this idea came to
Saussure from Kruszewski; but it is hard not to see in it also the echo of
properly psychological debates. Saussure speaks, indeed, of associations
mentales, and this activates, in his personal vocabulary, a set ot psychological
expressions. What is at issue here is the effort of explaining how the speaker
acquires and stores his lexical knowledge, Is his mind passive or not? Does
language offer any guideline to the speaker's mind, or does he identify
associations by himself? A thorough historical analysis of this problem could
unravel without too many difficulties that the source of this sort of interests in
Saussure was that special "philosophical psychology" (or, if we want, "psy
chological philosophy") which was typical to his time and strictly dependent
on a peculiarly French tradition (see for instance Condillac's psychological
doctrine), which Saussure made reference to many times. Saussure's answer
was this: it is "l'esprit qui perçoit la nature des rapports entre les mots et qui
crée autant de séries associatives que sont les différents rapports" (CLG: 174).
Saussure describes here what the mind does with what we would call
today the mental lexicon, the way how it organises its lexical knowledge. The
mind has an active character, in that it recognizes deep and superficial
resemblances between words and on this basis creates as many associative
series as the different relationships are. This implies that language itself is so
made as to allow the mind to identify such relationships: in other words, it is
the structure of language that permits and legitimates the recognition of

resemblances. To put it otherwise, language displays deep and superficial
resemblances in order the mind to be able to grasp them and to create the
rapports associatifs. Language and the mind meet through a kind of "isomor
phic interface".
It is easy to see that such a set of implications is strongly committed on
the psychological nature of language behavior — ä position that cannot be
simply accepted by a strictly language-centered paradigm. It is not uphazard,
then, that the very idea of rapports associatifs hád a remarkable fortune in
psychoanalysis (as Benveniste underlined as early as in 1956: cf. Benveniste
1966), while linguistics (via Hjelmslev) felt the need to convert it into its non-
psychologically marked equivalent — the "paradigmatic" relationships.
Here Saussure oscillates once again. He must mention and partly accept
an explanation that, however, he did not find convincing. It is surprising, th
ough, that this time he did not realise clearly that he was proceeding on a
terrain as uncertain as that of the psychological explanation of language
change. Also here, in fact, there is the risk that the explicative factors invoked
cannot operate homogeneously and constantly: an association may act in one
speaker but not in another one.
4.3 "L'arbitraire absolu" and "l'arbitraire relatif"
The other issue on which Saussure must implicitely adopt a model of the
speaker is that of sign arbitrariness (l'arbitraire du signe). After enunciating
its main features in Chapter I of the First Part of CLG, he resumes it in Chapter
VI of the Second Part in order to add some crucial qualifications. It is in this
second passage, in fact, that he distinguishes two types of arbitrariness, the
absolute and the relative one. This is not — as is usually seen — a sheer detail
whithin the theory of arbitrariness; it is rather a global reformulation of it, as
appears from the fact that, with this integration, Saussure links the issue of
arbitrariness to that of rapports associatifs, with an appreciable systematic
effort. What is at issue here is the very foundation of the doctrine of arbitrari
ness of sign, one of the very underpinnings of Saussurean linguistics. After
devoting many pages to such a topic, aiming to demonstrate that the notion of
arbitrariness "domine toute la linguistique de la langue; ses conséquences
sont innombrables" (CLG: 100), Saussure takes this subject over again to
recognize the "irrational character" (le caractère irrationnel) of it. In fact, the
244 Raffaele Simone
principle of arbitrariness, he says, "appliqué sans restriction, aboutirait à la

complication suprême" (CLG: 182).
But after correcting, with this essentially cryptic wording, the notion of
"irrationality" of full arbitrariness, he does not add any explanation. This
cannot be an immaterial statement, however, if we only think that what it
modifies is a crucial part of Saussurean theory. One has to carry on his
reasoning in his same vein in order to hypothesise that the "complication" he
speaks of is due to the fact that, within a system founded on a strict arbitrari
ness principle acting "sans restriction", the identification of associative rela
tionships would not be possible: in such a case, there could not be the
isomorphic interface I mentioned in the previous section. Words would then
be entitled to be completely different from each other, and there could be not
a single word having any deep or superficial resemblance to any other.
Saussure does not say, but it is quite obvious, that, once come to such a point,
memory and the associative ability of the speaker could not work any longer:
their load would be enormous and it would be absolutely impossible to derive
any word from any other.
In brief, Saussure reasons here in strictly semiotic terms, because he
touches on a fundamental semiotic question — the legitimacy and the semi-
otic advantages (or disadvantages) of arbitrariness from the point of view of
the language user as a limited information processor. To be sure, a radically
arbitrary language has the advantage of not obliging its elements to look like
the "things" they stand for; therefore it is free from any external constraint, so
ensuring that language is indifferent vis-a-vis reality (cf. Simone 1990). But,
on the other hand, were arbitrariness the only ordering principle in language,
the language would be literally unserviceable: it would prevent any kind of
association, and, so doing, it would infringe a typical and crucial need of the
user, i.e., language to be handy, for instance in terms of the memory that has
to store it. The introduction of the notion of relative arbitrariness balances,
then, the possible disadvantages of the absolute one: the latter makes lan
guage free from external world but actually not manageable, the former
makes it wieldy for memory and association.
A proof of the appropriateness of this reasoning is that Saussure justifies
his introduction of the relative arbitrariness precisely by explicitly mentioning
the impositions made by the speaker on language, that is, by definitely
adopting a model of user as the basis of his statement. This is perhaps the only
reference of this type all over the CLG: "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" (CLG: 182; italics mine).
It is the esprit of the speaker that limits the disrupting effects of a
principe irrationnel like the arbitrariness one, whose full application would
produce extreme complications. The result of such a limitation is of para
mount importance: it creates a principle of order and regularity within the
mass of signs. In modern terms, we could say that the esprit tends to make
ergonomic a tool which would not be such by itself.
One sees clearly that Saussure is following here a procedure which is
neatly different from that he had used regarding language change and the
rapports associatifs. Then, the model of the speaker was mentioned just in
order to be immediately dismissed; now, conversely, the ordering interven
tion of the speaker seems to be crucial for the very foundations of language.
The semiotic basis of language is constituted, then, only through the speaker's
action.
4.4 Analogy
Saussure deals with analogy ("cet immense phénomène", Engler.2591 B+C)

on many occasions throughout his reflections. This notion, most important in
the linguistics of his times, was bound to be crucial also in his theory. It
actually links together the elements of all the main oppositions of his system.
It is a kind of "charnière entre le domaine synchronique et le diachronique"
(Amacker 1975:197), since it works along history and organises the language
structure synchronically. It is also a hinge between parole and langue: the
former creates it, the latter incorporates and standardises its effects. Finally, it
links the syntagmatic to the associative relationships, since it works precisely
on the mutual association of words. Therefore, Saussure says that "le rôle de
l'analogie est immense; c'est toujours elle qui est en jeu" (CLG:237).
Once again, Saussure sees clearly that to explain analogy it is necessary to
mention the processus psychologiques involved (Engler:2491 B; cf. CLG.226:
"l'analogie est d'ordre psychologique" — his way of formulatin g, I gather, the
idea of a speaker's pressure on the language system). Therefore his description
of the analogical mechanism obviously refers to some cognitive activity of the
speaker: "toute opération de ce genre [i.e. analogical] suppose la conscience,
la compréhension d'un rapport de forme entre elles" (CLG.226; Engler:2512b).
But he does not come to give a subject to those nomina actionis that are
246 Raffaele Simone
conscience and compréhension. Some lines after, CLG adds the remark that
Toute [analogical] création doit être précédée d'une comparaison incons
ciente des matériaux déposés dans le trésor de la langue où les formes
génératrices sont rangées selon leurs rapports syntagmatiques et associatifs.
(Ibid.; italics mine)
Only one step was needed here to state that also analogy originates from
the effort that the speaker makes (not as an isolated subject, but as the source
of particular language needs) to modify language in order to reduce it to his
own measure. But Saussure will not take this step. Too many reasons prevent
him from this. After all he ends up by attributing analogy to the activity of the
individual speaker: it is this one that, perceiving the mutual relationships of
forms, can modify one form so to increase its resemblance to others: "elle est
l'oeuvre occasionnelle d'un sujet isolé" (CLG:227).
This will be, on the contrary, the direction taken by Frei twenty one years
later, when introducing analogy among the needs which impel the speaker to
reorganise his language.
5. By way of a conclusion
In this paper I have tried to show that Saussure has clearly felt the need of
giving the speaker, the language user, a place within the framework of his
theory. Many elements obliged him to do so: Kruszewski's influence, his
familiarity with the psychological discussions of his time, the biologically-
biased models of language widespread in his times, his strong perception of
the dimension of language change, his clear awareness of the speaker's role in
the life of language. He responded to those stimuli, however, in an uncertain
and oscillating way: on the one hand, he worked them out and partly incorpo
rated them (as in the case of associative relationships); on the other hand, he
just mentioned them to dismiss them.
Another important factor moved him in this direction: his strong concern
with the nature of the methodology of linguistics — an issue that in some
cases (as in the Introduction to the Second Course) prevails over his effort of
clarifying the fundamental laws of language(s). After all in his theory the
speaker is viewed essentially as a factor of subjective variability, as a sujet
isolé, except when he is part of a masse parlante. It is only this masse that has
some effects on the language organisation. The speaker may trigger, to be
sure, some changes, both individually and collectively; but the trace he
imposes on language as a finite processor is very restricted or even nil.
If we could set up here a complex and generalizing (though plausible)
historical scenario, we could say that two different theoretical traditions
derive from Saussure's oscillation between one paradigm and the other, and
that each of them has had its own fortune. The first one is instantiated by
Frei's Grammaire des fautes, that is a harsh, isolated and essentially ne
glected reaction to Saussure (also witnessed by Bally and Sechehaye), pre
cisely on behalf of the "speaker's rights". We could easily consider it as one
of the manifestoes of functional linguistics. The other one is formed by the
line originated by Hjelmslev, which dropped out from Saussure's linguistics
any reference to the speaker and worked out a formalistic interpretation of it,
where the Saussurean fluctuation is one-sidedly solved.
NOTE
1. A first version of this paper was read at the Tokyo Saussure Conference held in Waseda
University, April 1992, and organized by Shigeaki Sugeta and Tullio De Mauro, where I
profited from the discussion of many colleagues and friends, among whom I want to
thank in particular Tullio De Mauro and Eugenio Coseriu. René Amacker allowed me to
read the draft of his paper "Saussure et la psychologie" (cf. Amacker, in press).
REFERENCES
A. Saussurean Sources
CLG - Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale, ed. by A. Sechehaye
& C. Bally. Paris: Payot. (See, for all the topics discussed in this paper, also T. De
Mauro's Commentary to CLG, in F. de Saussure, Corso di linguistica generale, con
Introduzione, traduzione e commento di T.D.M. Bari: Laterza, 1967 and successive
editions.)
Engler = Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1967ff. Cours de linguistique générale, critical edition
by R. Engler, vols. 4. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
B. Other Works
Amacker, René. 1975. Linguistique saussurienne, Genève: Droz.
. in press. "Saussure et la psychologie".
Bally, Charles. 1925. Le langage et la vie. Genève: Droz. (Repr. 1965).
248 Raffaele Simone
Benveniste, Emile. 1956. "Remarques sur la fonction du langage dans la découverte

freudienne". La psychoanalyse 1. (Repr. in Benveniste 1966: 75-87).
. 1966. Problèmes de linguistique générale, I. Paris: Gallimard.
Frei, Henri. 1929. La grammaire des fautes. Paris-Genève-Leipzig: Geuthner-Kundig-
Harrassowitz.
Jakobson, Roman. 1967. "L'importanza di Kruszewski per lo sviluppo della linguistica
generale". Ricerche slavistiche. 1-20.
Lepschy, Giulio C. 1974. "Saussure e gli spiriti". Studi saussuriani per Robert Godel, ed.
by R. Amacker et al., Bologna: Il Mulino.
Martinet, André. 1955. Economie des changements phonétiques. Bern: Francke.
Simone, Raffaele. 1970. "La linguistica come assiomatica in Saussure". In Simone 1992:
159-173. (First published as Introduzione to the Ital. translation of Saussure, Ferdinand
de. 1970. Introduzione al secondo corso di lingüistica generale. Roma: Ubaldini).
. 1990. "The Body of Language. The Paradigm of Arbitrariness and the Paradigm
of Substance". Présence de Saussure, ed. by R. Amacker & R. Engler. Genève: Droz.
121-141. (Repr. in Italian in Simone 1992: 37-59).
. 1992. Il sogno di Saussure. Otto studi di storia délie idee linguistiche. Bari-
Roma: Laterza.
SOMMARIO
L'articolo distingue due classi di teorie linguistiche: quella centrata sull'utente

e quella centrata sulla lingua. La prima prende in considerazione l'utente corne
elemento essenziale della teoria e considera le imposizioni e le tracce che
questo lascia sul linguaggio. La seconda ignora l'utente e si concentra sulla sola
organizzazione delie lingue.
Dopo aver discusso della predilezione della linguistica moderna per il
modello centrato sulla lingua, si prendono in considerazione le origini delle
due classi di teorie in Saussure. Si esaminano in particolare quattro modelli
teorici esaminati da Saussure: il cambiamento linguístico, i rapporti associa
tiva l'arbitrarietà relativa e l'analogia. Si mostra come, nel discutere questi
terni, Saussure sia stato sempre oscillante fra la tendenza a prendere in
considerazione l'utente come elemento essenziale e quella ad escluderlo,
come creatore di irregolarità e variazioni.
Si conclude che la sorte della linguistica contemporanea, sostanzial-
mente estranea ai "diritti del parlante", è stata decisa da un'interpretazione
unilaterale del pensiero di Saussure. In questa interpretazione (sostenuta in
particolare da Hjelmslev), è importante solo la struttura della lingua. L'utente
e le sue imposizioni (avvertiti da Saussure ma mai plenamente riconosciuti)
sono accantonati.
RESUME
L'article distingue deux classes de théories linguistiques selon qu'elles sont

centrées sur l'usager ou sur la langue. La première prend en considération
l'usager comme élément essentiel de la théorie et observe les empreintes et
les traces que ce dernier laisse sur le langage. La seconde ignore l'usager et ne
se concentre que sur l'organisation des langues.
Après avoir discuté la prédilection de la linguistique moderne pour le
modèle centré sur la langue, l'auteur prend en considération l'origine des
deux classes de théories qu'il situe dans l'œuvre de Saussure. Il examine en
particulier les quatre modèles théoriques pris en compte par Saussure lui-
même: le changement linguistique, les rapports associatifs, l'arbitraire relatif
et l'analogie. Saussure semble avoir toujours oscillé entre la tendance à
considérer l'usager comme un élément essentiel à prendre en compte, et la
tendance opposée qui l'exclut en tant que créateur d'irrégularités et de
variations.
L'orientation prise par la linguistique contemporaine, substantiellement
étrangère à la notion de "droits du locuteur", a donc été déterminée par une
interprétation unilatérale de la pensée de Saussure. Selon cette interprétation
(soutenue en particulier par Hjelmslev), ce qui importe c'est uniquement la
structure de la langue. L'usager et les marques qu'il impose (que Saussure a
pressentis sans jamais les reconnaître pleinement) sont mis de côté.
The Analysis of French between the two
World Wars (1914-1940)
Jean-Claude Chevalier
CNRS URA 381. Université de Paris VIII
To Gerald Antoine
0. I should like to propose as an exercise here, just for the beauty of it,
applying a procedure which falls within the scope of this symposium on
"Historical Roots of Linguistic Theories". I shall attempt to connect the
historical evolution of a critical apparatus and the reciprocal influence of
institutions. Given the brevity of a conference paper, this exercise may appear
somewhat gratuitous. My sole justification will be the paths opened up and
the pleasure afforded.
My account, arranged linearly in the order of the works of the Geneva
linguist, Albert Sechehaye, will hinge successively on three points of an
institutional character: first of all, on the cross-referencing customary in
books and, above all, in journals (frequently of a controversial type); next, on
the rearrangement of notions during symposiums and conventions (in which
balances of power become established); lastly, on the clarification of basic
concepts which results when journals are founded (early issues of a journal
generally determine the notions and values of the field to be tackled by the
review).
1. Round about Saussure, who returned to Geneva in 1891, developed

research conducted by disciples imbued with the very two influences experi
enced by Saussure: the prestige of the German universities in which education
was achieved through apprenticeship in systematizing data (the example was
252 Jean-Claude Chevalier
Leipzig), and the attraction exerted by Parisian teachers at the Hautes Etudes
and the Collège de France, where ideas were growing more and more progres
sive in the recently established circle of republican "intellectuals". At this point,
I wish to draw attention to two especially remarkable disciples of Saussure, of
the same generation. Charles Bally, Doctor of the University of Berlin, whose
doctoral dissertation concerned the lyrical sections of Euripides' tragedies
(1889), first taught Greek and problems of translation (German-French) in
Geneva and, later, advanced Sanskrit and comparative linguistics in Saussure's
course. Albert Sechehaye defended a thesis in Göttingen on the subjunctive in
French in clauses expressing hypothesis. Bally sojourned in Paris on several
occasions, giving lectures at the Sorbonne which were published immediately
afterward, in 1913, under the title Le Langage et la Vie; Sechehaye openly
proclaimed his attachment to the Parisian masters, and in particular, to Antoine
Meillet.
In 1906, Saussure gave his inaugural lectures in general linguistics. At
that time, the two successive currents among neogrammarians, Delbrück,
Brugmann, etc., and H. Paul, Ries, etc., were still being subjected to much
discussion and criticism, and above all, their thinking underwent extensive
development: the problem addressed constantly was the place of language
within individuals and society; these linguists were set upon identifying the
roles of components of a psychophysiology of language, and of a socio-
semantics developing the theoretical premises which were a part of both
German onomasiology and French semantics at the end of the century, in
order to found a "science of values". The issues had then become controver
sial because of the development in France, Germany, and Switzerland of
methods of progressive education, which served as resonators.
During this period, two books of a novel cast were published in French: P.
Van Ginneken's Principes de linguistique psychologique (1907) and A.
Sechehaye's Programme et méthode de la linguistique théorique (1908). In a
vast panorama, Van Ginneken related the development of language to psycho
logical principles concerning the situation of the speaker in the world (adhe
sion, feeling, localization, etc.). He based his argumentation on the rich German
tradition in psychology, on discoveries in psychophysiology — especially
those of W. Wundt — but also on experimental research concerning learning
processes (Binet) and abnormal psychology (Pierre Janet). He reconstructed
the course of the psychological elaboration of grammatical categories, putting
to use tremendous linguistic scholarship derived for the most part from
Analyses of the French Language 1914-1940 253
Brugmann's and Delbrück's Grundrisse. The Principes abounded with hy

potheses regarding the formation of roots and of relational elements, and the
ways these were integrated into sentences. Referring, as Van Ginneken did, to
Adrien Naville's positivistic interpretation of the sciences, Sechehaye pro
claimed the need for an overall system combining a science of facts, of an
inductive sort (a product of society), and a science of laws, inferential in nature
(a product of individuals), attesting to the mutual influence of peoples'and
individuals' ways of thinking, within language and beyond it. He took Wundt
as his starting point. To quote Sechehaye: "Wundt studies phenomena resulting
from man's activity when he sets about creating or modifying his language. He
loses interest in the resulting creation or change, once these have become
habits, and so, integral parts of our overall linguistic aptitudes" (Sechehaye
1908:23).
But Sechehaye went beyond this narrowly developmental standpoint
and, within a synchronic framework, defined the creative liberty of speakers
immersed in life: "Along with the aptitude from which it derives its form, all
speech presupposes the speaker's freedom to intervene, his will to do so, and
his alertness, without which it cannot come into being" (Ibid.:52).
And, here, he concurred with Bally, who, as a result of his teaching of
translation, had just published — in 1905 — his Précis de Stylistique, aimed to
specify the elements from which everyday speech was constructed and which
were of use in passing from one language to another. Bally was in the process
of restructuring that first essay, and entrusted Sechehaye with writing the
"Theoretical Preface" to the Traité de stylistique, which was to be his next book.
For the Mélanges Saussure, published in 1908, Sechehaye wrote a critical
analysis of these early works of Bally, a critique dedicated to Saussure, in which
he "invested" the concepts formulated in Programmes et méthodes. I shall
dwell a moment upon this.
Bally, explained Sechehaye, had in mind not only the rules of grammar,
but also the expressive aspect of language, "conveying, as accurately as
possible, subtle differences in affect" (Sechehaye 1908a: 155). The expressive
aspect could be superimposed onto the language of ideas, in such a way that
we were capable of stating an idea in words, and of mingling a feeling with it
by availing ourselves of procedures from the language of affect. At that time,
Ferdinand Brunot, in his Méthodes (1905-1911), intended for the primary
school system, was pursuing the same objective: establishing an inventory of
ideas, affects, and passions, and a list of the modes of expression associated
with each; an unwonted ideological undertaking for Brunot, and aimed to free
children from the imposition of dogmatic grammar. The venture was ob
served by Bally with an watchful and critical eye. Bally's own strategy was
based far more on the analysis of the way language functions. One was
obliged first to determine the boundaries of specific language items (the term
"panier percé" — cf., in English, "penny-wise and pound-foolish" — was
equivalent to the adjective "prodigue" — cf. "prodigal"); next, one had to
identify such items, that is, to assign each to a series with psychological
content; and then to interpret them in a social context. For expression varied
according to the relationship between speakers: "Embarrassment, contempt,
respect, or condescension indeed alter our speech" (Ibid.: 164). Only in this
way would it become possible to define abstract form — the particular
"value" of segments around which Saussure made doctrine revolve — and
only so would it become possible for the "theory of utterers" to emerge, a
theory which Ducrot would perceive, precisely, as a forerunner of his po
lyphony. All this would be the basis for teaching methods consisting in "a
gradual initiation to the intelligent comprehension of each and every mecha
nism of grammar" (Ibid.: 171).
In the opinion of Sechehaye, this was a remarkable lane of thought,
founded nevertheless on what appeared to him to be an artificial distinction
between an intellectual and an affective factor; whereas, in fact, each of these
entailed the other. Bally's objective, Sechehaye explained, was to express the
idea, "using terms of varying degrees of subtlety, that stylistics is the study of
the laws and rules governing language, taken as an adequate expression of the
currents of inner life; one might as well say 'taken as language', for what
remains of our speech, if we consider it apart from its expressive value"
(Ibid.: 162). In order to integrate stylistics into an overall model, he suggested
four basic principles, governed by nesting laws.
Principle One: "The language of affect is not an addition to discursive
language; the two languages nest together."
This was a reference to biology: "Discursive or grammatical language is
a secondary phenomenon within natural language, just as life is a recent
development within matter governed solely by the laws of chemistry and
physics" (Ibid.: 172). As Bally noted, even spontaneous signs (exclamations,
gestures, etc.) were already of a conventional nature; lying in an environment
beyond the scope of grammar, they tended nonetheless to constitute rough
drafts of logical constructions capable of being communicated. No solution of
continuity existed between this pregrammatical language and discursive lan

guage:
"If a thought is discursive, a well-constructed discursive sentence will be
needed; but if the thought is not so much of a logical nature as imaginative
or emotional, or if what is to be rendered is a succession of vivid represen
tations or the surge of intense emotion; if the thought is incomplete,
embryonic, or badly arranged, its expression will possess the same charac
teristics."
Principle Two: "Symbols are not signs chosen arbitrarily in order to
correspond with preexistent ideas, but rather a necessary condition for a
psychological process, namely, the shaping of a verbal idea" (Ibid.: 175).
What was questioned here — as later, also, by the Guillaumians — was a
simplistic interpretation of the arbitrariness of "signs"; a given symbol, that is,
a "sign" endowed with meaning, was frequently complicated with secondary
ideas depending on the particular context and usage; the logical idea which
would give rise to an articulating element of the system of grammar was
merely aimed at. In his Eléments d'idéologie, Destutt de Tracy had already
held this to be one of the particularities of natural, as opposed to artificial,
languages. It encompassed, for example, the study of synonyms, both mor
phological and syntactic.
Principle Three: "Symbols, as sentence components, should not be consid
ered in isolation, but instead, in synthetically composed groups" (Ibid.: 178).
The attention focused on more or less rigidly set groups of words was one
of the characteristics of linguistic thinking at that time; it dealt with a domain
intermediate between words and grammatical constructions; because of their
condensed form, and the ease with which they could be substituted for single
words, phrases offered sociological and psychological variants rooted in
convention and habit. A clear distinction was to be made between this device
and sentence word order, governed by the intellectual aspect of components
— a later, secondary, occurrence.
Principle Four: "One must not confuse the langue — an overall set of
abilities acquired by individuals — with langage, which is the langue as put to
use in the parole of individuals possessing those abilities" (Ibid.: 183).
Sechehaye called attention to the distinction to be made between langue,
proceeding from convention, which could be encompassed by a grammar,
and langage, which presupposed an active, creative speaker. Even metaphori
cal expressions belonged, as an institution, to the store of society; but each
individual user, taking possession of them, proposed an interpretation of the

world, and gave new meaning to relationships between speakers.
So it was that Sechehaye joined the Humboldtian tradition, which em
braced the complexity of grammatical systems as well as the forceful inven
tiveness of individual speakers. He sanctioned the admittance into a rational
system of the most devious forms of speech:
The langue does not impose any one mechanism on sentences; rather, each
sentence creates one of its own, and even when, as is generally the case in
discursive speech, ready-made syntactic phrases are employed, which have
become perfectly well accepted through use, this does not alter the fact that
the intellect, consenting to their reuse, thinks them out again and reconse
crates them — if one may so express oneself —, and thus instils into them
vitality which they otherwise lack. (Ibid.: 186)
Developmentally, stylistic analysis preceded grammatical analysis: it

concerned itself with the principles of organized speech, whereas grammar, a
science of logical rules and principles, of inflections and of words with well-
defined meanings, followed in the wake of stylistics, dealing as it did with an
organized system of language, "which is endowed with characteristics of a
special type, owing to the dominating influence exerted by motives of an
intellectual nature" (Ibid.: 183).
The overall arrangement so described would never cease to be the object
of ever more thorough study and clarification on the part of Sechehaye: this
was, in particular, the case in two articles which came out in reviews in 1914
and 1916. Sechehaye drew his inspiration from two basic assumptions of his
time:
i) The force of life constantly ignored boundary lines of systems of
thought and systems of language. The metaphor of the stream of consciousness
dear to William James and to many psychologists—the familiar image of a vast
flood, precipitating the onwardflowof our appetences in movements of varying
intensity — haunted linguists ofthat time, including both Sechehaye, and Bally
as well, in his Langage et la vie. Awareness of such vitality, perpetually
bubbling over within the framework of society, led to banning the dogmatism
and a priori assemblages of what was known as traditional grammar.
ii) From the beginning of the century on, works of philosophers, espe
cially those of logicians, had contrasted the development of language, follow
ing principles of entropy, with the development of a field like logic, which
strove to reduce the number of its constituents, in order to allow a system of
organization to be defined.
At that time, then, grammar was for Sechehaye a system the organization
of which was, in theory, "continuously unstable"(continuellement instable).
Grammarians would need to establish relationships between two heteroge
neous entities: a structure of an intellectual type evolved within the group
composing a community, and a distinctive spontaneity hallmarking the speech
of each individual. Sechehaye, in a note, explicitely related this scheme to the
teaching of his master, F. de Saussure — whose CLG was then as yet
unpublished — and, particularly, to the distinction drawn between langue and
parole — the parole being considered in a biological context:
" We ourselves," he wrote, "readily liken grammar within the langage to
life as it manifests itself within matter — a superior organizing, but never
combining, principle" (Sechehaye 1914:293).
It was a dynamic scheme, in perpetual transition. To quote Sechehaye:
In between the realms of comparatively stable institutions, on the one hand,
and of absolute spontaneity, on the other, lies an intermediate zone, where
lineaments of organization take shape and are resolved, where rules emerge
and disintegrate". (Ibid.:293)
The scheme dictated their choice of strategy to analysts of the langue:

they had to determine essential items in the system of the langue, and to
define the values of these by means of a series of contrasts; then, step by step,
they were to identify the values of such uses of speech as were determined by
social situations and interpersonal exchanges. They had to continue on down
ward, "to the level where grammar vanishes in the midst of fleeting personal
impressions, but where it also takes shape and is renewed under the impetus
of free creative energy in individual speakers" (Ibid.).
How was one to investigate these alternate changes of level, constantly
renewed in the course of speech? First, by considering the choices open to
speakers among various syntactic phenomena closely resembling primitive
systems of symbols — and by "syntax" (syntaxe), Sechehaye referred to
rudimentary derived structures, set expressions — the speaker adjusted his
choice of wording to his penchants and imagination. This he achieved either by
virtue of a shift in the value of a term, obtained through its combination with
terms differing somewhat from those expected; or else, by modifying basic
expressions, within the limits authorized by interpersonal communication, so
as to invest such locutions (ellipses, inversions, verbless sentences, etc.) with
the feelings and nervous tensions affecting him as an individual speaker. The
operation implied every basic term having a set value, fixed in the grammar, in
other words, in the langue. The example chosen here by Sechehaye was the
definite article, considered inductively as signifying "individual determina
tion" {determination individuelle); Sechehaye attempted to assign each of its
many uses, taken as so many derivations of its basic value, to one of the two
categories, homonymy and synonymy: the notion of homonymy led to distin
guishing between clearly dissimilar uses of the selfsame form — here specifi
cally, the (in French, the threesome le, la, les ) — the notion of synonymy, to
discerning the conditions in which this, a, etc. {ce, un, etc.) might be substituted
for the {le, la, les, etc.) (Ibid.:294ff.). Similarly, at about the same time, Bally
would show how the distinction drawn between direct, indirect, and free
indirect speech corresponded to very similar structures which one might
construe as "figures of thought" {figures de pensée). In the last analysis, the
tools for investigating such mechanisms of speech consisted in adopting a
pragmatic standpoint when interpreting situations, and in appreciating fully the
psychological forces motivating speakers and utterers.
This was not to say that investigation of language was confined to
psychological and, in a lesser measure, social elements; and Sechehaye
rejected indignantly attempts made to establish any connection between
himself and linguists such as Vossler. Like Bally, he remained unwaveringly
faithful to the Saussurian frame of reference. Sechehaye and Bally totally
agreed in their censureship of the path chosen by Brunot. What they re
proached him for was his leaving aside strictly lingustic analysis, in order to
indulge in hazardous analogies between concepts and means of expression. In
his curt review of La Pensée et la Langue (1922), Bally undertook to signify
their break with the great Sorbonne teacher. Brunot, who was furious, stuck to
his guns, and from Tome VI on of his Histoire de la langue, carried his
method to a pitch. This sudden frenzy was to have two noteworthy repercus
sions: confusedly, but nevertheless perspicaciously, Brunot would set out the
principles of social lexicology; and he would, moreover, as an indirect conse
quence, supply cogent arguments in favor of new developments in the study
of History, especially the current.known as the Ecole des Annales (the journal
was founded in 1929). But, as a result, linguistic research in the field of
French grammar would lie barren for many years. I would, however, like to
call attention to the fact — and it seems to me that this has not so far been
pointed out — that the ressources of Sechehaye's theory — received with
mere politeness by French grammarians (cf. H. Yvon's accounts in the Revue
de philologie française, 1908:70-73) — were in a large degree "invested" in
the research of a modest amateur, Gustave Guillaume, who, with Meillet's

support, would occupy an equally modest position at the Hautes-Etudes. The
basis for arguments developed in his study entitled Problème de l'article,
published in 1919, and even in Temps et Verbe (1919), are to be found in two
articles by Sechehaye written in 1914 and 1916, even though Sechehaye's
name was never mentioned. Guillaumian ideas would spread throughout the
University before the Second World War, immediately upon the death of
Ferdinand Brunot, thanks in particular to the writings of R.-L. Wagner.
The theoretical viewpoints expressed were, however, risky; for Sechehaye
and Bally had returned to the frame of reference of Port-Royal, which
contrasted Syntax and "Figures of construction" {Figures de construction: cf.
Grammaire générale et raisonnée, ch. XXIV). But the concordance of the two
systems knew two capital exceptions: i) Arnauld and Nicole did not exploit
possibilities offered by the psychological interpretation of figures of construc
tion; they cut short any attempt to extend the analysis of the subject which might
challenge the Cartesian concept of subject. Bally and Sechehaye, on the
contrary, welcomed with open arms the results of fifty years of psychological
investigation, and took into account the subject, along with the whole wealth of
his physiological and social abilities, ii) Sechehaye's analysis was an analysis
in the making, the result of which was a description of language as a never-
ending dynamic process bringing into play, in situations of social interaction,
the relationships between langue and parole.
In Europe, Sechehaye's projects found an admirer in the person of a
young Dutch linguist,  de Boer. This influence was declared in three Essais
de syntaxe française moderne published in 1923. Thé heritage was acknowl
edged in the Foreword, in which de Boer quoted Sechehaye: "Current studies
in syntax are neither scientific nor even practical." — The remark would
seem to be directed at La Pensée et la Langue. — "...We cannot dispose of
truly scientific syntax."
And de Boer added, quoting Sechehaye:
'Historical grammär will only constitute a source of explanation once it is
capable of pointing out all the grammatical and psychological consider
ations which have been determining factors in each transformation. Now,
such research takes linguists back to the study of states of language {l'étude
des états de langue) and to the psychology of language. These constitute the
basis for all sciences concerned with constantly evolving reality. It is
useless to attempt to reverse the order of the terms.' These words of M.
Sechehaye contain our whole program. (De Boer 1923:3)
This interpretation was made more explicit in the same volume, in three
essays dealing with the place of the predicate adjective, with nominal subjects
in non-interrogative sentences, and with the subjunctive. It would be ex
plained with still greater clarity in the Introduction à l'Etude de la Syntaxe du
français, published in 1933 and dedicated to Sechehaye. Here, cases were
described at length in which a given value passed from one to another of
several congeneric terms (as, for example, the present participle and the
gerund), due to the interaction of psychological factors; and descriptions were
given of various ways in which basic values evolved, using studies of "illogi
cal items" — isolated in reference to a logic specific to the langue — and
analysis of "empty words", of ellipses, of hiatus, etc.
2. My reason for emphasizing at this point the importance of de Boer as

rescuer of the ideas of Sechehaye and, more generally, of the ideas of the
Geneva school is that, in 1928, along with Father Van Ginneken and Mon
seigneur J. Schrijnen, he was the organizer of the famous First International
Congress in The Hague. The Congress gave recognition to the enormous
progress accomplished in descriptive linguistics; but, over and above that, as
Uhlenbeck pointed out, it acknowledged a widespread need for standardiza
tion and generalization. In this, linguistics was in harmony with prevailing
views concerning the organization of knowledge: the goal of the Manifesto of
the Vienna Circle, drawn up in 1929 by Neurath, Hahn, and Carnap, and
entitled Der logische Aufbau der Welt was a unitary science, organizing
life.To quote the Manifesto: "The scientific view of the world serves life and
life welcomes it in."
Such tendencies confirmed the triumph of the ideas of the Prague school
and of phonology; and in this triumph the Geneva school had a share. The
tradition of functional psychologism firmly rooted in the Netherlands was
therefore in harmony with the functionalism of the Prague group, with which
the Genevans were already well acquainted, thanks in particular to Karcevski,
who for a long time had served as an intermediary between Geneva,Vienna,
and Prague. Both schools emphasized, in separate but closely related do
mains, the effort at discriminating and attributing values which was accom
plished by language speakers. At this congress, as Mathesius remarked, the
two great lines of 19th-century linguists, the line of Bopp and the line of
Humboldt, concurred.
The Proceedings of the Symposium published a lengthy manifesto, signed

by Bally and Sechehaye together (Congrès 1928:7-53), in which the authors
emphasized the main features of their "speculative" linguistics, and at the same
time, underscored both their affinity with positions proclaimed by the school of
Prague, and their opposition, on a number of issues, to Brunot — whose name
was never mentioned, but who, as a representative of non linguistic psycholo-
gism, taken in by a narrowly positivistic viewpoint, was constantly the object
of their attacks —, and lastly, to their own differences. Their opposition to
Brunot gave them the opportunity for a brillant demonstration of the fact that
such "ultra-psychologism" ignored a fundamental characteristic of every
langue: "We refer here to the arbitrariness governing every one of its parts, and
accounting for the discrepancies generally observed between linguistic forms
and their Values'" (Ibid.:45).
Such arbitrariness should be stressed even more as concerned the sig
nifié. The meaning of words was caught up in a series of oppositions which
seldom corresponded to what individual speakers "wish to communicate".
And this, indeed, was the heart of the problem: "Each langue is a prism which
refracts thought in a special fashion" (Ibid.:46). Here I propose to quote the
text in full:
The molds which the langue imposes on individuals correspond only very
vaguely to the authentic nature of the thoughts which are striving to be
expressed; this is the case even in ordinary everyday life; for the essence of
every thought, however simple, remains incommunicable, and the langue
offers only a schematic, difformed image of it. Thanks to situations and
contexts, this image is more or less set right and brought into focus in the
parole, and it is the perpetual intermingling of parole and langue which
prevents us from recognizing the profoundly arbitrary nature of the latter
(Ibid.:47).
The fundamental task set for linguists, under the control of psychologists
and logicians, was therefore to discover the means provided to speakers, on the
blueprint for life, for implementing the collective langue, which was forever
losing pace with the parole. As Jakobson, Karcevsky, and Troubetzkoy
solemnly declared at the same congress: "What appears more and more to
linguists as the essential question is the question of the "end" (but), rather than
the traditional question of "causes" (causes)." The Second International
Congress, held in Geneva in 1931, would again emphasize these main themes:
and once again, French grammarians would remain silent, as completely so as
in The Hague, while the phonologists of Prague and members of the school of
Geneva would join forces to expound the functionalist interpretation which

they placed under the patronage of Saussure. Opening the congress, Bally
declared that "a new Romantic era is beginning for linguistics," and justified
this shout of triumph:
Linguistics draws inspiration nowadays from spirituality. At present, langue
is understood to be a process of the mind. Linguists are well aware that their
field, like every field of science, has no other goal than the conquest of
positive fact; but they now believe that extreme positivism does not constitute
the proper framework for attaining such results. Man strives continually to
surpass himself; the success of scientists in attaining their objectives is
frequently more certain when they set their aim beyond those goals. In any
case, linguistics is becoming more and more its natural self: a science of the
mind. {Congrès 1931:30)
In closing the congress, Sechehaye emphasized the importance of theory:

as was the case for parole under the effect of langue, so also data was adjusted
by the interplay of theories. All in all, metatheory took as its model the
interpretation of language by theory.
The science of linguistics has reached a stage where there are fewer
differences in what we know about phenomena than in the standpoints [...]
from which we consider these phenomena. We know the facts themselves,
and all the factors affecting their analysis; up to a certain point, we are in
perfect agreement. But we begin to disagree when it comes to assigning
each perspective to its proper position and rank among other points of view.
The result as concerns our science is both a broad underlying unity and a
great diversity and opposition among its schools of thought. Hence the
undeniable merit of those who search for ways to reconcile such differ
ences, and who endeavor to draw the doctrines closer to each other; hence,
too, the usefulness of those who, on the contrary, persistently point out the
divergencies and disorders affecting particular viewpoints. What is true in
the well-known case of synonyms and antonyms holds here, as well: these
are two contrary, but equally necessary tendencies. (Ibid.:247)
The next two congresses would be held in Rome, in 1933, and in

Copenhagen, in 1936 — in Copenhagen, where outstanding linguistic theori-
zation was being carried on. And this leads me to my final remarks concern
ing the succession of rejections and alliances brillantly testified to in the early
issues of two reviews.
3. The first issue of Acta linguistica, whose editors were Bröndal and
Hjelmslev, came out, then, in 1939. From the outset, there was a regular
debate on the nature of linguistic "signs"; among the participants were E.

Benveniste, E. Lerch, E. Buyssens, and E. Pichon. Benveniste subtly adjusted
relations between the signifié and reality, and concluded with a sibylline
statement: "The problem concerning the adequacy of 'signs' as regards the
world is the same as the general problem of the adequacy of thought as
regards the world" (Benveniste 1939:26). In the second issue, Pichon was
loud in his support of Benveniste, availing himself of the latter's ambiguities
in order to uphold the claim that language was modeled on reality. Sechehaye,
Bally, and Frei clearly expressed their disagreement with this, in a manifesto
published as an article in the following issue. They accorded particular
attention to a major point in Benveniste's discussion: "The share of contin
gency inherent to the langue affects denominations both as phonic symbols of
reality, and also in their relation to it" (ibid.: 167).
This led them to stress once again, but with particular emphasis, the
concept of arbitrariness of "signs", which was a necessary condition for the
functioning of the system devised by Sechehaye."Signs" were invested :
with immutability, because, as they are arbitrary, they cannot be questioned
in the name of any rational norm; with mutability, because, being arbitrary,
they are constantly liable to alteration. (Ibid.: 168)
It was the arbitrariness of "signs" which endowed the speaker's parole

with freedom of interpretation and enabled him to adapt verbal exchanges to
specific situations. A passage quoted from Saussure vouched for the total
orthodoxy of the three Genevans:
A language is radically powerless in the face of factors displacing, at any
moment, the relations between signifié et signifiant. This is one of the
consequences of the arbitrariness of signs. (Ibid.: 169)
One final remark: in May, 1940, Serge Karcevski took the initiative in
organizing meetings of linguists of the Geneva school, meetings which led to
the publication of the first issue of the Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure in
1941. Under the evocative title "Les classes de mots et l'imagination",
Sechehaye opposed Bröndal (his remarks were directed at the text of the
Ordklasserne, published in 1926, fifteen years earlier, followed by a sum
mary in French, Les parties du discours); he made all the more a point of
doing so because the basic concepts found in the text appeared to him to be
quite close to his own, and because the two linguists had in common affilia
tions with certain important institutions — as Henri Frei pointed out in his
Obituary, in Cahiers Saussure 1 (p. 68):
Immediately upon delivering his paper at the Congress of Rome in 1933, a

paper in which he endeavored to set out the structure and the diversities of
morphological systems, Bröndal declared his support 'of the structuralism
advocated by Prince Trubetzkoy.' In 1934, with his Danish friends, he
founded the Cercle linguistique de Copenhague; shortly after that, in his
capacity as secretary-general, he organized the 4th Congress of Linguists;
and in 1939, with his colleague Louis Hjelmslev, he launched Acta lin
guistica, for which he wrote the first article: Linguistique structurale.
Sechehaye made his stance quite clear as concerned the logistic bias,
which was openly displayed by Bröndal: "We feel the need to do our utmost
to defend the biological, that is, the sociological and psychological, perspec
tive" {Cahiers 1.1941:71). At the same time, he called attention to points on
which they shared the same outlook:
i) It was possible — and imperative — for the description of the langue
to be confined to the systematization of word classes.
ii) From this, one could infer that languages developed in three stages,
from undifferentiated signs to superior analytic notions. This was how the
Idéologues had proceeded; but the knowledge of languages which was brought
to light in 19th and 20th century research proposed a mass of solid evidence in
support of the argumentation. The approach here was the same as Van
Ginneken's.
iii) The logic adopted for analyzing the langue was specific. To quote
Sechehaye:
According to Bröndal, the architecture of our grammars is based not on
purely logical categories, but on the type of classes which he quite rightly
characterizes as concrètes, because they correspond to a synthetic vision of
two categories. {Cahiers 1.1941:85)
What remained were their clear-cut divergencies. For Sechehaye:

The particular entity comprising the self is not perceived by us in its
metaphysical essence. [...] We deal with it imaginatively; it is familiar to us
through its more stable modalities. (Ibid.)
All-important in Sechehaye's thinking was the notion of an exchange

taking place constantly between the means provided by the langue and the
needs of the life-sustaining aspirations which were to be found in all parole:
In imagining the outer world, man instinctively projects onto it some part of
his own existence and life. He assimilates the world to himself, and
inversely, also assimilates himself to the world. In his mind's eye, such
assimilation transforms the whole world into a stage and a drama. {Cahiers
1.1941:80)
This was a concept to which he returned once more, on December 21,

1940, in his address to members of the Geneva Circle, which he entitled "Un
classement des actes de paroles"; the idea was summarized as follows:
This classification, based on relationships between the means of expression
available, on the one hand, and necessities attached to the goals pursued, on
the other, makes it possible to connect cases outlined comprehensively to
specific situations, and also to distinguish between various types of speech
acts according to their potential effects on the system of expression con
tained in the langue. {Cahiers 1.1941:12)
This was far removed, indeed, from Austinian reasoning, and one must
not be misled by the expression "speech act" {acte de parole); it was above all
in the work of Bally that Oswald Ducrot, returning, in 1989, to the writings of
the Geneva school, would undertake to root his concept of polyphonic As
surely, however, as Ariadne's clue for Theseus, the thread of Sechehaye's
thought constituted a vital lead for research in pragmatics.
4. Conclusion
I would like to bring out three points:

i) The ways of presenting theoretical notions and their argumentation
are determined in part by the channels of communication resorted to; indeed,
these place restrictions on the key individuals and the groups brought to
gether. I have attempted to account for this briefly by evoking successively
exchanges occurring via reviews and books, via symposia and congresses,
and finally, via the creation of journals. This is an approach which has its
place, intrinsically, in social history.
ii) Theoretical standpoints are evolved as a result of confrontation with
authors belonging, or claiming to belong, to the same domaine of speculation.
Such exchanges suppose the existence of an effective network of communica
tions: conferences and international congresses play an important part here. I
have endeavored to demonstrate this by describing Sechehaye's relationships
with Bally, Van Ginneken, Brunot (actually, a lack of relations), de Boer, and
Bröndal. Thus, a body of theory has been seen to develop and organize itself,
which would be presented in 1940 as a theory of Actes de Parole; and the
corollary of this was the radicalization of antagonists' theories.
iii) One particular question not dealt with here — out of necessity —
concerned another lack: the incomprehensible absence of French grammar-
ians from a debate of capital importance for the analysis of the langue, which
mobilized all the creative minds of the time. Responsibility for this state of
affairs lay entirely with the French institutional system: F. Brunot devoted
himself more and more to history: history of language and history of gram
mar; the processing of linguistic data which he proposed was greatly inspired
by French tradition in the study of grammar, in particular, by the Idéologues',
and he imposed his choices on his students, albeit few in number. And
Brunot's choices had all the more impact since, in France, power in the field
of linguistics was detained exclusively by a handful of "feudal barons" who
had marked off "private hunting grounds" over which they ruled supreme. M.
Roques wielded the authority in philology, Brunot in the history of the French
language, and Meillet in the description of the languages of the world. It was
only after the death of Brunot that a few rare independents such as G.
Guillaume, A. Martinet, G. Gougenheim, and R. L. Wagner would be able to
create new research groups, especially after the war, with the development of
the CNRS and of sounder universities. Here, we still remain within the
confines of social history.
(translated by Charlotte Rist)
REFERENCES
Actes du Premier Congrès international des Linguistes. La Haye, 10-15 avril 1928.
Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff's Uitgeversmaatschappij.
Actes du Deuxième Congrès international des Linguistes. Genève, 25-29 août 1931
(1933). Paris: Maisonneuve.
Bally, Charles. 1914. "Figures de pensée et formes linguistiques". Germanisch-romani
sche Monatschrift, Heft 7, VI Jahrgang. 405-422.
. 1922. "La Pensée et la Langue", Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique 23. 117-
137.
Benveniste, Emile. 1939. "Nature du signe linguistique". Acta linguistica l. 23-27.
Brunot, Ferdinand. 1909. L'enseignement de la langue française; ce qu'il est, ce qu'il
devrait être dans l'enseignement primaire. Paris: Colin.
& Nicolas Bony. 1905-1911. Méthode de langue française I-III. Paris: Colin.
Chevalier, Jean-Claude. 1990. "Syntaxe et sémantique en grammaire. Histoire d'une
méprise: F. Brunot et Ch. Bally". Sprachtheorie und Theorie der Sprachwissenschaft,
Geschichte und Perspektiven. Festschrift für Rudolf Engler zum 60. Geburtstag, hrsg.
von Ricarda Liver, Iwar Werlen und Peter Wunderli. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
95-107.
De Boer, Cornells. 1923. Essais de syntaxe française moderne. Paris: H. Champion &
Gröningen: P. Noordhoff.
. 1933. Introduction à V étude de la syntaxe du français (Principes et applica

tions). Gröningen: Noordhoff & Paris: Droz.
Ducrot, Oswald. 1989. Logique, structure, énonciation. Paris: Minuit.
Fontaine, Jacqueline. 1974. Le cercle de Prague. Paris: Marne.
Gadet, Françoise. 1989. "Après Saussure". DRLAV 40. 1-40.
Sechehaye, Albert. 1908. Programme et méthodes de la linguistique théorique. Paris:
Champion.
. 1908a. "La Stylistique et la linguistique théorique". Mélanges de linguistique
offerts à F.de Saussure. Paris: Champion. 158-187.
. 1914. "Les règles de la grammaire et la vie du langage". Germanisch-romani
sche Monatschrift. Heft 5. 288-303, 341-354.
. 1916-1917. "La méthode constructive en syntaxe". Revue des Langues romanes
59. 44-76.
, Charles Bally & Henri Frei. 1940-1941. "Pour l'arbitraire du signe". Acta
linguistica . 3. 164-169.
—. 1941. "Les classes de mots et l'imagination". Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure.
76-78.
Van Ginneken, Jacob. 1907. Principes de linguistique psychologique. Essai de synthèse.
Leipzig: O. Harassowitz.
SOMMARIO
Utilizzando come materia prima analisi relative al francese, ma attingendo

anche a trattazioni d'altre lingue, questa relazione si propone di studiare lo
sviluppo d'un corpo di idee linguistiche nuovo in Europa tra il 1920 e il 1940,
e il loro innesto nelle diverse università come luogo d'una disciplina autó
noma. Questa diffusione e questo innesto seguono soprattutto lo sviluppo
d'un triangolo Ginevra-Parigi-L'Aia, che diventerà un quadrilatero grazie
all importanza acquisita dai linguisti danesi. Parigi, in particolare la Société
de linguistique e i suoi membri fra i quali in primo luogo Meillet, avrà un
molo di garante, di autorità intellettuale e morale, più che quello d'un agente
di trasformazione.
Questo studio consta di tre parti ineguali che corrispondono a tre diverse
modalità di relazione tra studiosi: modalità che sono a mio parere deter
minanti quando un campo subisce trasformazioni profonde.
1) L'intreccio di riconoscimenti e polemiche che si stabilisce in deter
minad momenti fra autori di pubblicazioni contigue (qui tra Bally e Sechehaye
con Saussure da una parte, con Brunot dall'altra);
2) Le posizioni che si defîniscono nello svolgimento dei congressi (in
questo caso il primo e il secondo Congresso internazionale dei linguisti);
3) Le posizioni che si affermano all'atto della fondazione d'una nuova

rivista, e con la sua irruzione in campo (gli Acta linguisticadi Copenhagen, in
questo caso).
RESUME
Utilisant comme matériel premier des analyses portant sur le français, mais
empruntant aussi au traitement d'autres langues, cette communication a pour
ambition d'étudier le développement d'un corps d'idées linguistiques nouvel
les en Europe, de 1920 à 1940, et leur implantation dans les diverses universités
comme lieu d'une discipline autonome. Cette diffusion et cette implantation
suivent principalement le développement d'un triangle Genève-Paris-La Haye,
qui deviendra un quadrilatère grâce à l'importance prise par les linguistes
danois; le rôle de Paris et particulièrement de la Société de linguistique et de ses
ténors, en tête desquels A. Meillet, sera plus celui d'un garant, d'une autorité
intellectuelle et morale que d'un agent de transformation.
Cette étude est divisée en trois parties inégales qui correspondent à trois
modes différents de relations entre savants, modes qui, à notre sens, sont
déterminants lorsqu'un champ subit de profondes transformations:
1) Les jeux de reconnaissance et de polémique qui s'établissent à une
époque donnée entre auteurs de publications voisines (ici entre ally et
Sechehaye avec Saussure d'une part, F. Brunot de l'autre);
2) Les positions qui se définissent dans le déroulement des Congrès (ici
le 1er et le 2ème Congrès international des Linguistes);
3) Les positions qui s'affirment lors de la création d'une revue et de son
irruption dans le champ (ici les Acta linguistica de Copenhague).
Forms of Imperfect Augustinianism
Sebastiano Vecchio
University of Palermo
Augustine inaugurated in an explicit and consequential way the semiological

model of linguistics, shifting the semiotic quality of the linguistic fact from
the sentence, to which the Stoics had assigned it, to the word: it is not speaking
that is a sign, not an assertion that is the sign of a factual datum, but words that
are signs (see Vecchio 1994). A comparison between this position and the
modern tendency to restore to the syntactic moment the function of conferring
meaning — in sentence structure or in the reality of discourse — can contrib
ute to a revaluation of the presuppositions and consequences of the model
within which we still find ourselves.
Simplifying to the utmost for our present purposes, by Augustinianism
we can mean a conception according to which there is something rich and
complex being played out within, however it is arrived at (this is the mentalis-
tic aspect); and there is a material mediation outside (the semiological aspect).
A primary condition is that the two aspects coexist: for there to be even a
bland Augustinianism, it is indispensable that the two things go together.
Speaking of imperfect Augustinianism does not imply an intention to
propose a perfect one; but to show how the strength of the Augustinian
paradigm, which willy-nilly we still have to face, is such as to penetrate even
where we would not expect it to, without being recognised. It penetrates
through separate factors, devoid of the synthesis mentioned, and hence in part
and in certain respects stronger, so that the whole is neither perceived nor
identified; but linking up these aspects to their theoretical matrix can be useful
for reflecting on the plausibility and consistency of the systems in which they
have been assumed, systems which might not hold if from them we drew the
consequences that Augustine himself drew: in his conception they made
sense, while mixed together with other premisses they prove cumbersome.
270 Sebastiano Vecchio
Recently there has been an increase in the number of studies on the

relationship between Wittgenstein and Augustine. Here this will not be dealt
with. Not only because of the complexity of the themes implied, but above all
because in this case the comparison is deliberate and explicit, as it is also in
the case of Gadamer. It is perhaps more interesting, instead, to examine latent
— and, precisely, imperfect — Augustinianism in conceptions of language
that suggest no direct comparison with Augustine: those of Noam Chomsky
and Paul Ricœur.
1. Chomsky and the outrage of labels
To my knowledge, except for some brief and approximate mentions in some

works in the Spanish area, no one has ever sought to show up possible
similarities between Chomsky and Augustine. Yet there is no lack of ele
ments, or at least of curiosities; one need only think of the common broad
reference to the Platonic background. But for anyone taking pleasure in
discovering anticipations of modern positions in single quotations from au
thors, in Augustine there is something more. There is a vision of the truth of
grammar which certainly would not displease the amateur Chomsky. Let us
make a few brief quotations:
Hence reason, after accomplishing and ordering grammar, felt the duty to
seek out and configure the power with which it had created this ars. For
with definitions, analyses and syntheses, it had not only enacted and
organised it, but had also safeguarded it from error. {De ordine 2, 13, 38)
Hence grammar is not a simple ars but a disciplina, and its truth, as for every
discipline ("omnis ergo vera est disciplina"), goes far beyond the accidental
nature of language in action:
Grammar is the discipline that is the custodian and regulator of the articu
lated voice. By this function it is induced to gather all the products, and
hence also all the pretences, of human language, which have been entrusted
to memory or writing, not rendering them false but teaching to build a true
theory around them. {Soliloquia 2, 11, 19)
If it is so, then grammar has something divine about it; and we can believe that
a bishop would not let an adjective of the kind slip through out of place.
Indeed, this is what he says to his mother to console her for her limited
instruction in the artes:
But you, despising these problems as puerile or not pertaining to your

competence, know so well the almost divine force and nature of grammar
that you have retained its soul and left the body to erudite men. {De ordine
2, 17, 45)
There is enough, it would seem, to challenge the image, though it is not a

wholly false one, of Augustine as one who despises grammar; he seems,
rather, to have it in for grammarians. Perhaps Chomsky would take less
comfort from the fineness with which Augustine distinguishes the various
types of knowledge (one need only think of the couple noscere and scire), but
this ascription of grammar to mental processes and logical levels independent
of effective linguistic behaviour would easily fit into Chomsky's framework.
The quotations just made should remind us that among the components
of Augustine's thought there is also the one which in a broad sense we can call
mentalistic or cognitive, of the mental verbum, which functions together with
the semiotic one, which is better known and yet not exclusive. The coexist
ence, in Augustine's thought, of two components which are so different, the
cognitive one relating to operations of the mind and the merely — we would
almost say rawly — semiotic one relating to the elementary mechanisms of
signification, is possible thanks to the absence of any innatism, which in his
day would inevitably have been a theory of reminiscence, a thing inadmis
sible for him. There is a body, there is a soul and there is God: there is no need
for innate ideas; the 'law of the interior nature of thought' is sufficient for
everything to work. Labelling of the world and divine illumination coexist
and refer back to one another; the wholly mental game of meanings and the
monitory function of raw signification are perfectly justified. So grammar as a
discipline possibly partakes of truth, but languages are learnt; they are not
'activated', they do not 'develop', they do not 'grow', they do not 'mature':
they are learnt little by little through imitation, exactly in the way that
Chomsky denies.
However, it is worth drawing attention to an aspect of Chomsky's theses
that is barely mentioned in the technical writings and appears clearly only when
circumstances require him to translate the essence of the theory into terms
accessible to a vaster public, as is the case of the Managua lectures (Chomsky
1988): The reduction of the learnt components of language to lexis is nothing
new; but the disarming clarity with which the affirmation is commented on in
the little Nicaragua book has no counterpart in the specialised reference text
published in the period in which the lectures were given (Chomsky 1986). We
will quote the most explicit statements. In Chomsky's view, in the course of the
acquisition of vocabulary,
the child somehow has the concepts available before experience with
language and is basically learning labels for concepts that are already part
of his or her conceptual apparatus. (Chomsky 1988:28)
If a word has two different meanings, this implies that
the facts come to be known on the basis of a biological endowment that is
prior to any experience and that enters into determining the meaning of
words with remarkable precision. (Chomsky 1988:30)
Certainly few would deny the existence of a conceptual system "prior to any
experience"; but in this system there would also be specific differences
between particular words:
The relation between persuadir ("persuade") and tener intención ("intend")
or decidir ("decide") is one of conceptual structure, independent of experi
ence — though experience is necessary to determine which labels a particu
lar language uses for the concepts that enter into such relations. (Chomsky
1988:33)
In addition to learning to parametrise the principles of Universal Grammar,

anyone learning a language
must discover the lexical items of the language and their properties. To a
large extent this seems to be a problem of finding what labels are used for
preexisting concepts, a conclusion that is so surprising as to seem outra
geous but that appears to be essentially correct nevertheless. (Chomsky
1988:134)
Chomsky does not say so clearly, but there seem to exist no limits to the
number of 'preexisting concepts'; probably it is sufficient to say any word,
such as climb, to promote it — or relegate it — to the rank of label for a
preexisting concept:
Human nature gives us the concept "climb" for free. That is, the concept
"climb" is just part of the way in which we are able to interpret experience
available to us before we even have the experience. That is probably true for
most concepts that have words for them in language. This is the way we
learn language. We simply learn the label that goes with the preexisting
concept. So in other words, it is as if the child, prior to any experience, has
a long list of concepts like "climb", and then the child is looking at the
world to figure out which sound goes with the concept. (Chomsky 1988:
191)
Let us dwell for a moment not on the content of these quotations but on
the meaning that they take on in Chomsky's framework. Where it may seem
that Chomsky attains Augustine's elementar}7 semiological set-up — the
conception that Wittgenstein starts from in his Philosophical Investigations,
qualifying it as primitive — what we really have is the revelation of some
thing that will not hold up. The set-up underlying the quotations just made,
despite appearances, is by no means Augustinian: Augustine would not say
that we possess the idea of "climb" before learning any language. The
interesting point is that, if necessary, in him a hypothesis of the kind could
also be justified (the inner teacher could teach us what "climb" is); in
Chomsky it is a confession of helplessness due to theoretical presumption.
What is really going on? What is happening is that the broadening and
biologisation of innatism has put paid to the complexity of cognitive reality,
which in turn is indispensable as the starting point of Universal Grammar.
Forced by his own procedure to raise ever higher the threshold of the univer
sal, Chomsky puts into it more and more components as inscribed in the
biological patrimony, so that in the end even the difference in meanings of
single words is preliminary to the realisation of the linguistic faculty in a
given language.
Augustine's semiology is not so naive as it seems. It is instead, if we can
venture to use recent terminologies, what makes his (not innatist) mentalism a
sort of constructivism. Then Chomsky's imperfect Augustinianism consists in
adopting a naive semiological theory (words as labels) in order to set up an
external bridge to an innatism whose power however puts it in fact at the
mercy of the world as it is. To express this with a slightly exagerated paradox,
the Chomskian man already knows everything and cannot say anything; in his
own words: "[the person] cannot choose to have sentences mean other than
what they do" (Chomsky 1976:71). It is doubtless a plausible statement in
more than one scientific context; but placed next to the ones on vocabulary as
a list of labels it takes on a wholly different value.
2. The temptation of the symbolic mode
The case of Riccæur is different from that of Chomsky, though both start from
the sentence analysis level. In the mid-sixties, the French philosopher greeted
generative grammar as a way to overcome structuralism, precisely because it
focused on the sentence and on creativity. We will speak about him here not
because of the intrinsic interest that he arouses, but, once again, to show how
elements of Augustinianism — or ones that can appear such — infiltrate into
conceptions that actually have completely different outcomes.
If Chomsky's imperfect Augustinianism lies in the unwitting assumption
of what to careless eyes appears like the elementary basic trait of Augustinian
denotative semiology, Ricœur's imperfect Augustinianism is precisely the
rejection of this trait because of a hermeneutic need seen as incompatible with
it while for Augustine it is its crowning glory; it consists, in sum, in setting one
piece of Augustine against another.
In Ricœur too, one is surprised at the absence of Augustine; not in
general, of course, but as regards Augustine the linguist and semiologist, only
briefly mentioned in Ricœur (1978:452). And one is all the more surprised in
that recent hermeneutics has been rediscovering Augustine as one of its
authors.
If the primitive labelling semiology seen before might appear Augustin
ian, no less Augustinian — on another side of Augustine — can one judge
Ricœur's being open to the multiple meaning of the text. For Ricœur, how
ever, this is a consequence of the rejection of what he calls 'semiotic mo
nism'. The French philosopher speaks clearly on this subject:
Il devient très difficile, sinon impossible, de rendre compte de la fonction
dénotative du langage dans le cadre d'une théorie du signe qui ne connaît
que la différence interne du signifiant et du signifié, alors que cette fonction
dénotative ne fait aucunement difficulté dans une conception du langage qui
distingue dès le départ les signes et le discours et qui définit le discours, à
l'inverse du signe, par son rapport à la réalité extra-linguistique. (Ricœur
1975:159)
It is here, according to the author, that there lie the aporias of linguistics,
since "la différence est sémiotique, la référence est sémantique" (Ricœur
1978:456). This manner of conceiving referentiality is certainly not Augustin
ian and does not pertain even to Saussure; but for Ricœur it is the condition for
claiming independence of hermeneutics from linguistics, or even the inclu
sion of the latter (Ricœur 1969:79).
In order to be able to say, in substance, that language signifies something
other than that which it signifies, Ricœur needs to go beyond the limiting
threshold of its being made up of words. He finds an important support in the
well-known distinction made by Benveniste between the semiotic and the
semantic.
Now, it is true that the starting point of the French linguist was the
intention to assign to the sentence a greater theoretical role than it had for
Saussure; but if he unequivocally identified the sign as a unit of semiotic
analysis, he never wrote that the minimum unit of semantic analysis was the
sentence, as Ricœur reports. From one essay to another there is some oscilla
tion, but the only time that Benveniste specified his thought on the subject, if
anything it was in the word that he found the unit of semantics: "On a vu que
l'unité sémiotique est le signe. Que sera l'unité sémantique? Simplement, le
mot" (Benveniste 1974:225). Actually a few years before he wrote that "la
phrase est l'unité du discours" (Benveniste 1966:130); but at that date he had
not yet worked out and proposed the distinction between the semiotic and the
semantic. All this made Benveniste's distinction theoretically more interest
ing than a simple opposition between the sign and the sentence: semiotics and
semantics covered the same universe with the same elements but from differ
ent points of view, not two different and wholly distinct realities, as it would
seem in reading Ricœur.
The philosopher neglects this datum and warns against "la surestimation
du mot, voire la fascination par les mots, poussée jusqu'à la superstition, la
révérence ou l'effroi" (Ricœur 1975:171). And yet at the origin of this
presumed overestimation there is precisely Augustine, who besides as herme-
neut is so attentive to the ways of manifesting itself of the 'language of
revelation' which is dear to Ricœur. The tendency of contemporary herme-
neutics to base the 'plus meaning' of language on a 'plus meaning' of its
constitutive elements thus proves to be anti-Augustinian: an imperfect Augus
tinianism. In Augustine, instead, the reduction of the constitutive aspect of
language to the verbum and his opening up to the mental universe, the
reduction of language to a set of signs devoid of cognitive scope and his
opening up to the reality of languages, are aspects which not only coexist but
are inseparable.
In reality, rather than to the semantics outlined by Benveniste as dis
course analysis, Ricœur's attention to polysemy appears comparable to the
type of semiotic attitude that Eco (1984) calls 'symbolic mode', characterised
by the absence or at least the weakness of the code, wholly to the advantage of
vagueness, cloudiness, interpretative freedom. Now, what is to make it pos
sible for Thomas Aquinas to decree the — provisional — death of the
symbolic mode is precisely Augustine's anchoring it to a code of socially
agreed signs, the structuring of exegesis in levels articulated with one another
in ways which can be made explicit and classified without jumps. From the
sign to the text to the Scripture as a whole, De doctrina Christiana can run the
whole gamut from semiotics to hermeneutics without any fear of reduction-
ism or globalism, and without hidden metaphysics.
It is better to have no metaphysics of communication; but if one must be
chosen, then it is better that it should be that of Augustine — less pretentious
because more solidly founded — than the latent one of contemporary herme
neutics, which is all the more universalising in that it is less defined.
3. The condemnation to semiology
Thus, both oriented towards the sentence, Chomsky finds it in his hand broken
down into a series of preprinted labels; Ricœur dissolves it in discourse and
text through having refused to consider it structured and susceptible of
analysis. These are both risks that Augustine did not run.
In the broader sense in which we have used the term, we can say that
there is imperfect Augustinianism in Augustine too. It is that of his first phase,
which finds its clearest expression in De magistro: word-signs at most serve
to invite us to seek after things, but they do not let us know them; true
knowledge is ensured only by the inner teacher. Until he goes beyond this
totally negative vision by articulating the theory of the mental verbum,
Augustine finds the linguistic-semiological conception too poor to be applied
to divine subjects. And indeed, once he arrives at the new position, in the
theological domain he exploits to the utmost the linguistic-cognitive function
(the verbum), not the semiotic one (the signum): the semiotic relationship is
never applied by Augustine to the internal dynamics of the three-personed
God, rich as they are. God communicates inside himself, but in a non-semiotic
way; he becomes semiotic only outside.
All this is anything but a 'closure of the universe of signs', with the name
given by Ricœur to what in his view was the flaw of structuralism while
instead it goes back, in its semiological foundation, to the bishop of Hippo.
For Augustine the function of signs is indeed to disappear, after performing
their role, whith respect to what they are signs of; but this does not make them
any less necessary and indispensable, nor less providential or even less
perceptible. What De Mauro (1990) has called a 'linear model of communica
tion', whose limits are felt today, in Augustine — who is its founder — has a
much greater consistency and staying power than has been the case in
subsequent elaborations.
A few years ago Lo Piparo (1990) identified in the history of linguistic
thought two major paradigms, one called 'Biblical-Christian' and the other
4
Aristotelian-Vichian'. In this paper we have suggested that the paradigms
may be more than two, and that in any case the assignation of roles needs re
examining. In sum, to limit ourselves to our subject, Augustine cannot go with
Heidegger: for Augustine, language does not 'speak', and all the less does it
'speak us' because it is an instrument, though a very precious, indeed an
indispensable one; it is true that there is a verbum-God, but since he has made
us of flesh, if he wants to speak to us he is condemned to having recourse to
signs.
Precisely this anchoring, which is so material and banal, avoids on the
one hand blind mentalistic omnipotence with labels, and on the other hand the
flight towards the irrationality of the symbolic mode.
We have not ceased to face up to this semiological framework, and the
problems that it solves — as well as those which it leaves unsolved or hidden.
This is the reason why, at the end of the second millennium, we still have to
endeavour to understand why we cannot not call ourselves Augustinians.
(translated by Caterina Gailor)
REFERENCES
Benveniste, Emile. 1966. Problèmes de linguistique générale. I. Paris: Gallimard.
. 1974. Problèmes de linguistique générale. IL Paris: Gallimard
Chomsky, Noam. 1976. Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon Books.
. 1986. Knowledge of Language. New York: Praeger.
. 1988. Language and Problems of Knowledge. Cambridge, Mass.:  Press.
De Mauro, Tullio. 1990. Minisemantica. Second edition. Roma-Bari: Laterza.
Eco, Umberto. 1984. Semiotica e filosofía del linguaggio. Torino: Einaudi.
Lo Piparo, Franco. 1990. "Two linguistic paradigms compared". In Donatella Di Cesare
and Stefano Gensini (eds.). Iter babelicum. Studien zur Historiographie der Lingui
stik. Münster: Nodus Publikationen. 11-21.
Ricœur, Paul. 1969. Le conflit des interprétations. Paris: Seuil.
. 1975. La métaphore vive. Paris: Seuil.
. 1978. "Philosophie et langage". Revue philosophique 4.450-463.
Vecchio, Sebastiano. 1994. Le parole come segni. Introduzione alla linguistica agos-
tiniana. Palermo: Novecento.
SOMMARIO
L'agostinismo di fondo della linguistica di impianto semiologico è ormai

riconosciuto. Meno riconoscibile è l'apparente agostinismo circolante in altri
approcci contemporanei al linguaggio. Sono forme di agostinismo imperfetto
perché parziale, che dell'impostazione di Agostino si limitano ad assumere
alcuni esiti ritenendo di poter trascurare i percorsi. E' il caso dell'ultimo
Chomsky che, nel riproporre l'idea di lingua come etichettatura, è costretto —
contro Agostino — a spostare sempre più in alto la soglia dell'innato e
dell'universale. Per aspetti diversi è pure il caso di Ricœur, col suo rifiuto —
non agostiniano — della 'riduzione semiotica' in favore di un'istanza erme-
neutica che salvi la polisemia. E cosí la frase, iniziale punto di partenza dei
due autori, da una parte si scompone nell'insieme dei 'concetti preesistenti',
dall'altra si dissolve inanalizzabile nella realtà del discorso.
RESUME
L'augustinisme de la linguistique sémiologique est assez reconnu. Moins

reconnaissable est cet augustinisme qui n'en est pas un, adopté par d'autres
approches contemporaines au langage. Il s'agit d'un augustinisme imparfait
et partiel, en ce qu'il adopte certains résultats d'Augustin sans en adopter les
parcours. C'est le cas de Chomsky lorsqu'il repropose l'idée de la langue en
tant que système d'étiquettes, forcé — contre Augustin — à élever de plus en
plus le seuil de l'inné et de l'universel. C'est d'autre part le cas de Ricœur qui
refuse — lui aussi contre Augustin — la 'réduction sémiotique' en faveur
d'une instance herméneutique ouverte à la polysémie. C'est ainsi que la
phrase, point de départ des deux, d'une part se décompose dans l'ensemble
des 'concepts préexistants', d'autre part se dissout dans la réalité du discours.
The Convention of Geneva
History of linguistic ideas and
history of communicative practices
Daniele Gambarara
When I was a child I pictured our language

as settled and passed down by a board of syndics,
seated in grave convention along a table
in the style of Rembrandt.
(W. V. Quine, Foreword, in: Lewis 1969:xi)
1. In recent years the arbitrariness of the sign has been the subject of a great
deal of discussion. Is arbitrariness really an absolute principle, as Saussure
claimed? And if not, what is the contrary principle? —are the signs motivated
(as in iconic signs)? or are they natural, for example in the sense that some
features of expression and of content are already defined prior to becoming
part of the sign (which re-opens the issue of the relation between form and
substance)? And what is the connection between motivation and naturality?
Are the signs of languages arbitrary in the same way as those of non-verbal
codes? Once we begin to explore the limits of arbitrariness, we also come up
against the problem of a typology of communicative codes. We thus return to
an issue which, up to 1975, was a matter of debate in the sphere of linguistics
and semiotics, but which today reappears in more of a cognitive perspective,
as can be seen from various papers included in this volume.
What I want specifically to discuss here is conventionality, which is
usually considered a minor aspect of arbitrariness. It is distinguished from,
and at times contrasted with, "strong" or "radical" arbitrariness, as if it were a
280 Daniele Gambarara
more banal feature that has always been part of the definition of language and
hence has no history. There are numerous studies of the idea of arbitrariness,
but none of the linguistic history of conventionality (whereas its history has
been studied from the standpoint of social and political philosophy).
After a few preliminary examples to clarify the difference between a
strong, juridical, meaning and a weak, social, meaning of convention (§ 2), I
want to sketch out the history of conventionality in order to show:
— that in the earliest investigations of language the subject of conven
tionality is quite marginal, the main — and different — issue being the
question of whether or not words correspond with the nature of things; today
we find conventionality here because we read these texts with modern eyes (§
3);
— that the conventionality of language is tackled directly in the juridical
and political philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries, where the strong sense
of convention is rejected (§ 4);
— that, paradoxically, after the decline of contractualist philosophy, the
word "convention" is revived for international meetings and treaties, some of
them dealing with problems of communication; this occurs quite indepen
dently of 19th-century linguistics, which tends towards a more naturalistic
view of language (§ 5);
— that the practical semiotics developed for the regulation of communi
cation systems exerts a powerful, if contradictory, influence on Saussure's
thinking, leading to a new conception of "convention" (as well as to a new
concept of historicity as diachrony) in the context of linguistics and semiol
ogy (§ 6). 1
2. In our languages, the terms "convention" and "conventional" derive

from legal Latin. The basic meaning of "convention" corresponds to a precise
juridical concept: men in their social life make pacts and agreements; in the
most important cases they meet in assemblies in order to deliberate and, as a
legislative body, lay down norms that are explicit and binding. From this a
secondary, weaker meaning is derived: the word "convention" is applied to
social customs and usages which are shared and respected as if they were the
object of such a contract.
The first meaning seems to be applicable only to a few, isolated uses of
non-verbal signals, which are generally agreed upon by two persons.
The Convention of Geneva 281
For example, a married woman and her lover in a French provincial town
may agree on a signal ("le signal convenu") for a rendez-vous:
Ils étaient convenus, elle et Rodolphe, qu'en cas d'événement extraordi
naire, elle attacherait à la persienne un petit chiffon de papier blanc. [...]
Emma fit le signal. (Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 1857:32)
Similarly, in a Neapolitan song, a woman kept under close surveillance

by her brother, makes an agreement with her lover on a (somewhat redun
dant) code or "segno convenuto": he is to stay away if the balcony door is
open, but to come and meet her in the arbour if the shutters are lowered.
Stàmmoce attiento a 'o segno convenuto:
"Barcone apierto": ce sta ancora 'o frato;
"Perziana scesa": 'o frate se n'è asciuto,
e appuntamento è sotto 'o pergulato!
(Ernesto Murolo, Pusilleco addiruso, 1904)2
As regards our languages and social communication systems in general,
they would clearly seem to be conventional in the second sense, like all
human customs and usages, and that is why we define them 'historical' and
'natural' at the same time.
As we shall see, this was widely accepted up to the 19th century.
However, it is no accident that the two examples quoted are both modern
ones. It is in fact hard to find "sign" or "signal" combined with "agreed" or
"conventional" in early writing, and even then some of the cases can be
misleading.
For example, in Plautus's Pseudolus an agreement has been made {con-
venire is used in the passive sense) between the pimp Ballio and the soldier
Polymachaeroplagides to the effect that the former will hand over a girl to
Simia, the servant of the latter, when the servant brings him the money and a
letter embossed (obsignata ) with the seal (imago, signum, sumbolum ) of the
soldier.
"Miles lenoni Ballioni epistulam
conscriptam mittit Polymachaeroplagides,
imagine obsignatam quae inter nos duo
convenit olim."
Simia: Sumbolu'st in epistula.
Ballio: Video et cognosco signum. [...]
Ballio: [...] et obsignatum sumbolum qui inter me
atque ilium militem convenerat.
(Plautus, Pseudolus, 191 B.C.:vv. 996-1002, 1092-93)
What they have actually agreed on is the procedure for the exchange.
This involves the use of a seal because it was the normal way of accepting
responsibility for an action that had been agreed upon. In spite of the repeti
tion of terms that today may seem undoubtedly semiotic to us, there is no talk
here of an "agreed sign".3
3. Today, indeed, we use the term "convention" even when referring to early
views of language developed between the 5th century B.C. and the 3rd-4th
century A.D. This is one of the reasons that has made it possible to think of
Aristotle as a forerunner of Saussure.
However, early Greek investigators of language and the Latin writers
who follow in their footsteps actually use different terms and concepts. In
ancient Greek the main term is thésis (Lat. institutus "[im]position"); it refers
to deliberate name-giving and does not imply interpersonal agreements or
collective deliberations. Somewhat closer to our "convention" are the terms
nómos ("law", but also "custom") and above all synthéke (the richness and the
problematic nature of this term are due to its semantic range, which extends
from "composition" to "pact"). In the earliest phase, regardless of important
differences, the central idea is that of the motivated, but not stipulated,
attribution of names to things by one or more persons endowed with special
wisdom. This man who has given things their names (and is thus like a law
giver) later merges with the Adam of biblical tradition, since in both cases the
idea of an agreement or contract between a group of people is absent.
The issue debated is whether names, which are always "imposed" (thósis),
have been imposed "in agreement with nature" (physis). It is the supposed
conformity of names to the essential nature of things which is especially
contested by Plato (and, according to Proclus, by Democritus). Only with the
rejection of the originary agreement of language with nature, an agreement
between men makes its appearance, and we can say that convention arise from
arbitrariness. In Plato's Cratylus Hermogenes puts forward the idea that a
number of men made an agreement to call things by given names (tines
synthémenoï.Grat. 383a) and that the correctness of words is based on a pact
and a consensus (synthéke kaî homología:Crat. 384d).
Paradoxically, the Epicureans argue that stipulation takes place not at the
origin but during the consolidation of language. Polemising with the Stoics,
who maintain a motivated imposition for words, they deny that someone
invented words and then taught them to others. Words arose from sounds
produced spontaneously by men; they then made an agreement to improve
their efficacy.
Words do not arise in the first place from an imposition {thései ). It was part
of Men's very nature to emit the air formed by each of their emotions and
impressions in peculiar ways. [...] Later they jointly laid down (tethênai)
certain particular sounds in each tribe, so that the designations (names),
once clearly designated (specified), would become less ambiguous and
briefer (Epicurus, Littera ad Herodotum, §§ 75-76).
Here the meaning of thésis wavers between "imposition" and "conven

tion" (the second occurrence, where it is specified that men "imposed [them]
together").
In Latin, conventio is late (it is not common before the 3rd century A.D.);
conventionalis is particularly late and technical (from the middle of the 2nd
century A.D.). How it comes to be applied to language can be seen from
Plautus (above), and from Livy (note 2).4
4. It is hardly surprising that we have to wait till the modern period, in

which a specifically contractualist outlook develops in political philosophy,
to find a fully-fledged "conventional" view of language—one linking it to
rather than distinguishing it from the other human institutions (it is, in fact, in
this light that the ancient debate over thesis and physis is revisited). Nor is it
surprising that one of the clearest examples is to be found in the work of the
forefather of modern contractualism, Thomas Hobbes. What is striking, how
ever, is that in his discussion of the origin of language Hobbes spells out the
strong hypothesis of a legislative assembly only to declare that it is quite
untenable.
Cum autem vocabula ex constitute humano orta esse dixerim, quaeret
fortasse aliquis, quorum hominum constitutions tantum valuere, ut bene
ficium, quantum praestat nobis sermo, in genus humanuni conferre potue-
runt. Nam convenisse quondam in consilium homines, ut verba verborumque
contextos quid significarent decreto statuerent, incredibile est. (Hobbes
1658: Chap. X, "De sermone et scientiis", § 2. "Sermonis origo", OL :IL89)
Thus it is not with regard to language that Hobbes and Hume differ in their
idea of conventionality. Hume's important clarification has a general bearing,
and language is just one example among others there:
If by convention be here meant a promise (which is the most usual sense of

the world), nothing can be more absurd than the position [...] But if by
convention be meant a sense of common interest, which sense each man
feels in his own breast, which he observes in his fellows, and which carries
him, in concurrence with others, into a general plan or system of actions
which tend to public utility [...] Thus two men pull the oars of a boat, by
common convention, for common interest, without any promise or contract
[...] thus speech and words and language are fixed by human convention and
agreement." (Hume 1740:490)5
Not long afterwards, in France too, the hypothesis of a primordial formal
convention is mooted only to be rejected:
Les mots n'ont point avec ce qu'ils expriment un rapport nécessaire; ce
n'est pas même en vertu d'une convention formelle et fixée invariabilment
entre les hommes, que certains sons réveillent dans notre esprit certaines
idées. Cette liaison est l'effet d'une habitude formée dans l'enfance [...].
(Turgot 1756:98).
This phase is clear: the pact establishing language is social and not political,
thus the idea of convention in the strong sense works just as a theoretical limit
and an open view of the social and historical nature of languages prevails. The
history of languages is conceived, like that of other social norms, as the free,
unreflecting transmission of human knowledge.
This is a far cry from legal and political contractualism, where it makes
sense to devise conventions that are better than existing ones and to struggle
to implement them. In fact, it is worth recalling that in the background of the
passages quoted is the revival in England of the term "convention" for a self-
convened meeting of parliament. There were two important meetings of this
kind in 1660 and in 1688 (the second marks a significant moment in Anglo-
French relations), and it is from these that the term passes into French and
finds its way into the Encyclopédie.
5. Conventionalist philosophy comes to an end around the turn of the

century. The 1787 Convention of Philadelphia, at which the Constitution of
the United States of America was drawn up, and the 1792 national Conven
tion, which gave France its republican Constitution, mark at once its high-
point and its conclusion. However, during these years, outside the domain of
the investigations of language but in a sphere that at times involves the rules
of communication, conventionality begins take on a new, strong sense.
By the turn of the century, in fact, the industrial revolution has brought
about a need for changes in the forms of transport and communication, both
those connected with military needs and those of a commercial and general
kind.
The first area in which we find an explicit regulation of systems of
communication is that of military signals, especially in navies. There were
precedents for this, but it is in the last few years of the 18th century, in France
and above all in England, that new systems of signals are enlarged, standard
ised, and sanctioned by regulations. From 1808 on, the British Admiralty
officially adopted a flag-signal code which was subsequently revised on a
number of occasions. From the end of the Napoleonic wars, similar systems
spread to the merchant navies, and were variously adapted by the different
countries until, in 1868, a Commission launched by the English but joined by
representatives of other countries succeeded in laying down an international
Code of signals for merchant navies. Other transport systems, too, come to
require international agreements for the standardising of signalling systems,
agreements which are then incorporated in the various national legislations.
This is the case first with railways and then motor vehicles (the first law
concerning road-traffic signals was passed in France in 1897, although the
obligation to drive on the right was introduced in 1807—not for functional
reasons but out of anti-English sentiment).
In its earliest stage, the development of telegraphic communications, too,
is linked to military requirements and interwoven with the development of
systems for the navy. This is the case of Claude Chappe's optical system of
1792, which was superseded after 1836 by Samuel Morse's electrical system.
Morse's system also involves a particular kind of writing. It was con
ceived, in fact, in a period during which writing systems were attracting
special interest: in 1822 Jean-François Champollion ushered in the great
season of the deciphering of ancient scripts, in 1829 Louis Braille invented his
system of writing for the blind, and in 1834 F. X. Gabelsberger devised the
first modern system of stenography.
Negotiations are undertaken and agreements made even about languages
as a whole: the sign language for deaf-mutes developed by Charles Michel de
L'Epée in 1784 is adopted by communities of deaf-mutes in Europe and the
United States. In the second half of the nineteenth century numerous attempts
are made to establish a (written and spoken) international artificial language,
from Volapük (Johann Martin Schleyer, 1879), to Esperanto (Lejzer Ludwik
Zamenhof, 1887). In 1901 a Délégation pour l'adoption d'une langue auxi

liaire internationale is set up.
In the process of establishing and regulating these communicative prac
tices, and in the practical, spontaneous, implicit semiology that goes with
them, two terms take on new linguistic meanings. The first is "code" (the
century itself opens with the great Napoleonic Code, later emulated all over
Europe) in the sense of "signal-book". This use is first recorded in 1808 in a
despatch of the duke of Wellington ("A long letter respecting [...] a code of
signals for the army"), but around 1870 it is extended to the International
Code of Maritime Signals: in non-legal sources referring to these norms we
find, in French: "L'adoption d'un code de signaux maritimes international"
(1868), and in English: "Maritime code of signals" (1875).
The second term is "convention" itself. From the first half of the 19th
century on, it begins to be used both for international assemblies that meet to
deliberate and for the international treaties which they draw up—treaties
concerning not only general political matters (the first Geneva Convention, at
which the International Red Cross is founded, is held in 1864) but also new
systems of communication and signalling. The meetings about maritime
signals are organised by the British Board of Trade, and not by an interna
tional organisation. They are thus not Conventions in the technical sense,
unlike the Berne International Convention of 1874 (at which the General
Postal Union is founded), the Metre Convention of 1875, and above all the
Geneva Convention of 1909 on road traffic and signals, the Brussels Conven
tion of 1910 on maritime collisions (and danger and distress signals), the
London Convention of 1914, also on the protection of lives at sea (after the
Titanic disaster) — conventions which are renewed to this day for the
purposes of updating and correcting them.
Here, then, we find men assembling in council for the purpose of estab
lishing the meanings of signs and communication contexts by decree, and
languages being tested and specified by senior civil servants solemnly gath
ered around a table: a semiotic convention at work under our eyes. What is
involved is no longer the isolated, contingent signal of an Emma Bovary or a
couple of Neapolitan lovers (indeed, such signals will grow less and less
necessary after the invention of the telegraph and then the telephone) but
extensive sign systems of great importance which ever larger numbers of
human beings are obliged to learn.
Historical linguistics remains detached from this context in which the
achievements of communications engineers replace the speculations of phi-
losophers of communication (thus in a sense inverting the 18th-century

outlook). It defines itself during the 19th century in opposition to the history—
the social history—of particular languages. Languages are not considered as
institutions but as organic, or at least natural, entities—given objects whose
"laws" (natural laws, the opposite of "conventions") can be made explicit.6
6. In 1909 the first International Convention on Road Traffic is held in

Geneva. It takes place in the interval between the second and third course in
general linguistics given by Ferdinand de Saussure (November 1908—June
1909; October 1910—July 1911). In the Introduction to the second course and
at the end of the third, Saussure discusses the place of the theory of language
in the overall framework of a theory of signs, developing ideas previously
sketched out in the draft of an article prepared for Whitney in 1894. He is thus
the first scholar in the field of linguistics and semiology to acknowledge the
role of the new communication systems.
It has recently been reaffirmed that Whitney's concept of the sign is the
sole antecedent of Saussure's (Prosdocimi 1988). Although the history of
ideas today inclines towards a parthenogenetic outlook, I want to suggest how
important the practical semiotic activity of setting up and regulating sign
systems, that implicit semiology which develops during the 19th century, may
have been for Saussure's investigations.
Whitney, in fact, regularly links "arbitrary" with "conventional" (with
reference to thésis vs. physis, to which he dedicated a specific essay: Whitney
1874), and makes no mention of new systems of communication. Besides
speech, the only other language he acknowledges is that of gestures, and he
sees these more as spontaneous phenomena than as part of standardised sign
languages of deaf-mutes. What is more, he includes historical languages
directly among human institutions, on a level with all other customs and
usages. Thus, in his quarrel with mid-19th-century linguistics, he reverts to
something of an 18th-century outlook.
In the true and proper meaning of the terms, then, every word handed down
in every human language is an arbitrary and conventional sign: arbitrary
because any one of thousand other words current among men, or of the tens
Of thousand which might have been fabricated, could have been equally
well learned and applied to this particular purpose; conventional, because
the reason for the use of this rather than another lies solely in the fact that it
is already used in the community to which the speaker belongs. (Whitney
1875:19)
Saussure, on the other hand, mentions various systems of expression

(these being only some of the possible examples: note his "etceteras") and
sees language simply as the most important of these (CLG:33).
At the centre of Saussure's semiological investigations, we thus find
writing systems (CLG:33, 45, 47ff., 103, 107, 111), the sign language of deaf-
mutes (CLG:33, 111), artificial languages (Esperanto: CLG:111; in one of his
first Geneva lectures in 1891 he had already mentioned Volapük), as well as
military signals (CLG:33), and maritime signals (cited as one of the systems
with visual signifiers: CLG: 103 and 107).
By classifying these sign systems together with the historical-natural
languages, Saussure is able to demarcate a well-defined category within the
broader category of human institutions (CLG: 34). As a result, he also succeeds
in grouping other systems characterised by a lower degree of arbitrariness
around these sign systems, namely "symbols" (CLG: 101, 106), pantomime
(CLG: 100), forms of politeness (CLG:33, 101), symbolic rituals (CLG:33)
(especially those of religions: CLG:35, 107), as well as customs in general as
signs (CLG:35, 110)—for example, fashion, forms of marriage, laws, and the
prescriptions of codes (CLG: 107, 110).
In this context Saussure uses conventionnel alongside arbitraire: neither
of the two terms seems fully satisfactory to him. Signs are arbitrary even if
individuals or communities cannot choose them, and "la langue ne peut donc
plus être assimilée à un contrat pur et simple" (CLG: 104). It is this aspect that
particularly interests Saussure, who links it with the kind of historicity pecu
liar to languages. And although at times he shows great awareness of the
social dimension of language, at others he espouses a narrow view of linguis
tic change as an internal matter, thereby transforming language from a kind of
social knowledge or norm inseparable from the life of the community into an
autonomous object with an history of its own (just like the non-linguistic
codes). This may be due to the fact that he groups the new communication
systems and our old languages together and attributes the same sort of
conventionality and historicity (seen as general semiological principles) to
each. This fertile contradiction explains the new role that the idea of conven
tion comes to play in 20th-century linguistic and semiology.7
7. It is this dilemma that throws light on today's theoretical problems,

revealing the presence of two different concepts of convention. The strong
concept only comes to the fore at a given point in history (and only for given
forms of communication). If the two are confused in theory a theoretical
problem arises, if they are confused in history, they result in an anachronism.
Strong conventionality, or explicit regulation, is not intrinsic to a code: a
communication system may be governed by legal norms at some times and
places and not at others. This is demonstrated by the history of the sign
language of deaf-mutes, of writing systems, and today perhaps by the evolu
tion of some languages too (certainly of some sub-languages), all of which are
subject to explicit regulation.
The case of "convention" show the need for a larger vision of the history
of linguistic ideas. If a linguistic concept could arise only from another
linguistic concept, the two would tend to resemble and even to identify. But
we find shifts from a conceptual field to another, and also from the implicit
ideas of practice to the explicit ideas of thinkers.
The honour that is paid to predecessors is also the shame of those who let
themselves be preceded. Woe betide Saussure if his idea of conventionality
were the same as Aristotle's: it would mean he failed to interpret his era
(which, fortunately, is not the case). Woe betide us if our idea of convention
ality were to be the same as Saussure' s.
NOTES
1. On the relationship between arbitrariness and conventionality, see De Mauro 1982 and
Prieto 1990-91.
When, in 1902, J. H. Poincaré used "convention" for the choice of mathematical and
geometric axioms, he opened a new, epistemological, course, at first an independent one,
for the history of our term. Already in the Thirties, with Carnap, Tarsky and Quine, the
logical use began to approach the linguisticfield.Wittgenstein, Austin and their followers
finally introduced in linguistics this use of 'convention' with a different pedigree.
2. "Look out for the agreed signal: /'Balcony open': my brother is still here; / 'Shutters
down' : my brother has gone out, /and the rendez-vous is in the arbour".
3. It is possible, nevertheless, to find valid examples of this, especially for military signals:
Livy mentions an agreement made before a battle to the effect that when the enemy camps
were set on fire, the cavalry would attack from the rear: "et in tempore, postquam ardentía
procul vidit castra magister equitum — id convenerat signum — hostium terga invadit"
(Livy,IX.23.15).
4. For a more detailed discussion of the evolution of the meaning of thésis, see Gambarara
1990. Here are some other cases where the term "convention" does not appear where one
would expect to find it: Aulus Gellius (X.4), discussing the question whether names are
physei or thései, makes no mention of "convention", but wonders if words have their roots
in the nature of things (naturalia) or are given, imposed at random (positu fortuito,
arbitraria). Augustine (De Doctrina Christiana II.i.2ff.) distinguishes between signa
naturalia and signa data purely on the basis of communicative intent. This is absent in the
former and present in the latter, which, significantly, include not only verbal languages but
also animal communication, pantomime and military signals (Manetti 1987: 239-240).
That the issue of conventionality was not identified as such in ancient times is clearly
illustrated by Schrader 1976: 1071, whereas Nef (1989: 483) projects a kind of Peircean
conventionalism onto antiquity: "La thèse conventionnaliste — les noms seraient im
posés en vertu d'une loi — s'oppose à la thèse naturaliste suivant laquelle une affinité
d'essence existerait entre la chose et son nom". For France, see also Dumarsais 1730
quoted in this volume by Capt-Artaud.
5. Promise = pactum = covenant = convention. On the differences between Hobbes's
contractualism and Hume's conventionalism, see Lecaldano 1991, who comments on this
passage on p. 216. For the general historic frame, see Formigari 1993.
6. A project of Humboldt's forms the basis of articles 108-16 on river navigation law of the
Congress of Vienna adopted on 6 June 1815. Yet Humboldt is among those who most
firmly deny the conventional nature of language: "Den nachteiligsten Einfluss auf die
interessante Behandlung jedes Sprachstudiums hat die beschränkte Vorstellung ausgeübt,
dass die Sprache durch Konvention entstanden, und das Wort nichts als Zeichen einer
unabhängig von ihm vorhandenen Sache, oder eines ebensolchen Begriffs ist." (Latium
und Hellas, 1806).
No comprehensive study of the development of conventional communication systems
has yet been written. See Eco 1993 on artificial languages (and their pre-history), Klima-
Bellugi 1979 and Pennisi 1994 on the sign language of deaf-mutes, Woods 1976 and 1990
on maritime signals.
7. The most recent publications on the relationship between Saussure and Whitney are those
by Joseph 1988 (the two had actually met, briefly), Koerner 1985, Prosdocimi 1988, and
Vincenzi 1986 and 1990; Jakobson 1971 already showed the significance of the semio-
logical approach of,Saussure. On the relationship between semiology and diachrony in
Saussure, see Gambarara 1992. On the ambiguities of Saussure and the subsequent
establishment of a vulgate, see Auroux, Chevalier, Simone, in this volume.
There is also a remarkable coincidence in Geneva in 1931 between the Convention on
the standardising of road traffic signals, and the second International Congress of
Linguists.
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Begriffes". Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen 204. 81-112.
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Bari: Laterza.
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Bari: Laterza. Engl, edition Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Engler, Rudolf. 1962. "Théorie et critique d'un principe saussurien: l'arbitraire du signe".
Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure 19. 5-66.
Formigari, Lia. 1993. Signs, Science and Politics. Philosophies of language in Europe
1700-1830. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Gambarara, Daniele. 1990. "L'origine des noms et du langage dans la Grèce ancienne", S.
Auroux (ed.), Histoire des idées linguistiques, I : La naissance des métaîangages.
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. 1992. "Diachronie et sémiologie". Cahiers F. de Saussure 45 (= Mélanges L.
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Hobbes, Thomas. 1658. De Homine. In: Opera philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia
(=OL), ed. by William Molesworth. London 839-45. IÍ. Repr. Aalen: Scientia 1969,
Hombert, Isabelle. 1978. "Whitney: notes sur une entreprise théorique pré-saussurienne".
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Normand). 112-119.
Hume, David. 1739-40. A Treatise on Human Nature, ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H.
Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1987.
Jakobson, Roman. 1971. "The world response to Whitney's principles of linguistic
science". Introductory essay in: Silverstein 1971. XXV-XLV.
Joseph, John E. 1988. "Saussure's Meeting with Whitney, Berlin, 1879." Cahiers Fer
dinand de Saussure 42. 205-214.
Klima, Edward S. & Ursula Bellugi. 1979. The Signs of Language: Cambridge (Mass.) &
London: Harvard University Press.
Koerner, E. F. Konrad. 1972. Contribution au débat post-sàussurien sur le signé lin
guistique. The Hague & Paris: Mouton.
. 1985. "Quelques observations sur les sources de la sémiologie saussurienne".
Lingua e Stile XX/3. 287-301.
Lecaldano, Eugenio. 1991. Hume e la nascità dell' etica contemporánea. Roma & Bari:
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Lewis, David K. 1969. Convention. A Philosophical Study. Foreword by W. V. O. Quitté,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press .
Manetti, Giovanni. 1987. Le teorie del segno nell'antichita classica. Milano: Borripiáni.
Nef, Frédéric. 1989. "Convention linguistique". Encyclopédie Philosophique Universelle.
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Pennisi, Antonino. 1994. Patología e biología del linguaggio fra teoría e storia (1600-
1800). Roma: La Nuova Italia Scientifica. In Press.
Prieto, Luis J. 1990-91. Saggi di semiotica. 2 vols. Parma: Pratiche.
Prosdocimi, Aldo L. 1984. "Sulla genesi della semiologia saussuriana. Nota sulla biografía
intellettuale di F. de Saussure". Archivio Glottologico Italiano 69. 143-159.
. 1988. "Sul fenomeno Saussure. Fra storiografiä e biografía". Energeia und
Ergon. Studia in honorem Eugenio Coseriu, j, Albrecht et alii edd. Vol. . Tübingen:
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(de) Saussure, Ferdinand. 1916. Cours de Linguistique Générale (=CLG). Paris: Payot.
Edition préparée par TullHo De Mauro, 1972.
Schrader, W. H. 1976. "Konvention". Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Band 4.
1071SS.
Silverstein, Michael, ed. 1971. Whitney on Language. Selected writings of William

Dwight Whitney. Cambridge (Mass.) & London: The MIT Press.
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Vincenzi, Giuseppe Carlo. 1986. "Segno, lingua e storia linguistica in William Dwight
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. 1875. The Life and Growth of Language. An outline of linguistic science. New
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Woods, David Lyndon. 1976. The evolution of visual signals on land and sea. Ohio State
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(ed.). 1980. Signaling and communicating at sea. New York: Arno Press, 2 vols,
SOMMARIO
Rispetto ai molti contribua sulla storia dell'idea di arbitrarietà, non ce n'è uno
che tracci la storia linguistica del concetto di convenzione (mentre ve ne sono
per la sua storia in ambito di filosofía sociale e politica). Anzi, sembrerebbe
che una tale storia non ci sia, e che  idea, in fondo banale, di convenzione,
non muti, da Aristotele a Saussure.
E' proprio questa storia che vogliamo qui richiamare, dopo una esem-
plificazione introduttiva sulla differenza fra nozione forte, giuridica, e nozione
debole, 'sociale', di convenzione (§2), per mostrarne le discontinuità. Dis
continuità fra antichi e moderni: nella riflessione antica sul linguaggio il tema
della convenzionalità è marginale, mentre al centro vi è la questione distinta
della corrispondenza o meno del linguaggio con la natura delle cose, e oggi ve
la vediamo perché rileggiamo quei testi con occhi moderni (§3). Una vera
discussione sulla convenzionalità del linguaggio emerge all'interno della
filosofía giuridico-politica del '600-'700, e l'idea di convenzione in senso forte
viene negata (§4). Discontinuità fra moderni e contemporanei: paradossal-
mente, dopo la fine della filosofía contrattualista, l'uso del termine "conven
zione" si applica alle riunioni e ai trattati internazionali, tra cui molti
concernenti problemi di comunicazione, senza contatto con la linguistica
ottocentesca, più orientata ad una visione naturalística del linguaggio (§5).

Questa semiología pratica, di progettazione e regolazione dei sistemi di
comunicazione, e non la riflessione settecentesca, esercita un ruolo contra-
ddittorio ma profondo sulla riflessione di Saussure, da cui viene un nuovo
valore di convenzione (e insieme un nuovo tipo di storicità) in ambito lin-
guistico-semiologico (§6).
La lezione che intendiamo trarne è la nécessita di superare, nella storia
delle idee linguistiche, una metodología partenogenetica in cui solo una idea
linguistica può generare un'altra idea linguistica (e le due, alla fine, non
possono che tendere ad assomigliarsi fino all'identificazione). Ci sembra che
il caso di "convenzione" mostri bene la necessita di coinvolgere, oltre a un più
ampio quadro teorico (qui, quello delia filosofía giuridico-politica) anche le
pratiche, comunicative e giuridiche, in cui si svolge la vita sociale dei segni.
Spostamenti avvengono sia da un dominio teorico a un altro, sia dalla
conoscenza implícita nella pratica a quella esplicita delia teoría.
RESUME
Il y a plusieurs travaux sur l'histoire de l'idée d'arbitraire, mais aucun sur la

notion linguistique de convention (il y en a sur sa valeur socio-politique).
Cette notion semble être considérée banale, et donc sans histoire, d'Aristote à
Saussure.
C'est justement l'histoire de l'idée de convention que nous allons
rappeller ici, après en avoir distingué l'aspect fort, juridique, et l'aspect
faible, 'social' (§2), pourmontrer qu'elle connaît des ruptures. Rupture entre
les anciens et les modernes: dans la refléxion ancienne sur le langage la
conventionnalité est marginale par rapport à la question -indépendente- de la
conformité des mots aux choses; on la retrouve aujourd'hui dans les textes
anciens en les relisant dans une perspective moderne (§3). Une discussion
spécifique sur le caractère conventionnel du langage a lieu dans la philoso
phie politique et giuridique du XVIIme et XVIIIme siècle, qui reconnaît que
la notion forte de convention n'est pas applicable aux langues (§4). Rupture
entre l'époque moderne et l'époque contemporaine: c'est après la fin de la
philosophie contractualiste que le terme de "convention" est employé pour les
réunions et les traités internationaux, dont plusieurs concernent des problè
mes de communication; la linguistique comparative suit une autre voie, avec
une vision plus naturaliste du langage (§5). C'est cette sémiologie pratique,
implicite dans la réalisation et réglementation des systèmes de communica
tion, et non la réflexion philosophique du XVIIIme, qui exerce une influence
contradictoire mais profonde sur la théorie du signe de Saussure, point de
départ de la nouvelle valeur de convention (avec un nouveau type de histori
cité) en linguistique et en sémiologie (§6).
Il faut dépasser, dans l'histoire des idées linguistiques, la méthode 'par-
thenogénétique', qui fait naître chaque idée linguistique seulement d'une
autre idée linguistique (et les deux, alors ne peuvent que se ressembler jusqu'à
s'identifier). Le cas de "convention" montre la nécéssité de considérer une
problématique plus vaste (ici, celle de la philosophie politique et juridique),
mais aussi les pratiques, communicatives et juridiques, où se déroule la vie
sociale des signes. Les déplacements se font d'un domaine théorique à l'autre,
mais aussi de la connaissance implicite dans la pratique à celle explicite de la
théorie.
Index of Authors
A Baidinger, Kurt: 222, 224, 230
Abelard: See Peter Abelard Bally, Charles (1865-1947): 117, 233,
Acquaviva, Claudio (1543-1615): 21 238, 247, 252-265, 266-267
Alajouanine, Théophile: 88, 91, 109- Bárbaro, Giosafat (1413-1494): 20, 27
110 Barère de Vieuzac, Bertrand (1755-
Albrecht, Jörn: 165, 166, 223, 230 1841): 160
Alembert, Jean le Rond': See Bast, Th.: 109
D'Alembert Bastian, Henri Charlton (1837-1915):
Algarotti, Francesco (1712-1764): 137 88
Alighieri, Dante (1265-1321): 11 Batteux, abbé Charles (1713-1780): 59,
Amacker, Réné: 240, 245, 247 61, 64-69, 75, 77
Amiel Tison, Claudine: 103, 111 Battistini, Andrea: 120, 124
Amman, Johann Conrad (1669-1724): Bayer, Gottlieb Siegfried (1694-1738):
77,94-95,98, 105-109, 110 21
Angiolello, Giovanni Maria (c.1451- Beauzée, Nicolas (1717-1789): 38, 41,
C.1524): 21, 27 45, 56, 60-69, 74-75, 77, 131-132,
Anson, B. J.: 109 137, 152, 154, 165
Apel, Karl Otto: 4-5, 9 Bébian, Roch Ambroise Auguste (1789-
Apostel, Leo: 216, 218 1839): 92-94, 110
Aquinas: See Thomas Aquinas Beccaria, Cesare (1738-1794): 161
Arieti, Cesare: 154, 166 Beeson, David: 80
Aristotle (c. 384-322 B.C.): 13, 188, Bellugi, Ursula: 290, 291
192, 199, 282 Benveniste, Emile (1902-1976): 243,
Arnauld, Antoine (1612-1694): 77, 259. 248, 263, 266, 274-275, 277
See also Port-Royal Benvoglienti, Bartolomeo (c. 1420-
Ascoli, Graziadio Isaia (1829-1907): 1486): 12-13
24, 152, 164, 166 Bérard, Jean Baptiste (1710-1772): 49
Augustine or Augustinus, Aurelius Bergmann, Gustav: 196
(354-430): 269-278, 290 Berlan, Françoise: 230
Auroux, Sylvain: 7-8, 9, 46, 51-52, 80, Bernhardi, August Ferdinand (1770-
145-147, 148, 160, 165, 166, 221, 1820): 4
223, 224, 229, 230 Bertin, Jean-Exupère (1700-1773): 49-
Austin, John Langshaw (1911-1960): 50
265, 289 Bertoncini, Josiane: 101-102, 109, 110
Besold, Cristoph (1577-1638): 26, 27
 Bibliander, Theodor (1504-1564): 16-
Baillarger, François (1809-1890): 88 17
296 Index of Authors
Bignon, Jérôme (1589-1656): 22, 27 

Bijeljac-Babic, Ranka: 101-102, 109, Cabanis, Pierre-Jean (1757-1808): 153
11 Cajetano, Tommaso de Vio (1469-
Binet, Alfred (1857-1911): 252 1534): 14, 27
Binni, Walter: 130, 139 Calogero, Guido (1904-1986): 205,
Blanchet, Jean (1690-1759): 49 211-216, 217
Bloomfield, Leonard (1887-1949): 177- Campanella, Tommaso (1568-1639): 14
179, 234 Canini, Angelo (1521-1557?): 15-18,
Bochenski, Joseph M.: 191, 200 24, 26, 27
Boer, Cornelius de (1880-?): 259-260, Capponi, Gino (1792-1876): 163, 166
265, 266-267 Carena, Giacinto (1778-1859): 160, 164
Bohier, Nicolas de (1469-1539): 21 Caretti, Lanfranco: 153, 166
Boindin, Nicolas (1697-1765): 52, 75 Carnap, Rudolf (1891-1970): 199, 260,
Bolelli, Tristano: 18, 27 289
Bolzano, Bernard (1781-1848): 194- Carton, abbé Charles-Louis (1802-
197, 200 1863): 106, 110
Bonald, Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise de Cassirer, Ernst (1874-1945): 115-118,
(1754-1840): 156 124
Bonfante, Giuliano: 11, 23, 24, 27 Castel, père (1688-1757): 50
Bopp, Franz (1791-1867): 260 Castellani, Arrigo: 151, 166
Bouveresse, Jacques: 80 Cattaneo, Carlo (1801-1869): 164
Bovelles, Charles de (1470-1553): 23 Cervetto, Luigi: 100, 110
Bracciolini, Poggio (1380-1459): 18, 24 Charcot, Jean Martin (1825-1893): 88-
Bréal, Michel (1832-1815): 221-229, 90, 108-109, 110
230 Chateaubriand, René (1768-1848): 130
Bréhier, Emile (1876-1952): 198, 200 Chavée, Honoré (1815-1877): 225, 230
Bridgman, Laura (1829-1889): 106 Chevalier, Jean-Claude: 266
Broca, Pierre Paul (1824-1880): 87 Chisholm, Roderick: 195, 200
Broglio, Emilio (1815-1892): 151, 164 Chompré, Pierre (1713-1796): 59, 61,
Bröndal, Viggo (1887-1942): 262-265 66,77
Brosses, Charles de: See De Brosses Chomsky, Noam: 7, 45, 66, 76, 80, 86,
Brugmann, Karl (1849-1919): 252-253 89, 171-2, 176-181, 182, 234-235,
Bruner, Jerome S.: 142, 148 270-274, 276, 277
Bruni, Francesco: 160, 166 Chrysippos (c. 280-  205 B.C.): 188,
Brunot, Ferdinand (1860-1938): 253, 194. See also Stoics
258, 261, 265, 266 Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 B.C.):
Buffier, père Claude (1661-1702): 75, 64, 67, 76
77 Cluvier or Clüver, Philip (1580-1623):
Buffon, George-Louis Leclerc, comte 22
de (1707-1788): 77 Colombat, Bernard: 59, 80
Buonmattei, Benedetto (1581-1648): Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de Mably de
130 (1714-1780): 5, 74-75, 77, 93, ,
Buyssens, Eric: 263 121-122, 137, 142-147, 148, 153,
156, 224, 242
Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine (1741- Delesalle, Simone: 221, 230-231

1794): 137 Delia Volpe, Galvano (1895-1968): 180
Constant, Benjamin (1767-1830): 130 Democritus (c. 460-  370 B.C.): 117,
Copineau, abbé (fl. 1770-1780): 106 282
Cordemoy, Géraud de (1628-1684): 46, Dennet, Daniel C : 142, 148
47, 55, 77 Derrida, Jacques: 121-122, 125
Corti, Maria: 154, 166 Descartes, René (1596-1650): 45, 47,
Coseriu, Eugenio: 24, 27, 178-179, 182, 55
290 Déschamp, abbé Charles {or Claude or
Court de Gébelin, Antoine (1725-1784): Etienne) François (1745-1791): 78,
47-51, 56-57, 71-76, 77 95-96, 110
Crispini, Franco: 122, 124, 144, 148 Desloges, Pierre (1747-1795): 93, 106,
Croce, Benedetto (1866-1952): 6, 122, 110
213, 215 Destutt de Tracy: See Tracy
Di Cesare, Donatella: 120, 125, 231
D Diderot, Denis (1713-1784): 57-58, 64,
D'Alembert, Jean Le Rond, dit (1717- 67-70, 74, 76, 78, 130-131, 139
1783): 59-61, 76-77, 130-131, 139 Diogenes Laertius (3rd century): 186-
D'Atri, Annabella: 115-116, 124-125 189, 200
Dagognet, François: 80 Diogenes of Babylon (c. 240- c. 150
Dante: See Alighieri B.C.): 188, 194. See also Stoics
Dardano, Maurizio: 153, 159, 166 Dodart, Rémi (1634-1707): 48, 50, 78
Darmesteter, Arsène (1846-1888): 223- Dorfles, Gillo: 120-121, 125
224, 230 Doyon, André: 75, 80
Dascal, Marcelo: 157, 166 Droixhe, Daniel: 14-15, 18-19, 22, 27-
David, Marie Madeleine: 80 28, 122-123, 125
De Brosses, Charles (1709-1777): 47, Dubois, Jacques: 32, 41
51-57, 71-76, 77 Dubois, Jean: 111
De Casper, Antony James: 104-105, Duclos, Charles Pinot (1704-1772): 51,
110 74,78
De l'Epéé: See Epée Ducrot, Oswald: 254, 265, 267
De Libéra, Alain: 189, 198, 200 Dumarsais, César Chesneau, sieur
De Mauro, Tullio: 116, 125, 151, 165, (1676-1756): 31-40, 41, 54, 57-61,
166, 276, 277, 289, 290 65, 68, 78, 131, 223-224
De Murait, A.: 198, 200 Dummett, Michael: 197-198, 200
De Stael, Germaine (1766-1817): 130, Durand, Marguerite (1904-1962): 91,
133-134, 139 109
De Vio: See Cajetano
Degérando, Joseph-Marie (1772-1842): E
77 Eco, Umberto: 275, 290
Delacroix, Henri (1873-1937): 173-174, Edelman, Gerald: 142, 148
182 Eimas, Peter D.: 110
Delbrück, Berthold (1842-1922): 252- Einsenberg, Peter: 80
253 Elie, Hubert: 194, 198, 200
Deledalle, Gérard: 228, 230 Engler, Rudolf: 40, 41, 221, 225, 226,
228, 231, 245, 247, 291 G

Epée, abbé Charles Michel de  (1712- Gabbuti, Elena: 153, 167
1789): 78, 92, 109, 110,285 Gadamer, Hans-Georg: 270
Epicurus (341-270 B.C.): 76, 282-283 Gadet, Françoise: 267
Ernesti, Johann August (1707-1781): Galen (129-199): 187
223-224 Gambarara, Daniele: 289, 290, 291
Ernout, Alfred (1879-1973): 23 Garât, Dominique Joseph (1749-1833):
Euler, Leonhardt (1707-1783): 46-47, 78
49, 78 Garin, Eugenio: 116, 125
Genette, Gérard: 31-32, 36, 41
F Genovesi, Antonio (1713-1769): 161
Fasana, Enrico: 28 Gensini, Stefano: 129-130, 139, 151,
Fauriel, Claude (1772-1844): 154 167
Ferland, Mark .: 109, 110 Gentile, Giulio: 122, 125
Fernald, Anne: 103-104, 109, 110 George, Alexander: 80
Ferrari, Ottavio (1607-1682): 21-23, 26, GilUéron, Jules (1854-1926): 222
27 Gilson, Etienne Henry (1884-1978): 7,
Ferrein, Antoine (1693-1769): 48-51, 9
78 Ginneken, Jacobus Van (1877-1945):
Fiacchi, Cinzia: 24, 28 252-253, 260, 264-265, 267
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762-1814): 4 Girard, abbé Gabriel (1677-1748): 37-
Fischer, Kuno (1824-1907): 1 39, 41, 63, 78, 132, 223
Flavio or Biondi, Biondo (1392-1463): Goffman, Erwing: 211, 217
24 Gola, Elisabetta: 110
Fodor, Jerry A.: 80 Goldstein, Kurt (1878-1965): 91, 111
Fónagy, Ivan: 98, 110 Gordon, Terence: 231
Fontaine, Jacqueline: 267 Gougenheim, Georges (1900-1972):
Fontanier, Pierre (1768-1844): 31-36, 266
39-40, 41 Graeser, Andreas: 199, 200
Formigari, Lia: 4, 9, 116-120, 123, 125, Graffi, Giorgio: 174, 182
141-142, 148, 151, 165, 166, 290, Grasserie, Raoul de la (1839-1914):
291 223, 225, 229, 231
Forti, Fiorenzo: 155, 167 Grassi, Corrado: 152, 167
Foucault, Michel (1926-1985): 75, 80, Gravelle, Sarah Stever: 28
143-144, 148 Green, Georgia M.: 211, 217
Frankel, Margherita: 122, 125 Grégoire, Henri (1750-1831): 151, 153,
Frederick  of Prussia (1712-1786): 46, 160
133 Gregory ofmmini (. 1300-1358): 191-
Frege, Gottlob (1848-1925): 188, 194- 196, 200
198, 200, 221 Grice, Paul (1922-1988): 204-211, 217
Frei, Henri (1899-1980): 235, 238, 246- Grieser, Dianne L.: 103, 109, 111
247, 248, 262, 264, 267 Grotius, Hugo (1583-1643): 14
Fréret, Nicolas (1688-1749): 130 Guarini, Guarino: See Guarinus
Fresneau, François (1697-1769): 49 Guarinus Veronensis (1374-1460): 26
Guillaume, Gustave (1883-1960): 255, Hutchinson, Ross: 76, 80

258-259, 266
Guizot, François (1787-1874): 229, 231 I
Gusdorf, Georges: 74, 80 Irigaray, Luce: 89, 111
Isella, Dante: 153, 167
H Isidorus of Sevilla (. 560-636): 17, 26
Habermas, Jürgen: 204, 218
Hacking, Ian: 80
Hahn, Otto (1879-1968): 260 Jackson, John Hughlings (1835-1911):
Harper, . G.: 109 87-89,92, 111
Harris, James (1709-1780): 59-60, 78 Jakobson, Roman (1896-1982): 90-91,
Haugeland, John: 85, 111 111, 117-118, 125,242,248,261,
Head, Henry (1861-1940): 111 290, 291
Héçaen, Henri: 111 James, William (1842-1910): 204, 256
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770- Janet, Pierre (1859-1947): 252
1831): 1,4 Jespersen, Otto (1860-1943): 240
Heidegger, Martin (1889-1976): 277 Joly, André: 80
Heintel, Eric: 7, 9 Jolivet, Jean: 189-190, 198-199, 200
Helmoltz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand Joseph, John E.: 290, 291
von (1821-1894): 3 Jusczyk, Peter W.: 103, 109, 110-111
Henry, Albert: 39, 41
Herbart, Johann Friedrich (1776-1841):
173, 179-180 Kambartel, F.: 194, 200
Herder, Johann Gottfried von (1744- Kanizsa, Gaetano (1913-1993): 97-98,
1803): 3,5, 19, 117, 158, 167 111
Herold, Johann Basilius (1511-after Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804): 2-9, 90,
1581): 22, 25, 27 116, 145-146,206
Herzog, Marvin L: 178, 180, 182 Kaplan, David: 195, 200
Heyse, Karl Wilhelm Ludwig (1797- Karcevskij, Serge (1887-1942): 118-
1855): 4 119,125,260-263
Hiersche, Rolf: 12, 28 Keller, Helen (1880-1968): 106-107,
Hjelmslev, Louis (1889-1965): 238, 111
243, 247, 262, 264 Kircher, Athanasius (1601-1680): 59
Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679): 85, 137, Klemke, Elmer D.: 196, 200
283, 290, 291 Klima, Edward S.: 290, 291
Hofstadter, Douglas R.: 142, 148 Knecht, Herbert H.: 81
Holbach, Paul Henri Dietrich, baron d' Knobloch, Clemens: 175-176, 182
(1723-1789): 129-130 Koerner, E.F. Konrad: 178, 182, 231,
Hombert, Isabelle: 291 290, 291
Humboldt, Wilhelm von (1767-1835): Kouloughli, Djamel: 7, 9
4-9, 178-180, 356, 260, 290 Kruszewski, Nikolaj (1851-1887): 242,
Hume, David (1711-1776): 283-284, 246
290, 291 Kuhl, Patricia K.: 103, 109, 110-111
Husserl, Edmund (1859-1938): 195, Kuhn, Thomas: 181, 182
221 Küssmaul, Adolf (1822-1902)
L Locke, John (1642-1704): 74, 76, 95-

La Condamine, Charles-Marie de 97, 139, 147, 156, 160-161
(1701-1774): 49, 78 Lollio, Francesco (1508-1568): 130
La Mettrie, Julien Offroy de (1709- Long, A. A.: 187-188, 198, 200
1751): 48-49, 78, 134-135, 139 Lordat, Jacques (1773-1870): 90, 98,
La Peyrère, Isaac (1594-1676): 14 111
Labov, William: 178, 180, 182 Lowth, Robert (1710-1787): 19
Lalande, André (1867-1963): 221, 226-
227, 231 M
Lambertz, Ghislaine: 103 Mandeville, Bernard de (1670-1733):
Lamy, père Bernard (1640-1715): 33, 209-211,218
41, 75-76 Manetti, Giovanni: 290, 291
Lancelot, Claude (1615-1695): 59, 77. Manzoni, Alessandro (1785-1873): 151-
See also Port-Royal 166, 167
Lane, Harlan: 81 Marazzini, Claudio: 12, 28, 152, 167
Lantêri-Laura, George: 111 Markovits, Francine: 51, 76, 81
Lasnik, Howard: 177, 182 Martinet, André: 234, 248, 266
Laugier-Rabaté, Sandra: 200 Marzi, Carlo Alberto: 100, 110
Lazarus, Moritz (1824-1903): 173-174, Matarrese, Tina: 151, 167
182 Masataka, Nobuo: 109, 111
Le Guern, Michel: 32, 40, 41 Mates, Benson: 199, 201
Le Laboureur, Nicolas (1634-1678): 76, Mathesius, Vilem (1882-1945): 260
78 Maupertuis, Louis Moreau de (1698-
Le Roi, Julien (1687-1751) 1759): 52-57, 67-68, 75, 79, 135, 139
Lecaldano, Eugenio: 290, 291 Mazzie, Claudia: 104, 109, 110
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646- Mehler, Jacques: 101, 103, 109, 111
1716): 130 Meillet, Antoine (1866-1936): 23, 223,
Lern, G. . . van der: 28 231, 252, 258, 266
Leone de Castris, Arcangelo: 153, 167 Meinong, Alexius (1853-1920): 188,
Leopardi, Giacomo (1798-1836): 129- 194-198, 200
138, 139, 158, 161, 164, 167 Ménage, Gilles (1613-1692): 22
Lepschy, Giulio: 171-172; 182, 240, Mendelson, Morton J.: 109, 110
248 Mersenne, père Marin (1588-1648): 75
Lerch, Eugen (1888-1952): 263, 266 Metcalf, George J.: 12, 28
Leroy-Turcan; Isabelle: 22, 28 Meyering, Theo C : 2-3, 9
Lewis, David K.: 291 Michaelis, Johann David (1717-1791):
Liaigre, Louis: 75, 80 155
Liebermann, Philip: 98, 111 Molière, Jean-Baptiste Paquelin, dit
Lindenbrog, Friedrich, or Tiliobroga (1622-1673): 46
(1573-1648): 22, 26, 27 Monosini, Angelo (16th-17th ): 12,
Linné, Carl von (1707-1778): 49 22-23, 26, 27
Lipsius, Justus or Lips, Joest (1547- Montagnat, Jean (1704-1761): 49-50,
1606): 23, 25, 26 75
Lo Piparo, Franco: 129-130, 139, 152, Montesquieu, Charles Louis Secondat,
159, 167, 277 baron de (1689-1755): 122, 133-134,
139
Monti, Vincenzo (1754-1828): 132, 139 118, 120, 125,290,291

Morris, Charles (1901-1979): 221 Percival, W. Keith: 16-17, 28
Morus, Samuel (1736-1792): 223 Pereire, Jacob-Rodrigue (1716-1780):
Mounin, Georges (1910-1993): 16, 28, 95
81 Périon, Joachim (end 15th  - . 1560):
Mozziconaci, Paul: 88, 110 22,25
Muller, Jean-Claude: 12, 28 Persio, Ascanio (1554 - c.1605): 12, 18-
Murr, Sylvia: 21, 28 19
Peter Abelard (1079-1142): 188-191,
N 194, 199
Naville, Adrien (1845-1930): 225, 231, Piaget, Jean (1896-1980): 216-217, 218
253 Picard Jean (16th c ) : 25
Neale, Stephen: 204, 218 Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius, or Pope
Nef, Frédéric: 199, 201, 290, 291 Pius II (1405-1464): 24, 27
Nencioni, Giovanni: 155, 167 Pichón, Edouard (1890-1940): 263
Nerlich, Brigitte: 224, 231 Pick, Arnold (1851-1924): 88
Neurath, Otto (1882-1945): 260 Pithou, François (1543-1621): 22, 25,
Nicolas, Anne: 223, 231 27
Nicole, Pierre (1625-1695): 77, 259. Pius : See Piccolomini
See also Port-Royal Plato (427-347 B.C.): 76, 181, 186,
Nicolini, Fausto (1879-1965): 122 188, 270, 282
Plotinus (c. 205-270): 199
 Pluche, abbé Noël Antoine (1688-
Ogden, Charles Kay (1889-1952): 221- 1761): 49, 52-56, 59, 61, 75, 79
230, 231 Poincaré, Jules-Henri (1854-1912): 289
Olender, Maurice: 28 Pokorny, Julius: 23
Ombredane, André (1898-1959): 91, Poliakov, Léon: 15, 28
109 Politi, Adriano (16th-17th c ) : 22, 26
Ortes, Gianmaria (1713-1790): 161 Pons, Alain: 121-122, 125
Porset, Charles: 75-76, 79, 81
P Prieto, Luis J.: 289, 291
Paganini, Gianni: 147, 148 Prosdocimi, Aldo L.: 287, 290, 291
Pagliaro, Antonino (1898-1974): 115-
116, 119-120, 125 Q
Palmieri, Ugo: 151, 167 Quine, Willard Van Orman: 197-198,
Papousek, Hanus & Mechthild: 109, 279, 289
111
Pariente, Jean-Claude: 66, 68, 81 R
Parret, Herman: 81 Rademaker, . S. M.: 28
Partridge, Derek: 81 Raicich, Marino: 165, 167
Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662): 79 Rapheleng or Ravlenghien, François
Paul, Hermann (1846-1921): 172-180, (1539-1597)
182, 252 Reisig, Christian Karl (1792-1829): 223
Peirce, Charles Sanders (1839-1914): Rescher, Nicolas: 199, 201
226, 228 Reuchlin, Johann (1455-1522): 16
Pennisi, Antonino: 86, 109, 111-112, Richards, Ivor Armstrong (1893-1979):
221-230, 231 Schott, Henri (flor. 1590-1600): 23

Ricken, Ulrich: 81 Schrader, W. H.: 290, 291
Ricœur, Paul: 273-276, 277 Schrijnen, Joseph (1969-1938): 260
Riedlinger, Albert (1883-1978): 225 Schwartz, Elisabeth: 81
Ries, John (1857-1933): 252 Sebestik, Jean: 199, 201
Robinet, André: 81 Sechehaye, Charles Albert (1870-1943):
Rocca, Angiolo (1545-1620): 24 247, 251-265, 267
Roederer, Pierre Louis (1754-1835): 79 Sedley, David: 187-188, 198, 200
Roques, Mario (1875-1961): 266 Séglas, Jules Ernest (1856-1939): 89,
Rosenfeld Cohen, Leonora: 81 112
Rosenkranz, Karl Friedrich (1805- Seppänen, Lauri: 178-179, 182
1879): 1 Sextus Empiricus (. 250-.325): 187
Rosiello, Luigi (1930-1993): 180, 182 Sgard, Jean: 81
Rosmini, Antonio (1797-1855): 156 Sicard, abbé Roch Ambroise Cocurron
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778): (1742-1822): 79, 92, 112
115-118, 121-124, 125, 132-137, 139 Silverstein, Michael: 292
Rousseau, Nicolas: 81, 122, 125, 146- Simon, Thomas: 103-104, 109, 110
147, 148 Simondon, Gilbert (1911-1975): 70, 81
Russell, Bertrand (1872-1970): 189, Simone, Raffaele: 14, 20, 28, 125, 172,
195-199, 200, 221 180-181, 182, 203, 218, 237-238,
Ruyer, Bernard: 199, 201 244, 248
Ruysbroeck or Rubruquis, Wilhelm van Simplicius (6th century): 199
(1230-1293): 20 Smith, Adam (1723-1790): 70, 75, 79
Soave, Francesco (1743-1806): 153
S Sorge, Giuseppe: 28
Sacks, Oliver: 81, 90, 112 Spelman, Henry (15647-1641): 27
Saloz, Jacques (1852-1917): 90, 106- Sperber, Dan: 206, 218
107, 112 Stancati, Claudia: 129, 139
Salvini, Antonio Maria (1688-1751): Stankiewicz, Edward: 118, 125
130 Starobinski, Jean: 123, 125
Salvucci, Roberto: 125 Steinthal, Heymann (1823-1899): 173-
Sassetti, Filippo (1540-1588): 11, 21 174, 180, 182
Saussure, Ferdinand de (1857-1913): Stefanini, Jean: 80
35, 37-40, 41, 86, 89, 92, 105, 121, Stella, Angelo: 167
160, 179, 221-222, 225-229, 231, Strawson, Peter Frederick: 199
236-246, 247, 251-254, 257, 262-263, Stumpf, Johannes (1500-c. 1574): 24
275, 279-280, 287-290, 291 Symmes, David: 109, 111
Scaliger, Joseph Juste (1540-1609): 12,
14 T
Schlegel, Friedrich (1772-182 9): 4 Tagliacozzo, Giorgio: 124
Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Tarski, Alfred (1902-1983): 289
(1821-1868): 223 Tassinari, Giancarlo: 100, 110
Schlieben-Lange, Brigitte: 153, 167 Tavoni, Mirko: 12-13, 18-19, 29
Schmitter, Peter: 223, 232 Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): 191, 275
Schmitz, H. Walter: 232 Thompson, E.:109, 111
Thurot, François-Robert (1768-1832): Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet, dit

59-60, 78-79 (1694-1778): 39, 132-133, 139
Timpanaro, Sebastiano: 164, 168 Vossius, Gerardus-Johannes (1577-
Todorov, Tzvetan: 36, 41 1649): 14, 17, 22, 26
Tomatis, Alfred A.: 99, 109, 112 Vossler, Karl (1872-1949): 6, 258
Trabant, Jurgen: 118, 120, 125
Tracy, Antoine-Louis-Claude Destutt, W
comte de (1754-1836): 8-9, 152-155, Wachtendonck, Arnold de (1538-1605):
224, 255 23
Trier, Jost (1894-1970): 229, 232 Wagner, Robert-Léon (1905-1982):
Trombatore, Gaetano: 153, 168 259, 266
Troubetzkoy, Nicolas S. (1890-1938): Warburton, William (1698-1779): 59,
40, 41, 261, 264 122, 137
Tschudi, Gilg (1505-1572): 24 Wegener, Philipp (1848-1916): 175
Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques (1727- Weinreich, Uriel: 178, 180, 182
1781): 52, 74, 76, 79, 132, 284, 292 Weisberger, Leo (1899-1984): 229, 232
Welby, lady Victoria (1837-1912): 221,
Ü 225, 232
Uhlenbeck, Christian Cornelius (1866- Welser, Marcus (1558-1614): 24
1961): 260 Wernicke, Carl (1848-1904): 87
White, Hayden V.: 126
V Whitney, William D. (1827-1894): 287,
Valade-Gabel, Jean Jacques (1801- end 290, 292
19th c ) : 112 Wickenden, Nicholas: 29
Valade Rémi, Y.L. (fl. 1854): 112 Wicki, Giuseppe: 21
Vaucanson, Jacques de (1709-1782): Wiener, Norbert (1894-1964): 108
48-50 Wilks, Yorick: 81
Vaugelas, Claude Favre seigneur de Wilson, Deirdre: 206, 218
(1585-1650): 165 Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889-1951):
Vecchio, Sebastiano: 151, 155, 157, 197-198, 270, 273, 289
160, 168, 269, 277 Woods, David L.: 290, 292
Vernant, Denis: 217, 218 Wundt, Wilhelm (1832-1920): 173-176,
Verri, Antonio: 122, 125 183, 252-253
Vico, Giambattista (1668-1744): 96-97,
115-124, 125, 135, 215-217, 218 Y
Vincenzi, Giuseppe Carlo: 290, 292 Yvon, Henry (1873-1963): 258
Vineis, Edoardo: 165, 168
Vitale, Maurizio: 29, 155, 165, 168 Z
Volpe, Joseph G.: 112 Zehnder, Joseph: 29
Index of Subjects and Terms
A Chaldaic: 14
Acquisition of language: See Language Chemistry: 180
learning Children's pronunciation: 241
Actes de parole: See Spech acts Code: 286
Affirmative vs. negative propositions: Cognitive sciences: 85, 107-108, 237
192 Communication: 175, 203-219, 281-
Agnosia: 89-90 294
AI: See Artificial Intelligence Comparativism: 7, 12, 171
Aliquid: 192-194 Complexe significabile: 190-193, 196
Analogy: 120-121, 145-147, 239, 245- Concept: 196-197. See also Proposi-
246 tional concept
Aphasia: 87-88, 90-91, 106 Construction: 61
Aramaic: 19 Convention, Conventionalism,
Arbitrariness: 35, 38, 85-86, 89, 105, Conventionality of language: 136,
142-145, 157, 160-161, 223, 237, 239, 159, 162, 164, 281-294
243-245, 255, 261, 263, 280 Conversational maxims: 204-209
Articulation: 54-55, 60, 73, 94, 102-103, Crimean: 20
105, 118-119, 123-124
Artificial intelligence: 85-86, 106-107 D
Associations mentales: 242 De dicto vs. de re: 191
Associative relationships: 239, 242-243, Deaf mutes: 47-48, 58, 76, 87, 92-96,
245 103, 106-107
Augustinian paradigm: 269-278 Derivation: 46, 53, 55-56, 71-72
Automaton: 45, 48-49 Descriptive linguistics: 260
Diachrony: 287-288
 Dialects: 18, 160, 174; See also Greek;
Babel: 13, 24 Dialectal vertigo: 18
Barbarous languages: 11, 24 Dialogue: 203-219
Behaviorism: 234 Dictionaries: 56, 71-72
Bestehen: 188 Dictum propositionis: 189, 190-191
Bible: 12-15, 19 Dorian: 13
Biblical patterns: See Bible Dumbness: 48; See also Deaf mutes
Bilingualism: 152
Biological limitations: 236 E
E-language: 177
 Ellipsis: 60-61
Calculus: 74 Embriology of communication: 99-105
306 Index of Subjects and Terms
Emotional language: See Language of Hieroglyphic writing: 118

feelings Historical Unguistics: 4, 11-30
Ens: 192, 194 Homeless object: 194
Ethiopian: 14 Homonyny: 258
Etruscan: 24 Humboldt renaissance: 6-7
Etymology: 18, 54-56, 71-72, 74, 76,
132, 136 I
Evolution: 13 I-language: 177
Idea: 223, 225
F Ideal speaker-hearer: 177
Finno-Ugrians: 24 Idéologie: 154, 224
Florentine: 20 Imperfection of languages: 151-169
Form of language, paradigm of form: Indeterminacy of translation: 197-198
86, 92 Individual linguistic activity: 174-175,
Frankish: 23 179
French language: 153 Individual properties: 177
Friulan: 20 Individual vs social nature of language:
Functional linguistics: 236 172-173, 178, 180
Functionalism: 260 Indo-European: 23-24
Infinitive mood: 191
G Innatism: 273
General grammar: 4, 45, 54, 56, 61-62, Instruments (string, wind, keyboard):
64, 66, 68, 74 50
Generative grammar, Generative Intensional properties: 177
linguistics: 66, 68-69, 176, 178, 180, Interjections: 115-127
234-236, 274 Internal properties: 177
Genius of language: 131 Interpretation: 228
German: 18 Inversion: 61-64, 68-69. See also Order
Gesture: 116-117. See also: Language Isomorphic interface: 243
of gestures
Glottogenesis: See Origin of language J
Gothic, Goths: 19, 20, 24 Jacobinism (linguistic): 151
Grammaire des fautes: 235 Jesuits: 21
Grammar: 177, 270-272. See also
General grammar; Generative
grammar; Grammaire des fautes 
Grammatical animism: 225 Kinship of European languages: 11
Greek: 13, 18-19, 23, 24; Greek
dialectal varieties: 17 L
Langage: 255, 257
H Language centered linguistics: 233
Harmony of language: 131 Language change: 174, 240-242
Hebrew: 13-14, 16, 19 Language learning : 174, 176
Hermeneutics, Hermeneutic school: Language of feelings: 117
223, 274, 275 Language of gestures: 118, 122, 285
Language universals: 103 Matter of Language: 86. See also Form

Language user: 233-249 of Language
Language: See Conventionality of Meaning: 185-202, 222-223, 226, 229.
language; E-language; Form of See also Semantics
language; Genius of language; Méchanique des langues: 47, 51-55, 57,
Harmony of language; I-language; 75-76
Individual vs social nature of Metaphor: 34, 120
language; Langage; Language Metonymy: 39
change; Language learning; Lan Modal proposition: 191
guage of feelings; Language of Monogenetism: 14
gestures; Language universals; Morphology: 159
Language user; Manual Language; Motherese language: 103-104
Matter of language; Motherese Motivation: 245
language; Natural language; Ontoge
nesis of language; Oral language; N
Origin of language; Philosophy of Natural language: 55-56, 71-73, 143,
language; Propositional language; 145
Psychophysiology of language; Neogrammarians: 178-180
Schizophrenics (language of) Noun: 185, 188-189, 191-192
Langue: 255-257, 259-264, 266
Latin (teaching of): 64, 72; (Greek 
origins of): 12 Object: 187, 194-196. See
Learning of rules: 58-61, 69. See also also Homeless object, Incomplete
Rule objects, Objective
Least Effort (Principle of): 234, 240- Objective: 194-195
241 Onomatopoeia: 116, 118, 121, 124
Lekton: See Significatum Ontogenesis of language: 98
Lexis: 159, 186 Onymique: 228
Linguistic borrowing: 12 Oppositions: 238
Linguistic Historiography: 1-10, 86, 96, Oral language, Oral method: See Deaf-
141-149, 281-294 mutes
Linguistics: See Descriptive linguistics; Order (analytical, natural, syntaxical):
Functional linguistics; Generative 62-67
linguistics; Historical linguistics; Origin of language: 53-54, 72, 120-123,
Language centered linguistics; 132, 134-136, 138, 174
Psycholinguistics; Structural and
post-structural linguistics; User- P
centered linguistics) Parole: 255, 257, 259, 261-262, 264
Logos: 186-187 Parts of speech: 155
Loi de répartition: 223 Persian: 18, 19, 21
Philosophy of language: 1-10, 86, 96,
M 98
Manual language, Manual method: See Phonation: 54, 75
Deaf-mutes Phoné:. 186
Masse parlante: 238, 246 Phonetic change: See Sound Change
Mathesis: 143, 145 Phonetics: 15-18, 50, 73, 86, 98
308 Index of Subjects and Terms
Port-Royal (law of): 224 Schleicherism: 179

Port-Royal: 36, 45, 54-57, 60-62, 66- Semantics: 32, 39, 221-232. See also
68, 74-75, 155, 224, 259. See also Sociosemantics
Arnauld, Lancelot, Nicole, General Semiology, Semiological model: 269,
Grammar 273-274, 276-277
Pragma: See State of affair Semiotics: 89, 98, 106-107, 275.
Pre-Adamites: 14 Artificial and natural semiotics: 86-
Pre-comparativism: 13 87, 91, 92-96
Proper name: 196 Sense: 224, 189, 196
Proposition: 185, 189-190, 193-194, Significatum: 185-202
196. See also Affirmative vs. Signifies: 221, 225
negative propositions, Dictum Slavs: 24
propositionis, Modal proposition, Sociosemantics: 252
Propositional concept; Propositional Sound change: 11, 234, 239
language; Satz an sich Sound-law: 222
Propositional concept: 197 Spanish: 17
Propositional language: 117 Speech acts, Actes de parole: 265
Psycholinguistics: 85-113 Speech community: 176-178
Psychologism: 175, 180, 234 State of affairs: 186-187, 190, 192, 195,
Psychology: 173-174, 242. See also 197
Psycholinguistics, Psychologism, Stoics: 186-190, 194, 269, 282
Psychophysiology of language, Strassburg Oaths: 24
Völkerpsychologie Stracturalism: 86, 171, 274, 276;
Psychophysiology of language: 252 Structural and post-structural
linguistics: 234
Q Structure (binary, ternary): 224
Quality: 188 Stylistics: 254, 256
Questione della lingua: 11 Substance (paradigm of): 237
Subsistence: 187-188, 190, 194-195
R Sujet isolé: 246
Race: 225 Sujet parlant: 236
Rapports associatifs: See Associative Symbolic mode: 275-276
relationships Synecdoche: 34, 39
Relevance: 36 Synonyms, Synonymy: 36-39, 132, 135,
Res: 193-194 223, 229, 258
Rheto-Romance: 24 Syntagmatic linearity: 17
Rhetorics: 31-43 Syntax: 159
Rule: 45-46, 156. See also Learning of Syriac: 13, 16
rules
Rumanian: 24 T
Taxonomy: 31-32, 38-39
S Thesis: See Convention, Conventional
Sachverhalt: See State of affairs ity
Satz an sich: 195 Thought: 186, 194, 196-198
Schizophrenics (language of): 89 Toulousan: 22
Transcendental method, transcendental User-centered linguistics: 233, 235,

forms (and the theory of language): 238-240
2-5,7
Transformationalism: 171 V
Translation: 60, 63, 131, 133. See also Valeurs: 238. See also Value
Indeterminacy Value: 35, 37-39, 91, 229
Transposition: 46, 58, 61-64, 68-69, 73. Variation: 234
See also Order Venetian: 18
Tropes: 223 Verb: 185, 188-189
Typology: 173, 236 Verkehr: 175, 179. See also Dialogue
Völkerpsychologie : 171-184
U
Uniformity: 153 W
Usage: 153, 175, 178-180 Writing: 136-138

Historical Roots of Linguistic Theories

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HISTORICAL ROOTS OF LINGUISTIC THEORIES

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND

Series III - STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE SCIENCES

Advisory Editorial Board

Sylvain Auroux (Paris); Ranko Bugarski (Belgrade)

Lia Formigari and Daniele Gambarara (eds)

Historical Roots of Linguistic Theories

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Question of the Significatum. A problem raised and solved 185

Rome, June 1994 Lia Formigari

1. There is an episode which is often mentioned as an example of the rift

2. By defining themselves as Kant's disciples in spite of everything, 19th

we might well conclude that Humboldt's philosophy of language is a monu­

On ne sera jamais idéologiste sans être auparavant physiologiste, et par

(Translated by Marina Chellini)

La demarcazione kantiana tra scienza e filosofía, la successiva rivendicazione

orgogliosamente alla filosofía del linguaggio una sua specificità e incomuni-

La démarcation kantienne entre science et philosophie, puis la revendication

0. In 1953-54 Giuliano Bonfante offered a critical account concerning the

His explanation referred to some "special conditions" which deserve to be

We may take as a starting point an observation due to the Siena philosopher

On the background of humanist tradition, we find (in Benvoglienti) strongly

introduce an element of distantiation or even of rupture (cf. Simone 1990:

ultra-nationalist claim. It would be a very difficult question to put on the table:

In Reformed countries, the scholarly virulence directed against Hebrew

2. Canini: Methodical transfer and Phonetics

Angelo Canini (born in Anghiari, near Arezzo, in 1521) is mentioned in the

attempt of a reconstructed form of transition, between Greek and Latin: "quasi

3. Persio: Cultural Transfer and Dialects

4. Natural empire and barbarism

The handicap of Italian humanism appears in the reading that could be

We noticed that the minimizing of foreign historical influences upon Italian

6. The inner opening

judged by others whether our documentation has to be questioned. We did not

7.1 Materials for the Historiography of Germanic etymologies in Italian

sala roba squilla schemire / scherzare

sala roba squilla schernire / scherzare

Monosini < Gr. aulê scherzare

7.2 Accidental comparativism: 'schernire', 'scherzare'

LIPSIUS (1599) MONOSINI (1604) FERRARI (1676)

. 1989b. "Le primitivisme linguistique de Turgot". Primitivisme et mythe des

Si riconsiderano, sulla scorta di G. Bonfante, C. Marazzini, R. Simone e M.

On reconsidère, après G. Bonfante, Cl. Marazzini, R. Simone et M. Tavoni, les

Gérard Genette's preface to the 1967 re-edition of Dumarsais' Traité des

1. Acknowledging the debt

by Fontanier in the renowned Commentaire au Traité des Tropes: lack of

2. The worthwile pieces

Undoubtedly, there are two types of rhetorics. In the rhetorical tradition

conception of figures, "one word in the place of another", vanishes here to be

stood in the 18th century — is taken into account by Dumarsais to tackle

3. A theory of signification is enfolded in the design of the Traité

As we have seen, Fontanier upholds that the status attributed to words is

4. Value and synonymy

Regarding synonymy, Dumarsais (1967:351) refers to the remarks of Abbé

Moreover, if "perfect synonyms" existed, there would be two languages

The difficulties presented by the concept of value ("slippery ground")

Indeed, what does the "form" — which language is — represent if not

Fontanier set out to "correct" Dumarsais... Dumarsais concludes his text

5. Baubles and trifles

Phonologists since Troubetzkoy's Grundzüge der Phonologie (1939)

Dubois, Jacques, et al. 1970. Rhétorique générale. Paris: Larousse.

I semiotici contemporanei (studiosi di semantica, di stilistica, critici letterari...)

we might well conclude that Humboldt's philosophy of language is a monu

La sémiotique contemporaine (sémanticiens, stylisticiens, critiques littérai

langue, pour être enfin rapproché du mécanisme synchronique de la synony

instrument), in other words from continuous instruments to discrete instru

Let us avoid the temptation to liken De Brosses's "Archéologue Uni

4.1.2 Very recently a number of important psycho-physiological investiga

The second modification is a theoretical one and consists in acknowledg

5. Having a mind without life, without body, without concreteness is pre