Once again on the parallelism between expression and content

ABSTRACT

This article revisits the idea of parallelism between the two semiotic planes – expression and content – focusing on two seemingly contradictory analogies found in the structural literature, namely expression figuræ : sign expressions :: content figuræ : sign contents and phonic features : phonemes :: semantic features : signifieds. It is shown that, though it may not seem to be the case at first glance, both analogies describe the same types of relations and can be regarded as equally valid from the point of view of their respective theoretical frameworks and levels of analysis. However, a functional synthesis of the two views ultimately reveals an asymmetry in the categorical structure of the two planes, a situation that is explained by the nature of the relationship between expression and content.

KEYWORDS:

• Expression and content
• semiotic planes
• parallelism
• glossematics
• structural and functional linguistics

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the editors of Acta Linguistica Hafniensia as well as two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ On the sources and subsequent interpretations of this passage, see Siertsema (1965, 144–161) and Willems (2005).

² The term isomorphisme was first used in linguistics by Kuryłowicz (1949) in an essay where, nonetheless, he looks at parallels on the syntagmatic rather than on the paradigmatic axis.

³ The fundamental concepts and assumptions of glossematics were presented by its founders in several writings, at different stages of development and with variable levels of detail (e.g., Hjelmslev 1959b, 1961, 1975; Uldall 1957). A number of surveys and discussions of the theory and program also exist (e.g., Cigana 2012; Lamb 1966; Martinet 2000; Rastier 1999; Siertsema 1965; Taverniers 2008; Whitfield 1969; as well as other papers cited in the following pages).

⁴ When considering the examples cited in the present paper, the reader should bear in mind that my goal here is theoretical rather than descriptive.

⁵ While not many details are found in his Prolegomena, Hjelmslev elaborates on the subject in several essays, where he draws a series of parallels between different types of elements posited in glossematics (e.g., Hjelmslev 1959a, 155–156, 1973a, 184–185, 1973b, 175–176, 1973d, 244). We may represent these parallels as follows: vowels ↔ radical pleremes, consonants ↔ derivational pleremes, accents ↔ nominal morphemes, modulations ↔ verbal morphemes. Whether these analogies involve figuræ only is, as far as I can tell, not entirely clear. To mention but one example, Alarcos Llorach (1967, 7–8) has shown that modulations, which Hjelmslev defines as those “prosodème[s] qui possède[nt] la faculté de caractériser un énoncé catalysé” (1973a, 193) (‘prosodemes that have the capacity to characterize a catalyzed utterance’), correspond to signifiers rather than to figuræ of any kind.

⁶ In this paper I will concern myself only with basic, nonsyntagmatic elements at each level of analysis (e.g., single phonemes rather than sequences of phonemes, simplex rather than complex sign expressions), in accordance with a minimalist (in a non-Chomskyan sense), nonredundant approach to linguistic analysis. Due to discrepancies and inconsistencies in the literature, however, I prefer to avoid terms such as morpheme, moneme, taxeme, and glosseme, which different scholars have used to refer to certain kinds of such linguistic elements. Regarding the last two terms, we must note that, based on several glossematic and protoglossematic writings stipulating that basic commutable figuræ (called taxemes) be analyzed into smaller formal elements (called glossemes) on the basis of a “universal” division (e.g., Hjelmslev 1959b, 58–59, 1961, 99–101, 1972, I, 98ff., 1973c, 249ff.), Figure 1 would have to feature a six-term analogy, thus: expression glossemes : expression taxemes : sign expressions :: content glossemes : content taxemes : content expressions. See fn. 19 in this connection.

⁷ For a fairly comprehensive bibliography of this type of approach, but focusing mostly on lexical semantics, see Coseriu (2016), Coseriu and Geckeler (1981), Geckeler (1981), and Martínez (2003). For a discussion of several related controversies, see Coseriu (1983, 2000), Kabatek (2000), Willems (2011), and the references therein.

⁸ In point of fact, although Prieto regards the analyzability of expression and content into figuræ as an indicator of some degree of parallelism between the two planes, in a previous essay (1956, 38) he had drawn an analogy between pleremes, understood by him not as figuræ but as feature bundles, and phonemes, thus coming close to Coseriu’s perspective.

⁹ In the cited essay by Coseriu, we find, for the most part, an alternation between the terminological pairs expression-content and signifier-signified. In this regard, the author explains that he prefers Hjelmslev’s terms in particular “when speaking, not of linguistic units as such, but rather of two levels [= planes] of language” (2008, 140). This will also be the preference here. On the other hand, when speaking about the two faces of the sign as such, I will in general use the Saussurean terms, except if I am referring to glossematic writings or adopting a glossematic perspective.

¹⁰ For the sake of simplicity, on the expression side I mention only phonemes and their defining features, the nature of which does not seem too controversial among structural linguists of the European tradition. Nevertheless, I think it licit to consider here any type of expression unit having a distinctive function (including accents or accent schemata, depending on the language, as well as graphemes if we are considering written language) with their respective features.

¹¹ Katz and Fodor (1963) use the term distinguisher within a markedly different framework to refer to semantic features distinguishing different interpretations of a given expression (see Coseriu 1968b, 4–7).

¹² There has been controversy as to whether phonemes can be referred to as sign constituents, as assumed for example by Bloomfield (1984, 161–162) and Martinet (1964, 22–25), and naturally the question can also be raised in the case of the expression figuræ of glossematics. For instance, Hockett (1961, 29–30) adduces cases of allomorphy and suppletion as evidence that phonemes are not found within morphemes (in the American sense of the term) and must belong to a separate linguistic stratum. However, we could solve the problem by positing highly abstract signifiers, featuring elements such as archiphonemes and even suprasegmental disjunctions (see Lotz 1949, 185) – a type of solution dismissed by Hockett as an “obfuscation” that “appealed to no one” (see also Bybee and Moder 1983, 256). In any case, even if we were to follow Hockett and assume two autonomous strata mediated by a morphophonemic code, we could still conceptualize phonemes and the like as indirect distinguishers or at least as distinction enablers.

¹³ This function is performed indirectly, however, through the differentiation of signifiers for identification by interlocutors (see Bazell 1949, 3, fn. 1; Prieto 1964, 99–103).

¹⁴ Note, however, that this terminological convention is not followed consistently in all of the author’s writings (e.g., Alarcos Llorach 1949, 1965, 1977).

¹⁵ This does not prevent Holt (1959, 51–53, 1961, 67–70, 1967, 62–63) from speaking of ordered content elements from the perspective of their dependency relations.

¹⁶ For further elaboration on the relevance of substance in linguistic inquiry, see Bazell (1954), Diver (2012), Fischer-Jørgensen (1966), Harder (2016), and Martinet (2000).

¹⁷ To be sure, such a transposition can only be a transposition of categories based on their hierarchical relations, not one of concrete linguistic elements. In this connection, it will be useful to remember Hjelmslev’s (1961, 99) warning that the glossematic analysis of expression “often leads to essentially different results from the phonemic analyses hitherto attempted,” a warning that, of course, could be modified to bear on content analysis too.

¹⁸ Wierzbicka (1996) and her followers give a different meaning to semantic primitive/prime.

¹⁹ This does not prevent us from defining distinctive features as formal elements, insofar as they are a consequence of substance formation in languages (see Fischer-Jørgensen 1966, 26). Now, this brings us to the problem of certain content figuræ identified by glossematists that seem analyzable into smaller substantial components, as shown for example in Hjelmslev’s (1972) study on case (despite the author’s interest in pure form). What must be noted in this regard is that, from a functional point of view, if the semantic features posited by the analyst are not sufficient to arrive at an accurate semantic description, either the analysis is wrong or more features need to be posited. But, to be sure, a new level of analysis is not functionally necessary; this is why content glossemes, if understood as the result of a mechanical decomposition of commutable figuræ, have no parallel in distinctive-feature analysis (unlike the corresponding expression elements, which can be seen as parallel to phonic features; see Siertsema 1965, 204).

²⁰ Another aspect of Hjelmslev’s claim that deserves some commentary is the idea that figuræ are “used to construct signs,” which implies some kind of productivity. Leaving aside neologisms containing only previously attested signs, the recurrence of phonemes and distinctive features in new units, though a common feature of historical languages, must be regarded as a diachronic rather than synchronic phenomenon from a functional standpoint, the result being a sign that is not readily comprehensible to other speakers (see Echeverría forthcoming, § 3).

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Carlos I. Echeverría

Carlos I. Echeverría is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese at The Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include linguistic and semiotic theory, Romance linguistics, morphosyntax, and translation studies.