Saussure’s Course of general linguistics published in 1916 has become the basis for a number of other syntactic theories, besides descriptive lin­guistics and glossematics. These theories cannot be grouped into a particu­lar school, since they represent independent syntactic systems. However, they share similar views on the subject and tasks of syntactic research, based on Saussure’s […]

Post-Saussurean syntactic theories – Part 1 Analyzing syntactic theories, worked out on the basis of Saussurean work, one cannot but mention works by the leaders of the Prague Linguis­tic Circle founded in 1926. The Circle became known around the world as the Prague School. It has had significant continuing influence on linguistics and semiotics. After the World […]

Glossematics is a rigorous study of language at the level of its most basic unit or component which carries meaning, the glosseme. The term was coined by the Danish linguists, Louis Hjelmslev and Hans Jorgen Uldall, as a neologism combining glossary with mathematics to indicate a formal­ized system of study. The scientists’ ideas formed the […]

Glossematics – Part 1 Hjelmslev distinguishes three types of relations in human language: 1) interdependence; 2) determination, i.e. one-side dependence; 3) constellation, i.e. weak dependence or even no dependence. Thus, traditional linguistics that divides grammar into morphology and syntax and treats relations between words in word combinations and rela­tions between parts of speech as different […]