Louis Hjelmslev

                                                            Glossematics

HJELMSLEV AND DE SAUSSURE

Glossematics is often described as the study that is “de Saussure taken to his logical conclusion.” Since it takes seriously the dictum that language is a form, not a substance. More than many linguists, Louis Hjelmslev was concern with establishing a set of formal definitions from which theorems ca be derived for the purpose of describing the patterns of language, independent of a concomitant study of phonetics or semantics. While he acknowledged his debt to de Saussure. Hjelmslev pointed out that he arrived at his conception of linguistics independently. In the work of Saussure and Sapir, however he found confirmation and encouragement for his own point of view. The formalism of his linguistics. Hjelmslev note, is similar to that employed by workers in other, quite diverse fields, for example physics and logic. In The Structural Analysis of Language” he discussed his debt to other workers : he considered de Saussure the founder of linguistics science from the synchronic point of view because of his emphasis on the structural, analysis of language which Hjelmslev saw as a scientific description. By “scientific description” Hjelmslev meant a description of language “ in terms of relation the between units but which are not relevant to the relations or deducible from the relations.

Hjelmslev concluded that in language study this approach entails an investigation of linguistic relations independent of phonetics and semantics and that the latter studies presuppose structural analysis of the language pattern. Glossematics resembles the work of de Saussure and that of the logistic study of language   as well, but it is not to be identified with either of these studies. In particular, Hjelmslev found that the logistic and that, as a consequence, its concept of this sign is stressed, and both expression and content can be studied  structurally. Besides this Hjelmslev believed that the logistic study of language overlooks commutation, the fundamental relation for the understanding of language.

PROLEGOMENA TO A THEORY OF LANGUAGE”

Whitfield’s revised English translation of the Prolegomena is a slim work of 127 pages, with 23 sections and 108 definitions to which one must constantly refer when reading trough the book the first few times. The summary account of the work given here, therefore, should be supplemented by a thoughtful reading of the text.

“The Study of Language and the Theory of language”

Language is connected with everything human and can, therefore, be studied as a clue to isolated or related human characteristics, but such studies are means to an end outside language itself. In order to have a truly autonomous linguistics we should study language not as a conglomerate of nonlinguistic phenomena but according to its own “self-sufficient totality , a structure sui generis” Hjelmslev stated that the Prolegomena is an attempt to formulate and discover the premises of such a linguistics, to establish its methods, and to indicate its paths. Thus it will be best to put aside all previous linguistic findings and viewpoints. Except for those that have proved their positive usefulness. Particularly useful in this connection are findings of de Saussure.

“Linguistic Theory and Humanism”

The object of linguistic study is language, and, like any science, linguistics must discover the constancy in the flux of data it examines. This is to be constancy within language that “makes a language a language, whatever language it may be, and that makes a particular language identical with itself in all its various manifestations”

The procedure to be followed, then, is to classify these elements and calculate their combinatory possibilities, and then to examine the data to see which of the possible combinations they exemplify. The humanities in general, and history in particular, have failed to become sciences precisely because they did not use this procedure. Whatever doubts one may have about the applicability of the method to other disciplines, language seems to be peculiarly fitted for such a procedure.

“Linguistic Theory and Empiricism”

Hjelmslev use of the term “empirical” in describing this principle may be questioned, since it usually means that findings should agree with could be changed, of course, but the requirements are basic to glossematics.

“Linguistic Theory and Induction”

The source of difficulties in previous linguistic theories has been the mode of investigation: they have been inductive, proceeding from segment to class. Hjelmslev suggested that we start with the data, which impose the opposite direction on the investigator. This is because the data that the linguistic is given is a text, whole and entire. The text can be considered as a class to be divided into components, and the components then as classes to be further subdivided in the same manner until the analysis is exhausted. This procedure “may therefore be defined briefly as a progression fron class to component, not from component to class. It is a synthetic, not an analytic, movement, a generalizing, not a specifying, method”. This method may be termed deduction, even though the use of the term disturbs epistemologists.

“Linguistic Theory and Reality”

De Saussure had remarked in passing “the point of view creates the object.” Hjelmslev inquired whether the object determines and affects the theory determines and affects its object. He decided that the term “theory” can be used in more than one  way: if it is taken to mean “a set of hypothesis” then the influence between theory and object is in one direction-the object determines the theory and not vice versa.

The most important feature of such deductive is that they permit us to deduce theorems that are all in the form of logical implications. As the theory has been described so far, Hjelmslev pointed out, there are no axioms or postulates, since those required are not peculiar to linguistics but are the sort necessary to any science. Such postulates or axioms would be, for example “there is such a thing as language” or “we are capable of recognizing the presence or absence of language”

“The Aim of Linguistic Theory”

Did Hjelmlsev think his theory the only possible one for linguistics it is arbitrary, and, therefore, calculative : appropriate and therefore empirical. It predefines the objects to which it can be applied, and it can neither be verified nor refuted by empirical data. It can be checked only for internal consistency and exhaustiveness. Alternative solutions are possible according to the theory, since alternative procedures are allow able in it, so that, according to the empirical principle, “straplicity” would be the criterion for the preferable solution. Alternative theories are conceivable, therefore, and they are to be judge according to their degree of approximation to the requirements of the empirical principle.

“Perspectives of Linguistic Theory”

Just as de Saussure called for a “conventional simplification of the data” Hjelmslev required that linguistic investigation begin with a “circumscription of the scope” of linguistic relations, would be to ignore other linguistically relevant facts. In Hjelmslev’s view one should first attain the exactness his theory aims at and then enlarge the perspectives of linguistitcs after this exhaustive analysis.

“The System of Definitions”

In Hjelmslev’s approach to linguistics definitions play a central role, as the methods sketched above suggest. Each definition is to be clearly connected with the others that premise it. Some definitions are formulated as “if such and such is the case..” in order to stress the fact that they are not intended to be real, but rather, formal or structural definitions, without the existence postulates of other linguistics systems. Operational definitions will also be admitted at various stages of the analysis, but these are to be replaced by formal definitions as soon as possible, so that axioms and postulates in linguistic theory can be held at a minimum.

“Principle of the Analysis”

The principle of the analysis is not to vary from one text to the need and Hjelmslev recalled de Saussure’s saying that “language is a form, not a substance” in order to stress the invariable nature of the procedure. This is a movement from class to component until further analysis is no longer possible and is base on this particular conception of what linguistic “form” is “ While the principle sounds simple enough when expressed in this way, it is not always easy  to know where to start.

This is absolutely central to Hjelmslev’s position, since he held that “both the object under analysis and its parts have existence only by virtue of these dependence. This method of defining through relations involves a problem of circularity.

“Function”

A precise terminology will be required to distinguish and state the kinds of dependences that hold among linguistics items, and Hjelmslev proposed such a terminology in the section “Functions” A function, then is a dependence that fulfills the conditions for an analysis, so that there is a function between a class and its components, such as a chain and its parts or a paradigm and its members and between components mutually. The terminals of a function are called an entity would be groups of syllables, syllables themselves and parts of syllables.

One of the entities in relations is a constant, a functive whose presence is a necessary condition for another a variable is a functive whose presence is not a necessary condition for the presence of another. Presupposed by such definitions are indefinable such as presence, necessity, and condition, as well as the definitions of function and functive.

“Signs and Figurae”

This idea suggests the need not only to analyze expression and content separately but also to distinguish lexical from contextual meanings a single expression can be considered insolar as it manifest one sign  or more. Thus when we consider language in and for itself, we must conclude that (1) language is first and foremost a sign system but (2) not a pure sign system, since (3) it consists ultimately of a system of nonsigns, the figurae which are used to construct signs. This very fact indicates that “we have found the essential basic feature in the structure of any language” since it manageable , consisting of a limited number of figurae, yet infinitive in capacity , since new signs can always be constructed from the figurae.

“Expression and Content”

Is the linguist sign necessarily one that “has a meaning” in the sense that a linguist sign must be a sign for something or does it result from a connection of expression and content. The latter is Hjelmslev’s formulation of what he considered already established: a sign function is one “posited between entities, an expression and a content” in which the content is not to be confused with the often artificial meanings assigned to lexical items independent of text.

“Linguist Schema and Linguist Usage”

For such reasons as these the linguistic and non linguistic study of puport must be undertaken separately. The sciences that should study puport “in respect of both linguistic expression and linguistic content, may in all essentials be thought of as belonging to the sphere of physic and partly to that of (social).Other sciences can employ the same deductive methods as have been described for glossematics and thereby discover non linguistic hierarchies that can be correlated with the linguistic categories of glossematics. The linguistic hierarchy is called the linguistic schema and the non linguistic hierarchy, when they are ordered to the linguistic usage. The linguistic usage is said to manifest the linguistic schema and the relation between them is one of manifestation.

“Function and Sum”

Linguistic entities are viewed in glossematics as the intersection of relations a class that has function to one or more classes within the same rank is called a sum. A syntagmatic sum is called a unit , and a paradigmatic sum is called category.