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<font size=3>At 11:28 PM 3/6/2001 -0500, Daniel Ezra Johnson wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite><blockquote type=cite cite>Another curious
lapse is Saussure's dictum that a language is >"un système<br>
où tout se tient." Again, this is virtually always cited in
French (and<br>
frequently so), but it appears in the Crystals' compilation in the
almost<br>
unrecognizable and far less memorable English rendering: "language
is a<br>
system of<br>
interdependent terms" (16:60).</blockquote><br>
I always thought this was Saussure as well, but I recently read the<br>
following:<br>
<br>
"A basic tenet of modern linguistics is the theory that phonemes
exist by<br>
virtue of their being phonologically opposed to one another, and that
they<br>
form, in Maurice Grammont's now famous words, 'un système où tout se
tient,<br>
où tout est dans une étroite dépendance.'"<br>
<br>
The footnote gives Grammont, Traité de phonétique (Paris, 1933), p.
167.<br>
<br>
This is from the article "Dialect Geography and the Concept of
Phonological<br>
Space" by William G. Moulton, Word 18 (1962).<br>
<br>
The quote is attributed to Saussure all the time. Would it be possible
to<br>
trace the origin of the misattribution, if it is one?<br>
<br>
DEJ<br>
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<font size=4>I thought it was from Meillet, in the following reference
(unless I mistook it for another famous quote--Saussure voiced it with
the metaphor of mosaic, in relation to the internal structure of the
lexicon):<br>
<br>
Meillet, Antoine. 1906. L’état actuel des études de linguistique
générale. <i>Revue des Idées</i> 3.296-308<br>
<br>
Sali.<br>
</font><br>
<font size=3 color="#800000">*********************************************************************<br>
Salikoko S.
Mufwene
</font><font size=3 color="#800080">s-mufwene@uchicago.edu<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#800000">University of
Chicago
</font><font size=3 color="#800080">773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924<br>
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