Ferdinand de Saussure Quotes

Languages are true analytical methods.

The integers of language are sentences, and their organs are the parts of speech. Linguistic organization, then, consists in the differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the sentence.

I know what the structure of the language is.

Language is something that I take great interest in.

Language makes infinite use of finite media.

As Bromberger observed, rules are understood to be elements of the computational systems that determine the sound and meaning of the infinite array of expressions of a language; the information so derived is accessed by other systems in language use.

My linguistics is pretty theoretical.

It seemed to me that the real philosophical breakthroughs of the 20th century were in terms of the understanding of language. What is language? Where does it come from, how does it work, what does it do?

A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas.

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

Linguistics is very much a science. It's a human science, one of the human sciences. And it's one of the more interesting human sciences.

At the same time we overlap, because, I do linguistics, and Ben did a first degree in Linguistics at Lancaster University, so he knows some of my subject.

You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point in time.

I love the English language, the colors of it, the many, many nuances, the different influences. I find German stilted, in a way, by comparison.

I think that this vein is close to being mined out already, but I'll say that my knowledge of and talent for linguistics are quite limited and I'm not aware of being a hell of a lot more interested in that topic than I am in others.

Grammar is the analysis of language.

Logic is to grammar what the sense of words is to their sound.

A sentence is made up of words, a statement is made in words.... Statements are made, words or sentences are used.

The ways in which language changes never ceases to interest me.

Semantics, or the study of meaning, remained undeveloped, while phonetics made rapid progress and even came to occupy the central place in the scientific study of language.

Well, language seems to be something that obsesses me. I'm always writing about it.

I have always loved the fluidity of language - delighting in dialects, dictionaries, slang and neologisms.

I'm very sensitive to the English language. I studied the dictionary obsessively when I was a kid and collect old dictionaries. Words, I think, are very powerful and they convey an intention.

Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.

I became aware that all sounds can make meaningful language.