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that “has a central role in the linguistic mechanism” (1916/1983, 105
and 109). Saussure recognizes but does not fully formally define words as
units of written utterance.
From a materialist perspective, the word of written language could
be regarded, in part, as a historically developed division of the written
syntagma. Divisions between words would be understood as historically
introduced between units that compel recognition by the mind. In this
understanding, the word would be a possible origin for the perception of
the paradigm, particularly for the paradigm as the network of associa-
tions created by the occurrence of identical or related word forms in a
variety of syntagmas, with differing meanings or signifieds.
Beyond the Word
Saussure understood the notion of the syntagma as applying “not only to
words, but to groups of words, and to complex units of every size and kind
(compound words, derivative forms, phrases, sentences)” (1916/1983,
122). Units larger than single words—compounds and flexional forms (
il a
été
, or he has been) (1916/1983, 104)—are then recognized. For Saussure,
the word was an element of language and the combination of words in
discourse would normally belong to speech. Like the word, some complex
units (particularly compound words and derivatives) belonged to lan-
guage—“to the language, and not to speech, must be attributed all types
of syntagmas constructed on regular patterns” (1916/1983, 123). More
extensive syntagmas, such as the phrase and the sentence, were parts of
speech, although there was no clear boundary separating language or
communal usage from speech, marked by the freedom of the individual.
For Saussure, the “characteristic of speech is freedom of combination”
(122), in a curious anticipation of the terminology used to describe the
selection of messages from the source in information theory. Similarly,
with “sentences . . . it is diversity which is predominant” (105). The syn-
tagma then includes multiword sequences.
Paradigm
Saussure characteristically placed the paradigm (or, “associative rela-
tions”) in a binary contrast with the syntagma (1916/1983, 123). The
paradigm can be regarded as produced by and abstracted from the experi-
ence of the syntagma.
