What linguistics is all aboutL'arbitraire du signeThe first de Saussure law of language. The sign is arbitrary.Meaning : the two components of the sign are un-correlated. Il n'y a pas de corrélation entre le signifiant et le signifié. Beware of the order of quantification. The statement is universal. In a given language, of course the words evoke the concepts, otherwise no communication would be possible. But what the law means is that language is not natural, it is an artificial artefact (excepted onomatopea). |