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RJ SW Word and Language

Jakobson, Roman 1957b. Notes on Gilyak. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 71-97.

Père L. Furet's L'Archipel Japonais et la Tartarie Orientale (Paris, 1857) contains some ethnographic notes about the Gilyaks of the Baie de Joncquières on Sakhalin and a list of a hundred words in their vernacular, but since the author did not disclose the ethnic name of these natives, the vocabulary was overlooked by later students of Gilyak. (Jakobson 1957b: 74)

Phraseology for treating omissions.

Jakobson, Roman 1949g. The Phonemic and Grammatical Aspects of Language in their Interrelations. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 103-114.

As modern structural thinking has clearly established, language is a system of signs, and linguistics is part of the science of signs, or semiotic (Saussure's sémiologie). The anient definition of the sign - "aliquid stat pro aliquo" - has been resurrected and proposed as still valid and productive. Thus the essential property of any sign in general, and of any linguistic sign in particular, is its twofold character: every linguistic unit is bipartite and involves two aspects - one sensible and the other intelligible - or, in other words, both a signans (Saussure's signifiant) and a signatum (signifié). These two constituents of any linguistic sign (and of any sign in general) necessarily presuppose and require each other. (Jakobson 1949g: 103)

It can probably never not be productive. Something between the sensible sign-vehicle and the intelligible object is missing; be it language or interpretant.

Thus the unity of the sign was disregarded. The study of speech sounds cut off from their significant function inevitably lost its intimate connection with linguistics as a semiotic discipline and threatened to become merely a branch of physiology and of acoustics, whereas the strictly linguistic problem of meaning was either forgotten in the search for their psychological background or mistaken for the extrinsic "realm of non-linguistic objects" (according to Charles Morris' terse formulation). (Jakobson 1949g: 104)

"Significant function" (the function of signifying) sounds about as abstract and ambiguous as the psychopharmacologist's "cognitive function". Does the scheme of linguistic functions not search for the problem of meaning in the psychological background (e.g. intention)?

We can and must resolve a complex linguistic sign into its constituent signs. We can and must finally obtain the smallest linguistic units, but we have to remember that any linguistic and in general semiotic analysis resolves more complex semiotic units into smaller but still semiotic units. Any such unit, even the ultimate, must be twofold and comprise both a signans and a signatum. (Jakobson 1949g: 104)

This is exactly what the scheme does not do. The poetic, metalinguistic, and phatic functions in particular veer off this course. Though, now that I think about it, a semiotic (standing-for) definition of the metalinguistic function could be interesting enough: the utterance as a whole can be decomposed into its parts; with other named functions I'm not that certain if this can be done.

In linguistic analysis, when breaking down a speech sequence into ever smaller and simpler units, we begin with an utterance. The minimum utterance is a sentence. A sentence consists of words as its minimal actually separable components. The various borderline cases - we hold with Sapir - do not impair the validity of this real and tangible entity. (Jakobson 1949g: 104)

Cue Sapir, Jespersen and Gardiner with their debates about whether the word or the sentence, is the proper object of linguistics.

The semantic minimums of a given language can be stated only with reference to their formal counterpart, and vice versa, the minimal formal units cannot be determined without reference to their semantic counterparts. This fact does not invalidate Buyssens' assertion that the "phonic content" of these formal units may be ignored: "It is enough that the phonic combinations are distinct." To ascertain this distinctness is sufficient for making up a list of grammatical meanings in a given language, of their oppositions, conceptual fields, and their configurations. (Jakobson 1949g: 105)

A more common counterpart of Gardiner's "area[s] of meaning"?

What is the semiotic value of phonemes, the smaller units into which we resolve the formal minimum? It is a lower level of semiosis: the phoneme participates in the signification, yet has no meaning of its own. The semiotic function of a phoneme within a higher linguistic unit is to denote that this unit has another meaning than an equipollent unit which ceteris paribus contains another phoneme in the same position. (Jakobson 1949g: 105)

The semiotic function of mere otherness. Participates by way of delineation and discrimination.

Functionally different formal units are often denoted by different phonemic configurations (in Slavic languages, for instance, suffixes are clearly distinguished from radicals by their phonemic contours). (Jakobson 1949g: 107)

Just collecting contours.

Besides the word-differentiating function they can assume another, supplementary role, that of border marks. The presence of a certain phoneme (or of a certain distinctive feature) at a certain place in a speech segment may signal a boundary between words (or smaller formal units) or, on the contrary, the absence of a boundary. Such "negative marks" (as Trubetzkoy called them) are very common and important. (Jakobson 1949g: 107)

Delineation on the level of words.

Bonfante's reference to "artistic unity" permits us to offer an example from poetic language. Rhyme is usually defined as correspondence in terminal sounds, but at the same time it always matters whether the rhyming elements are merely homophonous or whether they are gramatically identical - whether the rhyme links identical formal units or different formal units but belonging to words of one and the same word-class. Do the rhyming words have similar or different syntactic functions? The rhyme technique of diverse poets and poetic schools can be grammatical or antigrammatical, but it cannot be agrammatical. (Jakobson 1949g: 110)

The notion of "terminal sounds" requires special highlight, as a particular "rhyme" appears in natural conversation when speakers "borrow" or adjust themselves to the lexical stock of their partners.

Jakobson, Roman 1949f. Comparative Slavic Grammar. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 115-118.

The vocative form is present in all Slavic languages except Russian and Slovenian. (Jakobson 1949f: 116)

The vocative case is indeed missing in Russian. The example is "I don't know, John" where the name indicates the party being addressed, as opposed to "I don't know John" where the person is the direct object.

Jakobson, Roman 1948a. Russian Conjugation. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 119-129.

Cf. this zero suffix followed by the 'reflexive' suffic -sa in such forms as znakóm'-sa 'make the acquaintance', vis-sa 'rise above', zabót-sa 'take care', differing strikingly from the similar clusters zabi-t-ca 'forget oneself', skr'ib'-ó-t-ca, 3 Sg. Pres from skr'is-t'i-s 'scratch'. (Jakobson 1948a: 124)

Just realized that in "making an aquaintance" figures the same root as the Russian word for sign.

Jakobson, Roman 1957e. Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian Verb. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 130-147.

A message sent by its addresser must be adequate perceived by its receiver. Any message is encoded by its sender and is to be decoded by its addressee. The more closely the addressee approximates the code used by the addresser, the higher is the amount of information obtained. Both the message (M) and the underlying code (C) are vehicles of linguistic communication, but both of them function in a duplex manner; they may at once be utilized and referred to (= pointed at). (Jakobson 1957e: 130)

Code shifting and adjustment. The amount of information obtained may be problematic between normal and "minimal" languages. And the medium is the third vehicle of linguistic communication that can be referred to or pointed at.

Accordingly four duplex types must be distinguished; 1) two kinds of circularity - message referring to message (M/M) and code referring to code (C/C); 2) two kinds of overlapping - message referring to code (M/C) and code referring to message (C/M). (Jakobson 1957e: 130)

With an expansion, there's also M/Ch, i.e. message referring to the channel, and C/Ch, i.e. code referring to types of contact. Untapped potential.

M/M) "Reported speech is speech within speech, a message within a message and at the same time it is also speech about speech, a message about a message," as Vološinov formulates it in his study of this crucial linguistic and stylistic problem. Such "relayed" or "displaced" speech, to use Bloomfield's terms, may prevail in our discourse, since we are far from confining our speech to events sensed in the present by the speaker himself. We quote others and our own former utterances, and we are even prone to present some of our current experiences in the form of self-quotation, for instance by confronting them with statements by someone else: "Ye have heard that it hath been said [...] But I say unto you [...]" (Jakobson 1957e: 130)

Possibly the inspiration for Juri Lotman's "text within a text".

M/C) A message referring to the code is in logic termed an autonymous mode of speech. When we say, The pup is a winsome animal or The pup is whimpering, the word pup designates a young dog, whereas in such sentences as "Pup" is a monosyllable, the word pup - one may say with Carnap - is used as its own designation. Any elucidating interpretation of words and sentences - whether intralingual (circumlocutions, synonyms) or interlingual (translation) - is a message referring to the code. Such a hypostasis - as Bloomfield pointed out - "is closely related to quotation, the repetition of speech", and it plays a vital role in the acquisition and use of language. (Jakobson 1957e: 131)

The beginnings of the metalingual function, here not only the general sense of discussing language, not even in the sense of the opposition between linguistic metalanguage and the object-language, but in the particular sense of "elucidating interpretation of words and sentences". Note that in the usual restricted sense it covers only words, not any expression of any length (e.g. sentences).

The indexical symbols, and in particular the personal pronouns, which the Humboldtian tradition conceives as the most elementary and primitive stratum of language, are, on the contrary, a complex category where code and message overlaps. Therefore pronouns belong to the late acquisitions in child language and to the early losses in aphasia. If we observe that even linguistic scientists had difficulties in defining the general meaning of the term I (or you), which signifies the same intermittent function of different subjects, it is quite obvious that the child who has learned to identify himself with his proper name will not easily become accustomed to such alienable terms as the personal pronouns: he may be afraid of speaking of himself in the first person while being called you by his interlocutors. (Jakobson 1957e: 132)

Very good to know - something to counterpose against the /pa/ ordeal, i.e. earliest acquisition and latest loss. Note that this is an instance in which Jakobson relies on empirical data (on the brain) rather than philosophical theories (on the mind).

PnEn/Ps Mood characterizes the relation between the narrated event and its participants with reference to the participants of the speech event: in Vinogradov's formulation, this category "reflects the speaker's view of the character of the connection between the action and the actor or the goal". (Jakobson 1957e: 135)

Highly relevant for formulating the enigmatic "atmosphere" (of communion). The shorthands stand for: "participant in the narrated event, narrated event / participant of the speech event", i.e. how the speaker feels about person spoken about in the narrated event.

The speaker reports an event on the basis of someone else's report (quotative, i.e. hearsay evidence), of a dream (revelative evidence), of a guess (presumptive evidence) or of his own previous experience (memory evidence). (Jakobson 1957e: 135)

One of those four-fold typologies that could be compared to Clay's (e.g. judicial, vice-judicial, mnemonic, etc.).

As was pointed out in these papers, one of two mutually opposite grammatical categories is "marked" while the other is "unmarked". The general meaning of a marked category states the presence of a certain (whether positive or negative) property A; the general meaning of the corresponding unmarked category states nothing about the presence of A, and is used chiefly, but not exclusively, to indicate the absence of A. (Jakobson 1957e: 136)

There are certainly many applications for markedness theory but the one I'm thinking of now involves the terminological invention qua proto-criticism. Cf. fictionalism or dysfunctionalism.

There are two basic varieties of the injunctive: either it figures as a pure appeal (address-form) or it is transposed into a declarative statement. (Jakobson 1957e: 139)

Relevant for elucidating the different kinds of appeal defined later (i.e. what is the difference between a declarative sentence and an appeal to reference?).

Two appeal forms of the injunctive are to be distinguished: hortative (signaling a participation in the En) vs. imperative. The latter calls for a participation in the En, while the former adds a coaxing note. (Jakobson 1957e: 139)

Likewise, relevant for the appeal to continuation. Hortative - inciting, encouraging.

The relation preterit vs. present is changed into an opposition definable in Whorf's terms as sequential (signaling the temporal contact between the two En). Imperfective preterit gerund: Vstrečav ee v rannej molodosti, on snova uvidel ee čerez dvadcat' let 'After having repeatedly met her in his early youth, he saw her again twenty years later'; Nikogda ne vstrečav ego ran'še, ja včera poznakomilsja s nim 'Having never met him before, yesterday I made his acquaintance'. Imperfective present gerund: Vstrečaja druzej, on radovalsja or raduetsja 'when meeting friends, he was (is) delighted'; On umer rabotaja 'He died while working' (both [|] events are closely connected in time). (Jakobson 1957e: 140)

Linguistic material that could be used to illustrate the intelligible psychological connection (as opposed to the perceptible physical channel).

Jakobson, Roman 1957d. The Relationship between Genitive and Plural in the Declension of Russian Nouns. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 148-153.

The Moscow linguistic school inaugurated by F. F. Fortunatov gave to international science several outstanding investigators equally expert in the Slavic field and in the general theory of language. (Jakobson 1957d: 148)

The frequently mentioned L. V. Ščerba, whose textbook on linguistics Jakobson read in 1912, wrote an article about "Fortunatov in the history of the science of language".

Jakobson, Roman 1960b. The Gender Pattern of Russian. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 184-186.

The feminine gender signals that the given noun cannot designate a male human being, unless in expressive, particularly pejorative language (cf. ón - svóloč', stérva, ètakaja drján' i razmaznjá). (Jakobson 1960b: 185)

Language is sexist.

Jakobson, Roman 1962d. On the Rumanian Neuter. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 187-189.

Hence the term genul neutru 'neuter gender' is definitely preferable to the misleading designation of these literally neuter (non-feminine and non-masculine) nouns as "ambigeneous" or "heterogeneous". (Jakobson 1962d: 188)

Interesting term. Appears in A. Ramakrishnan's 1959. "Ambigeneous stochastic processes".

Jakobson, Roman 1966b. Relationship between Russian Stem Suffixes and Verbal Aspects. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 198-202.

In various Indo-European languages, the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of adjectives show a gradual increase in the number of phonemes, e.g., high - higher - highest, altus - altior - altissimus. In this way the signantia reflect the gradation gamut of the signata [...] The signans of the plural tends to echo the meaning of a numeral increment by an increased length of the form." (Jakobson 1966d) (Jakobson 1966b: 198)

In this light it must be noted that Malinowski's terminological invention does not succumb to this rule. Nor is there much indication of the plurality being captured by recent reviewers.

Among prefixless impf. verbs several pairs are differentiated as belonging to the determinate aspect, which signals the integrity and unbrokenness of the narrated event, respectively to the indeterminate aspect, devoid of such signalization. (Jakobson 1966b: 200)

Unbrokenness would go well with continuousness.

Jakobson, Roman 1953e. Pattern in Linguistics (Contribution to Debates with Anthropologists). In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 223-228.

There is a direct help that linguistics is in line to receive from mathematics at this moment, especially from the so-called 'information theory' or theory of communication. The fundamental dichotomous notions of linguistics, particularly singled out by F. de Saussure, A. Gardiner, and E. Sapir and called langue and parole in France, 'linguistic pattern' and 'speech' in America, now receive a much clearer, simpler, logically less ambiguous, and operationally more productive formulation, when matched with the corresponding concepts of communication theory, namely with 'code' and 'message'. (Jakobson 1953e: 224)

Language is "linguistic pattern".

The usual addressee of a message is a decoder, whereas the cryptanalyst is an unusual, marginal addressee, if not simply an eavesdropper. (Jakobson 1953e: 224)

Relevant for his own illustration of language in operation, eavesdropping a conversation about Edgar Allan Poe's poem.

Neither the phonemic nor the grammatical entities can be identified through a merely distributional analysis. We cannot decide, for instance, whether two forms are homonymic or identical if we do not know whether, behind the contextual variation, there is one invariant semantic value or not. It is true that some books on the meaning of meaning have taught that such a semantic invariant is a myth, and that there is nothing but contextual meaning. Those statements are adequate but only for one special case of linguistic reality, a certain type of aphasia: the patient is able to recognize the contexts heard beforehand and stored in his memory, but he cannot create new contexts, whereas the rest of us are able to create, or at least to understand, new contexts when we hear them; and this is proof that the constituents of such a context are known to us and possess an invariant semantic value. (Jakobson 1953e: 225)

Same as how I feel about terminology (i.e. "linguistic pattern"), particularly with my favourite specimen, which has a habit of stepping into novel combinations wherever possible. The memory in question is called "Recognition memory" and "refers to the ability to judge a previously encountered item as familiar and depends on the integrity of the medial temporal lobe" (Le et al. 2015: 43).

It is at times objected that we do not know all the languages of the world, so that exceptions may exist. Neither does the zoologist know whether in the virgin forests of Brazil a freak such as a five-legged cat may not one day turn up. Nevertheless, if he says that cats have four legs, this at least carries considerable statistical value; and if we find a language with five legs in Brazil, because in Brazil you can find anything, then we will say, well, there is an extremely rare exception; and, were there even a greater number of exceptions, these high-probability statements would still be of importance, since the number of languages registered by the linguists of the world is large enough. (Jakobson 1953e: 226)

No joke. You can even find structural linguistics there. Searching for papers about Jakobson published by John Benjamins I found Altman's "The 'Brazilian Connection' in the History of American Linguistics" (1999). Evidently a Brazilian linguist attended the École Libre when Jakobson was there.

I know a case where a friend of mine, I know a case where a friend of mine, a very distinguished linguist, tried to bribe his daughter with chocolate in order to change the usual order of phonemic acquisitions discussed in my monograph, and did not succeed. Had the child succumbed to the temptation, then chocolate would have to be recognized as an extrinsic factor of inverted order. In aphasia, the phonemic losses invert the order of children's acquisitions: B cannot disappear later than A. (Jakobson 1953e: 226)

Since the book (Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze) is in German, I'll have to rely on these kinds of scanty self-reports about its contents.

A synchronic system is never static. Let me resort to a simple comparison. If you are watching a movie and I ask you, "What do you see at this moment?" you do not see static situations. You see gangsters at world and horses running and various other motions. Only in front of the box office do you see merely statics pasted on the billboards. Neither is synchrony confined to statics, nor statics to synchrony. we can take a [|] static approach to history and ask in particular what has remained immovable from Latin or even Indo-European to contemporary Italian. On the other hand, there is room for a dynamic approach in synchronic linguistics. A linguistic change is not like a change to Daylight Saving Time, so that on May 1 all members of the speech community would no longer use element A, but only element B. There are periods when both elements A and B coexist with different stylistic connotation, and speakers may be aware that element A is an archaism and B an innovation and will use them accordingly just as in na audience with a high dignitary you will not wear the tie you wear on a date. Thus, the start and finish of a change originally belong to the same synchronic state. The time factor itself, upon entering into such a symbolic system of language, assumes a symbolic value. The artificial barrier between synchronic and historical linguistics vanishes, since one can analyze changes in terms of a synchronic pattern just as one does with its static constituents. (Jakobson 1953e: 227-228)

There is hope that if enough of these passages expaining permanent dynamic synchrony (PDS) are thrown together, something wonderful might be come of it. Here I noticed that the illustration takes nearly after E. R. Clay's famous concept of the "specious present". Elaborating PDS might be my window into simultaneously jumping into the psychology of time influenced by Clay and working with Lotman's Culture and Explosion.

Jakobson, Roman 1955a. Aphasia as a Linguistic Topic. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 229-238.

For the study of expressive language this approach is particularly illuminating: aphasia can lead to a redistribution of linguistic functions. This may be illustrated by the following examples. [↩] In Norwegian, stressed syllables carry two different intonations which, other things being equal, serve to distinguish words; this distinctive function limits the use of intonation for expressive purposes. In standard German, intonation does not differentiate words but is often used to signal the emotional attitude of the speaker. A Norwegian woman, whom Monrad-Krohn examined, had been struck by a bombfragment and had lost her ability to distinguish the two word-differentiating intonations of her mother tongue. Consequently her use of intonation was fully released for expressive variation, and as a result she was mistaken by her countrymen for a Norwegian-speaking German and often met their animosity in Nazi-occupied Oslo. (Jakobson 1955a: 229)

From: Monrad-Krohn, G. H. 1949. Dysprosody or altered 'melody of language'. In a later reflection, the animosity was that she wasn't sold any food by the shop-owners who thought she was German.

Language in its various aspects deals with both modes of relation. Whether messages are exchanged or communication proceeds unilaterally from the addresser to the addressee, there must be some kind of contiguity between the participants of any speech event to assure the transmission of the message. The separation in space, and often in time, between two individuals, the addresser and the addressee, is bridged by an internal relation: there must be a certain equivalence between the symbols used by the addresser and those known and interpreted by the addressee. Without such an equivalence the message is fruitless - even when it reached the receiver, it does not affect him. (Jakobson 1955a: 232)

Physical channel and psychological connection.

However, it is not enough to know the code in order to grasp the message. When I say "he did", you may be familiar with the words he and did and with the rules of word order, and you will then realize that I speak about some man who performed some action, but in order to learn who this person is and what the action is which he performed, you need to know the context, verbalized or non-verbalized, but verbalizable. Here we again enter the field of contiguity. The components of any message are necessarily linked with the code by an internal relation of equivalence and with the context by an external relation of contiguity. (Jakobson 1955a: 233)

Both the code and the context are important for understanding the message, and the usual dichotomy is apparent: similarity vs contiguity, one between elements in the code and the other with the surrounding context.

In the grammatical code of English this morpheme denotes a superlative grading. Grading in respect to what quality? The answer is given by the context to which the suffix belongs. The word is the context of morphemes, just as a sentence is the verbal context of words and an utterance the verbal context of sentences, while a morpheme in its turn is the context of phonemes. (Jakobson 1955a: 233)

Context has a hierarchical structure, like language itself, when viewed on purely verbal terms (con-text).

While the combination of words into a sentence is still bound by syntactical rules, we are no longer restricted by compulsory rules when we combine sentences in an utterance, although there obviously exist not only stereotyped sentences but also entire ready-made utterances. (Jakobson 1955a: 234)

Set phrases.

From early childhood, any normal user of language is able to talk about language itself. For example, a speaker mentions champagne, but had some doubt whether the listener really caught the word. He may then return to the word: "I mean fizz" (colloquial synonym), or "You know, the sparkling white wine from France" (circumlocution), or simply, "I said champagne" (neoplasm). All these sentences refer to the verbal code. Actually they say: "champagne and fizz are substitutable for each other as they carry the same meaning in the code we use: in this code champagne is the name of a French sparkling white wine: the word I used is champagne". Here one verbal code acts at the same time both as topic of and as vehicle for the discourse. This use of language to discuss language, labeled "metalanguage" in logic, is deficient in aphasics with a similarity disorder. (Jakobson 1955a: 235)

It's almost like he's running through the functions which a year later will form into a coherent system. Note the important distinction between topic and vehicle, which underlies his duplex types.

In this connection it must be recalled that the most abstract words in our vocabulary, the purely analytical units such as conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and articles, are the best preserved and the most frequently used in the speech of aphasics focused upon context. If such indices of relations are retained in this type of aphasia (similarity disorder), it is because their primary function is to provide the connective tissue of the context. (Jakobson 1955a: 236)

Highly important. Does this preservation succumb to the laws of implication? Does this connective tissue operate as an appeal to continuation?

Most often, however, the conflict between the two ranks of the linguistic scale - the distinctive and the significative units - is settled by cutting down the inventory of phonemes and phonemic clusters. (Jakobson 1955a: 237)

The dichotomy involving mere otherness.

Jakobson, Roman 1956a. Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 239-259.

Linguistics is concerned with language in all its aspects - language in operation, language in drift, language in the nascent state, and language in dissolution. (Jakobson 1956a: 239)

Functions, change, acquisition, and aphasia.

There is one level of aphasic phenomena where amazing agreement has been achieved during the last twenty years between those psychiatrists and linguists who have tackled these problems, namely the disintegration of the sound pattern. This dissolution exhibits a time order of great regularity. Aphasic regression has proved to be a mirror of the [|] child's acquisition of speech sounds: it shows the child's development in reverse. Furthermore, comparison of child language and aphasia enables us to establish several laws of implication. The search for this order of acquisitions and losses and for the general laws of implication cannot be confined to the phonemic pattern but must be extended also to the grammatical system. Only a few preliminary attempt have been made in this direction, and these efforts deserve to be continued. (Jakobson 1956a: 240-241)

Both aspects - phonetic and grammatical - has already been covered here to some extent.

Speech implies a selection of certain linguistic entities and their combination into linguistic units of a higher degree of complexity. At the lexical level this is readily apparent: the speaker selects words and combines them into sentences according to the syntactic system of the language he is using; sentences in their turn are combined into utterances. But the speaker is by no means a completely free agent in his choice of words: his selection (except for the rare case of actual neology) must be made from the lexical storehouse which he and his adressee possess in common. (Jakobson 1956a: 241)

This is the crux of the functional subcode dilemma: are linguistic entities selected from pre-established "sets"?

Hence the concurrence of simultaneous entities and the concatenation of sucessive entities are the two ways in which we speakers combine linguistic constituents. (Jakobson 1956a: 242)

Synonyms for similarity and contiguity.

The code sets limitations on the possible combinations of the phoneme /p/ with other following and/or preceding phonemes; and only part of the permissible phoneme-sequences are actually utilized in the lexical stock of a given language. Even when other combinations of phonemes are theoretically possible, the speaker, as a rule, is only a word-user, not a word-coiner. When faced with individual word, we expect them to be coded units. In order to grasp the word nylon one must know the meaning assigned to this vocable in the lexical code of modern English. (Jakobson 1956a: 242)

Stereotyped formulas, moreover, have stylistic (and social) connotations.

In any language there exist also coded word-groups called phrase-words. The meaning of the idiom how do you do cannot be derived by adding together the meanings of its lexical constituents; the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts. Word-groups which in this respect behave like single words are common but nonetheless only marginal case. In order to comprehend the overwhelming majority of word-groups, we need be familiar only with the constituent words and with the syntactical rules of their combination. Within these limitations we are free to put words in new contexts. Of course, this freedom is relative, and the pressure of current clichés upon our choice of combinations is considerable. But the freedom to compose quite new contexts is undeniable, despite the relatively low statistical probability of their occurrence. (Jakobson 1956a: 242)

Hence the importance of holophrases (i.e. set phrases in another nomenclature, specifically Whitney's).

Any linguistic sign involves two modes of arrangement.
  1. Combination. Any sign is made up of constituent signs and/or occurs only in combination with other signs. This means that any linguistic unit at one and the same time serves as a context for simpler units and/or finds its own context in a more complex linguistic unit. Hence any actual grouping of linguistic units binds them into a superior unit: combination and contexture are two facets of the same operation.
    2. Selection. A selection between alternatives implies the possibility of substituting one for the other, equivalent to the former in one respect and different from it in another. Actually, selection and substitution are two faces of the same operation.
The fundamental role which these two operations play in language was clearly realized by Ferdinand de Saussure. Yet of the two varieties of combination - concurrence and concatenation - it was only the latter, the temporal sequence, which was recognized by the Geneva linguist. Despite his own insight into the phoneme as a set of concurrent distinctive feaures (éléments différentiels de phonèmes), the scholar succumbed to the traditional belief in the linear character of language "qui exclut la possibilité de prononcer deux éléments à la fois". (Jakobson 1956a: 243)

Concurrence, as I understand it, thus refers to the phonological make-up of linguistic units (i.e. the simultaneous utilization of various binary oppositons) whereas concatenation refers to the hierarchical make-up of the utterance (phoneme, morpheme, word, sentence, utterance).

In order to delimit the two modes of arrangement which we have described as combination and selection, F. de Saussure states that the former "is in presentia: it is based on two or several terms jointly present in an actual series", whereas the latter "connects terms in absentia as members of a virtual mnemonic series". That is to say, selection (and, correspondingly, substitution) deals with entities conjoined in the code but not in the given message, whereas, in the case of combination, the entities are conjoined in both, or only in the actual message. The addressee perceives that the given utterance (message) is a combination of constituent parts (sentences, words, phonemes, etc.) selected from the repository of all possible constituent parts (the code). (Jakobson 1956a: 243)

That is a might French way to put the "set", though it is an effective way to get into Saussure's views of language (which I've successfully circumnavigated thus far but will have to take up if only because the Estonian translation of Cours is now available).

These two operations provide each linguistic sign with two sets of interpretants, to utilize the effective introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce: there are two references which serve to interpret the sign - one to the code, and the other to the context, whether coded or free, and in each of these ways the sign is related to another set of linguistic sign, through an alternation in the former case and through an alignment in the latter. A given significative unit may be replaced by other, more explicit signs of the same code, whereby its general meaning is revealed, while its contextual meaning is determined by its connection with other signs within the same sequence. (Jakobson 1956a: 244)

Oddly specific to Jakobson, as only he would think to combine Peircean and Saussurean tenets in this way.

It is particularly hard for him to perform, or even to understand, such a closed discourse as the monologue. The more his utterances are dependent on the context, the better he copes with his verbal task. He feels unale to utter a sentence which responds neither to the cue of his interlocutor nor to the actual situation. The sentence "it rains" cannot be produced unless the utterer sees that it is actually raining. The deeper the utterance is embedded in the verbal or non-verbalized context, the higher are the chances of its successful performance by this class of patients. (Jakobson 1956a: 245)

In broad strokes this attitude of immediacy characterizes mechanized speech as well.

Words with an inherent reference to the context, like pronouns and pronominal adverbs, and words serving merely to construct the context, such as connectives and auxiliaries, are particularly prone to survive. [...] Thus only the framework, the connecting links of communication, is spared by this type of aphasia at its critical stage. (Jakobson 1956a: 246)

Complementary to the above listing of pronouns and other linguistic units that survive better in this type of aphasia.

"I have a good apartment, entrance hall, bedroom, kitchen," Goldstein's patient says. "There are also big apartments, only in the rear live bachelors." A more explicit form, the word-group unmarried people, could have been substituted for bachelors, but this univerbal term was selected by the speaker. When repeatedly asked what a bachelor was, the patient did not answer and was "apparently in distress" (p. 270). A reply like "a bachelor is an unmarried man" or "an unmarried man is a bachelor" would present an equational predication and thus a projection of a substitution set from the lexical code of the English language into the context of the given message. The equivalent terms becomes two correlated [|] parts of the sentence and consequently are tied by contiguity. The patient was able to select the appropriate term bachelor when it was supported by the context of a customary conversation about "bachelor apartments", but was incapable of utilizing the substitition ste bachelor = unmarried man as the topic of a sentence, because the ability for autonomous selection and substitution had been affected. The equational sentence vainly demanded from the patient carries as its sole information: ""bachelor" means an unmarried man" or "an unmarried man is called "a bachelor"". (Jakobson 1956a: 246-247)

Nothing is random. This very illustration, in a short or condensed form, appears in his famous definition of the metalingual function. It shows what he means by "autonomous", i.e. not bound by context (as 'bachelor' and 'bachelor apartments' are here). Also, note the technical term univerbal, which could describe "phaticity", as opposed to two word combinations.

Likewise, the picture of an object will cause suppression of its name: a verbal sign is supplanted by a pictorial sign. When the picture of a compass was presented to a patient of Lotmar's he responded: "Yes, it's a [...] I know what it belongs to, but I cannot recall the technical expression [...] Yes [...] direction [...] to show direction [...] a magnet points to the north." Such patients fail to shift, as Peirce would say, from an index or icon to a corresponding verbal symbol. (Jakobson 1956a: 247)

Cf. intersemiotic translation.

One of the important contributions of symbolic logic to the science of language is its emphasis on the distinction between object language and metalanguage. As Carnap states, "in order to speak about any [|] object language, we need a metalanguage." On these two different levels of language the same linguistic stock may be used; thus we may speak in English (as metalanguage) about English (as object language) and interpret English words and sentences by means of English synonyms, circumlocutions and paraphrases. Obviously such operations, labeled metalinguistic by the logicians, are not their invention: far from being confined to the sphere of science, they prove to be an integral part of our customary linguistic activities. The participants in a dialogue often check whether they are using the same code. "Do you follow me? Do you see what I mean?" the speaker aks [sic], or the listenec himself breaks in with "What do you mean?" Then, by replacing the questionable sign with another sign from the same linguistic code, or with a whole group of code signs, the sender of the message seeks to make it more accessible to the decoder. (Jakobson 1956a: 247-248)

The quintessential definition of metalanguage and metalinguistic operations. Note that "checking" and correcting appear here in a feedback-manner similar to metacommunication, which was also bifurcated into commentary upon codification and about relationship.

The type of aphasia affecting contexture tends to give rise to infantile one-sentence utterances and one-word sentences. Only a few longer, stereotyped, "ready made" sentences manage to survive. In advanced cases of this disease, each utterance is reduced to a single one-word sentence. (Jakobson 1956a: 251)

The case of A/exandre Chenevert (Babby 1982).

The development of a discourse may take place along two different semantic lines: one topic may lead to another either through their similarity or through their contiguity. The metaphoric way would be the most appropriate term for the first case and the metonymic way for the second, since they find their most condensed expression in metaphor and metonymy respectively. [...] In normal verbal behavior both processes are continually operative, but careful observation will reveal that under the influence of a cultural pattern, personality, and verbal style, preference is given to one of the two processes over the other. (Jakobson 1956a: 254)

Makes sense, insofar as the underlying principles are the very age-old ones described under the heading of "association of ideas". Also, the beginnings of cultural typology.

The primacy of the metaphoric process in the literary schools of romanticism and symbolism has been repeatedly acknowledged, but it is still insufficiently realized that it is the predominance of metonymy which underlies and actually predetermines the so-called "realistic" trend, which belongs to an intermediary stage between the decline of romanticism and the rise of symbolism and is opposed to both. Following the path of contiguous relationship, the realist author metonymically digresses from the plot to the atmosphere and from the characters to the setting in space and time. He is fond of synecdochic details. (Jakobson 1956a: 255)

The very stuff of Juri Lotman's typologies.

Ever since the productions of D. W. Griffith, the art of the cinema, with its highly developed capacity for changing the angle, perspective, and focus of "shots", has broken with the tradition of the theater and range an unprecedented variety of synechdochic "close-up" and metonymic "set-ups" in general. (Jakobson 1956a: 256)

The very stuff of Juri Lotman's film semiotics, particularly with regard to Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966).

Since poetry is focused upon the sign, and pragmatical prose primarily upon the referent, tropes and figures were studied mainly as poetic devices. (Jakobson 1956a: 258)

Pragmatical prose? Practical communication, surely.

Written in Eastham, Cape Cod, 1954, and published as Part II of the Fundamentals of Yanguage (The Hague, 1956), and, in a somewhat different version, with a dedication to Raymond de Saussure, in the volume Language: an Enquiry into its Meaning and Function (New York, 1957). (Jakobson 1956a: 259)

The semitoic "yanguage" caught my attention but the book, edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen and published by Harper, could be significant like that one from 1955.

Jakobson, Roman 1959e. On Linguistic Aspects of Translation. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 260-266.

For us, both as linguists and as ordinary word-users, the meaning of any linguistic sign is its translation into Some further, alternative sign, especially a sign "in which it is more fully developed", as Peirce, the deepest inquirer into the essence of signs, insistently stated. The term "bachelor" may be converted into a more explicit designation, "unmarried man", whenever higher explicitness is required. (Jakobson 1959e: 261)

An illustration already familiar from above.

An ability to speak a given language implies an ability to talk about this language. Such a "metalinguistic" operation permits revision and redefinition of the vocabulary used. The complementarity of both levels - object-language and metalanguage - was brought out by Niels Bohr: all well-defined experimental evidence must be expressed in ordinary [|] language, "in which the practical use of every word stands in complementary relation to attempt of its strict definition". (Jakobson 1959e: 262-263)

The value of metalinguistic operations for science and popularizing scientific results.

On the other hand, whatever the choice of Russian grammatical forms to translate the quoted English message, the translation will give no answer to the question of whether I hired or have hired the worker, or whether he/she was an indefinite or definite worker (a or the). (Jakobson 1959e: 264)

An indefinite tribe called Quest, an indefinitely perfect circle, an indefinite love like Pi.

In its cognitive function, language is minimally dependent on the grammatical pattern, because the definition of our experience stands in complementary relation to metalinguistic operations - the cognitive level of language not only admits but directly requires recoding interpretation, i.e., translation. Any assumption of ineffable or untranslatable cognitive data would be a contradiction in terms. But in jest, in dreams, in magic, briefly, in what one would call everyday verbal mythology, and in poetry above all, the grammatical category carry a high semantic import. Under these conditions, the question of translation becomes much more entangled and controversial. (Jakobson 1959e: 265)

Once again, by way of implication, a characteristic of mechanical use of language can be inferred. Jest, I assume, is included in this category with some reservations (the terminological shift between gossip and ritual becomes apparent).

Jakobson, Roman 1959d. Linguistic Glosses to Goldstein's "Wortbegriff". In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 267-271.

Some interpreters of Saussurian doctrine are prone to believe that his theory of the two-fold structure of linguistic entities is a novelty, but Saussure's approach to the sign both in concepts and terms originates, in fact, from a tradition lasting over two thousand years. His definition of the total signe as a combination of signifiant and signifié literally corresponds both to the Stoic semeion consisting of two primordial aspects - semainon and semainomenon - and to St. Augustine's adaptation of the ancient Greek model: signum = signans + signatum. This conception was inherited by the schoolmen and was, furthermore, revitalized by the semantic theories of the nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries, particularly by Bolzano and his followers. (Jakobson 1959d: 267)

Reasons for prefering Augustine's adaption over the Stoic designations not given.

As to the icon, it is able to present an individual landscape, a single spatial and temporal instance (a sample of a given species of trees in a certain part of the year - a maple tree during the warm season, as in Saussure's illustration). If the meaning of such an icon is generic, its generic sense is achieved through the synecdochic device of a pars pro toto; the icon becomes an "iconic symbol". (Jakobson 1959d: 268)

Such designations are plenty in Peircean writings, in light of which this is a robust simplification (if, at least, a useful one).

Jakobson, Roman 1963e. Parts and Wholes in Language. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 280-284.

Another frequent limitation was to treat the sentence as the highest linguistic unit. Superior wholes, namely utterances, which may embrace a higher integer of sentences, and the discourse, which normally is an exchange of utterances, remained outside the scope of linguistic analysis. (Jakobson 1963e: 280)

In previous accounts of the hierarchy the discourse is missing.

The fact that all of these entities, from the discourse to its ultimate components (distinctive features), have quite different statuses in respect to the verbal code and present diverse degrees of relative dependence does not justify the attempts to exclude some of these units from the realistic and comprehensive portrayal of language as it actually is - a multistoried hierarchy of wholes and parts. (Jakobson 1963e: 281)

Phraseology for the hierarchy.

As Nagel (1952) points out, "the word 'whole' may refer to a process, one of its parts being another process." The latest stage of speech analysis convincingly shows the importance of studying and correlating the different phases of the whole speech event, from source to destination: intention, innervation, gradual production, transmission, audition, perception, comprehension. Numerous examples of isolationist restriction of the study to a single phase of the process without reference to the subsequent phase, or cases of confusion and blendings between successive phases, have impeded analysis and deprived it of productive classificational criteria. The relative place of each phase within the whole process of speech requires adequate elucidation. (Jakobson 1963e: 281)

Complicating any simplistic attempt to reduce the functonal linguistic approach to intention, reception, or observation.

The comparison of incomplete and explicit messages, the fascinating problem of fragmentary propositions, challengingly outlined in Charles Peirce's perusal of "blanks" and in the semiotic studies of Frege and Husserl, strange as it may seem, have found no response among linguists. The artificial treatment of messages without reference to the superposed context once more exemplifies the illicit conversion of a mere part into a seemingly self-sufficient whole. (Jakobson 1963e: 282)

The mechanical holophrases, for example, are purported to devoid of any context, i.e. not illicit.

An important structural particularity of language is that at no stage of resolving higher units into their component parts does one encounter informationally pointless fragments. (Jakobson 1963e: 283)

Except on the level of utterance, right?

Stylistic variations, particularly in phonology, gradually have begun to disturb students of language who until recently had been possessed by the isolationist idea of a monolithic verbal code. The variety of functional, mutually convertible subcodes requires a careful and consistent structural analysis. Such an analysis makes possible a synchronic study of the phonemic and grammatical changes in progress, which initially present a necessary coexistence of the older and newer form in two related subcodes, and thus there emerges a bridge between descriptive and historical linguistics. On the other hand, the inquirer into the system of subcodes encompasses the various forms of interdialectal and even interlingual code switching and thus establishes an intimate bond between the description of an individual or local dialect and the vast horizons of linguistic geography. (Jakobson 1963e: 283)

Permanent dynamic synchrony from a general-technical standpoint: it opposes the monolithic view of language, includes newer and older layers of a language, and can include code-switching even between distinct languages. The variety of functional subcodes and their mutual convertibility remains ambiguous with reference to the aforementioned dilemma, if speech functions pertain to distinct subcodes.

The universal and near-universal laws of implication which underlie this taxonomy reveal a rigorous phonemic and grammatical stratification, which likewise determines the gradual acquisition of language by children and its decay in aphasia. (Jakobson 1963e: 284)

Synonym for "loss".

Jakobson, Roman 1962f. Anthony's Contribution to Linguistic Theory. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 285-288.

We have been taught that "egocentric speech is inner speech in its functions; it is speech directly inward." In a child's development, speech proves to be "interiorized psychologically before it is interiorized physically". (Jakobson 1962f: 285)

Relevant for conceptualizing the collective monologue of adults as well.

Our overt speech is directed toward an outside addressee and requires a listener. Our inner speech obviously meets with no listener and is not supposed to reach an actual addressee. Children's egocentric talk has no concern for any outside addressee, but it tolerates, not seldom even favors the presence of a listener, whereas their pre-sleep speech does imply the absence of human hearers. (Jakobson 1962f: 285)

In the collective monologue model the listener's attention is necessary for the speaker's social pleasure and self-enhancement.

Hence the verbal activities of the child in his crib bring us a step nearer to true inner speech, namely, to its most hidden and perplexing variety, the speech of dreams. (Jakobson 1962f: 285)

Cue dream linguistics, the tradition of which reaches back to late 1930s.

Jakobson, Roman 1964b. Toward a Linguistic Classification of Aphasic Impairments. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 289-306.

Linguists can only agree with Jackson that the pathology of language, far from being a random disturbance, obeys a set of rules; and that no rules underlying the regression of language can be elicited without the consistent use of linguistic techniques and methodology. (Jakobson 1964b: 289)

Another synonym for "loss".

Specialists in pathology must unite with specialists in language in order to cope with this important task and in order to liquidate the residue of that "chaos" which Head (1926) had exposed in contemporary views of aphasia. (Jakobson 1964b: 291)

Similar to how I feel about phatic studies (phatics).

In his recent survey of linguistic problems connected with the study of aphasia, the Moscow linguist Ivanov (1962) emphasized that first and foremost we need extensive samples of the spontaneous, unconstrained speech of patients, whereas at present our usual, often our only, material consists of medical tests and interviews, which display the metalingual operation of the patient rather than his unforced, habitual utterances. (Jakobson 1964b: 291)

That is, instead of speaking freely, the patient is reflecting about his use of language. This is very similar to the metacommunication of the inexperienced writer: "I'm writing this because..."

Kruszewski's Outline of the Science of Language, printed eighty years ago (1883) but still vital, connects these two operations with two models of relationship: selection is based on similarity, and combination on contiguity. (Jakobson 1964b: 292)

The source for his favourite terms.

Therefore, the so-called 'little tools of language' - connectives, articles, pronouns - which serve to cement the grammatical context, remain intact in the sensory disorder but are the first to be suppressed in the efferent disorder. The fundamental syntactic relationship is that of dependence; thus in agrammatism with its 'telegraphic style' all kinds of dependent words - adverbs, adjectives, finite verbs - are lost. (Jakobson 1964b: 294)

Important qualification for the sweeping statements about the retention of these 'little tools', above.

The affection of internal speech which, as Luria discovered, accompanies efferent disorders, finds its explanation in the essential characteristic of this type of aphasia: the break-down of contextual speech. Our internal speech is the context of our utterances; since all verbal contiguities are destroyed in the efferent type, the impairment of internal speech is inevitable. (Jakobson 1964b: 295)

Profound. Also invaluable for the theory of intrapersonal autocommunication.

The answer lies in the fact that the encoding and decoding processes present a cardinal difference is ordering. Encoding starts with the selection of constituents which are to be combined and integrated into a context. Selection is the antecedent, whereas building up the context is the consequent or the im of the encoder. For the decoder this order is inverted. First the decoder is faced with the context, second, he must detect its constituents; combination is the antecedent, selection is the consequent, that is, the ultimate aim of the decoding process. The encoder begins with an analytic operation which is followed by synthesis; the decoder receives the synthesized data and proceeds to their analysis. (Jakobson 1964b: 296)

The cryptanalytic model modified: here Jakobson uses "context" interchangeably with "message", once again strongly affirming the (purely) verbal nature of context in his understanding of the word.

Speech devoid of any cognitive function and reduced to mere emotive, interjectional exclamations remains out of the scope of this survey. (Jakobson 1964b: 301)

As is expected.

Jakobson, Roman 1966e. Linguistic Types of Aphasia. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 307-333.

Any terminology is conventional but in this case nomenclature creates an erroneous impression, as if the entire problem lay either in the damaged articulatory activities or in the harmed sensory apparatus. This misunderstanding disappears as soon as the term "encoding" is substituted for "motor" and "decoding" for "sensory". (Jakobson 1966e: 309)

Terminology is thus also modifiable.

The more independent the word is and the more it approaches the model of a normally initial word, the more viable it is. Thus nouns are preserved better than verbs, and substantives better than adjectives. (Jakobson 1966e: 310)

Independence or autonomy, in this sense, refers to freedom from context, the rest of the syntax.

It suffices to confront agrammatism as the pivotal sign of the efferent syndrome with the predicative nature of internal speech and, moreover, to recollect that internal speech is the usual context of our externalized, uttered speech, and that it is the destruction of the contextual frame which characterizes this type of aphasia. (Jakobson 1966e: 314)

A more explicit version of "Our internal speech is the context of our utterances" (1964b: 295).

I did not say that everybody who uses the terms "motor" and "sensory" interprets them mistakenly, but there still is a danger that some people in [|] some countries, and particularly in America, could misinterpret this terminology. However, I always tend to avoid discussion about terms. The most difficult and thankless task is to propose and promote better terms. My teacher used to say, "Call it what you want. All that matters is to know what you are speaking about." (Jakobson 1966e: 322-323)

Epigraphic. The work of definition is thankless.

For instance, in Paris Professor J. Alajouanine presented me with his most interesting cases of aphasia. There was one remarkable example of sensory aphasia, a French truck driver who had had a traffic accident. His high intelligence was preserved, however, and he was able to help us efficiently in our examination of his case. He understood what we were talking about, tried to inform us, spoke readily, and uttered long sentences. The main difficulty for this patient was to begin a sentence; its initial word was a serious handicap for him, especially when the sentence was the first in an utterance. (Jakobson 1966e: 329)

Problems with opening.

Jakobson, Roman 1964c. Visual and Auditory Signs. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 334-337.

Using C. S. Peirce's division of signs into indexes, icons and symbols, one may say that for the interpreter an index is associated with its object by a factual, existential contiguity and an icon by a factual similarity, whereas there is no compulsory existential connection between symbols and the object they refer to. A symbol acts "by virtue of a law". Conventional rules underlie the relations between the diverse symbols of one and the same system. The connection between the sensuous signans of a symbol and its intelligible (translatable) signatum is based on a learned, agreed upon, customary contiguity. Thus the structure of symbols and indexes implies a relation of contiguity (artificial in the former case, physical in the latter), while the essence of icons consists in similarity. On the other hand, the index, in contradistinction to the icon and symbol, is the only sign which necessarily involves the actual copresence of its object. (Jakobson 1964c: 335)

The Peircean base upon which Jakobson erects his fourth, artifice, characterized by a learned, agreed upon, customary similarity.

Jakobson, Roman 1967b. On the Relation between Visual and Auditory Signs. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 338-344.

It becomes ever clearer that the problem of belonging to a system of signs, to a semiotic system, as Charles Sanders Peirce would say, is a very pertinent criterion. Today we heard a further discussion about different systems of signs and in particular about the extent to which problems of speech and music are similar, as well as about the divergencies between the two systems. It is impossible to analyze exhaustively a single system of signs without constant reference to the general problems of semiotics, and in the context of this new and rapidly developing science the question of the relation between the various systems [|] of signs is one of the fundamental and burning questions. We face the task of constructing an overall model of sign production and sign perception and separate models for different types of signs. (Jakobson 1967b: 338-339)

Does this mean that the phatic subcode(s) of language merit a separate semiotic model?

When we say "simultaneity" we mean not only deficiencies in operating with "chords" of concurrent components such as the distinctive-feature bundles (phonemes) but also all the impairments affecting the selectional axis of language, impairments in the choice of grammatical or lexical forms which can occupy the same place in the sequence and thus constitute a commutative (or permutative) set within our verbal pattern. (Jakobson 1967b: 342)

Another iteration of the definition of "set" (e.g. (sub)code).

Jakobson, Roman 1966d. Quest for the Essence of Language. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 345-359.

This doctrine considered the sign (σημεΐον) as an entity constituted by the relation of the signifier (σημαΐνον) and the signified (σημαινόμενον). The former was defined as "perceptible" (αισθητόν) and the latter as "intelligible" (νοητόν) or, to use a more linguistic designation, "translatable". In addition, reference appears to be clearly distinguished from meaning by the term τυγχάνον. St. Augustine's writings exhibit an adaptation and further development of the Stoic inquiry into the action of signs (σημείωσις), with Latinized terms, in particular signum comprising both signans and signatum. Incidentally, this pair of correlative concepts and labels were adopted by Saussure only at the middle of his last course in general linguistics, maybe through the medium of H. Gomperz's Noologie (1908). (Jakobson 1966d: 345)

Greek originals of terms mentioned above.

The symbol acts chiefly by imputed, learned contiguity between signans and signatum. This connection "consists in its being a rule" and does not depend on the presence or absence of any similarity or physical contiguity. The knowledge of this conventional rule is obligatory for the interpreter of any given symbol, and solely and simply because of this rule will the sign actually be interpreted. Originally the word symbol was used in a similar sense also by Saussure and his disciples, yet later he objected to this term because it traditionally involves some natural bond between the signans and signatum (e.g., the symbol of justice, a pair of scales), and in his notes the conventional signs pertaining to a conventional system were tentatively labeled seme, while Peirce had selected the term seme for a special, quite different purpose. It suffices to confront Peirce's use of the term symbol with the various meanings of symbolism to perceive the danger of annoying ambiguities; but the lack of a better substitute compels us for the time being to preserve the term introduced by Peirce. (Jakobson 1966d: 347)

The word "imputed" becomes relevant later down the line when the proposes the fourth, i.e. imputed similarity (as opposed to the imputed contiguity of the symbol). Seme sounds as interesting as Postgate's rheme.

As a matter of fact, the agreement with the Saussurian dogma of arbitrary sign was far from unanimous. In Otto Jespersen's opinio (1916), the role of arbitrariness in language was excessively overstated, and neither Whitney nor Saussure succeeded in solving the problem of the relationship between sound and meaning. J. Damourette & E. Pinchon's and D. L. Bolinger's rejoinders were identically entitled: "Le signe n'est pas arbitraire" (1927), "The sign is not arbitrary" (1949). E. Benveniste in his timely essay "Nature du signe linguistique" (1939) brought out the crucial fact that only for a detached, alien onlooker is the bond between the signans and signatum a merely contingence, whereas for the native user of the same language this relation is a necessity. (Jakobson 1966d: 348)

Along with linearity, this is the second Saussurean dogma Jakobson protests against. The Otto Jespersen piece is sadly in his native language, on "Today's Language in Children and Adults", which is why Jakobson must have read it before fleeing to America.

If a chronological diagram symbolizes the ratio of increase in population by a dotted line and mortality by a continuous line, these are, in Peirce's parlance, "symbolide features". (Jakobson 1966d: 350)

Tantalizing. "Symbolic" is overused and crude.

Such linguistic properties as the connectedness of linguistic entities with each other and with the initial and final limit of the sequence, the immediate neighborhood and distance, the centrality and peripherality, the symmetrical relation, and the elliptic removal of single components find their close equivalents in the constitution of graphs. (Jakobson 1966d: 351)

Alias marginal phases.

When one traces the varied historical processes which persistently built up the diagram - longer plural/shorter singular forms - in diverse Slavic languages, these and many similar facts of linguistic experience prove to be at variance with the Saussurian averment that "in the sound structure of the signans there is nothing which would bear any resemblance to the value or meaning of the sign." (Jakobson 1966d: 352)

Define averment: an affirmation or allegation.

Jakobson, Roman 1956c. One of the Speculative Anticipations: An Old Russian Treatise on the Divine and Human Word. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 369-374.

The grammarian treatise inversely resorts to the twofold birth of the Son of God in order to explain the fundamental verbal dichotomy, the seemingly antinomical relationship between the speech event and the pre-existent language design (parole and langue, in terms of Ferdinand de Saussure, who promoted this conceptual dyad in modern linguistics). (Jakobson 1956c: 370)

Yet another way to define the langue.

Question: What was formed first: reason through letters or letters through reason? [↩] Answer: Reason was not formed through letters but letters through reason, because the Divine Scriptures say: we shall create man in our image and likeness, and it was not said: I shall create, but we shall create. And it was not said: in my image, but in our image. (Jakobson 1956c: 371)

Poppycock. In the original Hebrew of Genesis 1:27 the relevant words are bā-rā, "he created", and bə-ṣal-mōw, "in His own image". The author was probably confused because the same passage has a repetition: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them", switching the plurality of the creation for the plurality of the creator(s). The holy trinity is a farse, forced into Christianity to deify some bloke named Jeshua.

[...] His threefold image, in three incorporeal faces that are Red, green, and yellow in their essence. For these three images are neither separated nor commingled, but the green is green, the red is red, and the yellow is yellow; for the green does not call itself red or yellow, neither does the red call itself green or yellow, nor does the yellow call itself green or red. (Jakobson 1956c: 372)

So close to RGB.

Jakobson, Roman 1960c. The Kazan' School of Polish Linguistics and its Place in the International Development of Phonology. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 394-428.

Thomas Aquinas treated speech sounds as "primarily designed to convey meaning" (principialiter data ad significandum), but as having no meaning in themselves. (Jakobson 1960c: 395)

Latin for what Malinowski was arguing against.

All these pregnant hypotheses fell into complete oblivion, however, and the orthodox scholarly doctrine of the last century treated speech sounds as bare sense data, without any reference to the tasks they perform in language. It was only toward the last third of the nineteenth century that a few linguists saw once again the need for a functional approach to speech sounds. (Jakobson 1960c: 396)

General description of linguistic functionalism.

This attitude becomes understandable if we realize that in his inaugural appearance in 1870 Baudouin had already paid particular attention to the importance of distinguishing the two aspects of language which are interrelated and which imply one another. The first of them, or "language as a definite complex of certain constituents and categories, which exists only in potentia", he called simply 'language' (jazyk). The second aspect, "language as a continually repeatable", received the name of 'speech' (reč'). This pair of terms and concepts appeared again in the linguistic works of our century, especially in those of F. de Saussure. It was not until the time of his lectures on general linguistics (1906-1911) that he adopted the distinction between langue, which "exists potentially in everyone" and parole, the concrete use of that system by a given individual. The corresponding English labels introduced by Alan Gardiner are language and speech. The correlative concepts of communication theory are code and messages. (Jakobson 1960c: 411)

Not sure if Gardiner introduced these labels but he was certainly very insistent on their applicability, going so far as to note linguists only on the basis of whether they distinguish these two aspects exactly as he does. This is the first reference to Gardiner's The Theory of Speech and Language I've seen thus far, and the year (1960) is certainly opportune. Earlier he had referenced Gardiner's book on the proper name.

As a matter of fact it is not an accident that distant Kazan', "lost far off in the East", as the eldest of Baudouin's students put it, became the cradle of both of these bold and revolutionary doctrines. Out-of-the-way places are sometimes a fine terrain for invention. If these ideas were first published, in Kruszewski's words, "far from the Western European centers of learning, in the easternmost Russian university", then this is due in no small measure to the fact that the academic tribunals were far away, the fear of criticism weaker, and so greater possibilities were open for pioneering audacity. (Jakobson 1960c: 414)

This is what Juri Lotman said about the "periphery".

What in the young Baudouin had been merely a terminological vagueness later created a dangerous confusion of concepts and methods. Despite all the Baudouin's boldness and originality in operating with linguistic data, his philosophical and psychological views did not go beyond the tenets that he had learned in school and the prevailing ideas of the age. (Jakobson 1960c: 418)

The very same thing was said about Malinowski, with the added addendum that since he was a polyglot, no-one was exactly sure what his sources were. This may be read as a warning: knowledge of philosophy and psychology is necessary for a successful scientist (in whatever humanitarian field).

Moreover, in the further development of Baudouin doctrine, [|] a similar fate fell to language itself: language, the most important tool of interpersonal communication (or, as Sapir defined it, "a great force of socialization, probably the greatest that exists") was relegated to the area of individual psychology. In Baudouin's late works "individual psychic processes" are considered as the only reality in language, while its social aspect is branded a pure fiction, devoid of objective existence, or an artificial construct. (Jakobson 1960c: 418-419)

A common theme in later social psychology. Note, also, that Malinowski, too, held "society" - as Durkheim defined it (in a rather constructionist bent) - to be nothing more than an "atmosphere" of sociability.

Jakobson, Roman 1943a. Polish-Russian Cooperation in the Science of Language. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 451-455.

The Slavic unity is in the first place a linguistic unity. The propinquity of the Slavic languages creates strong ties in some cultural spheres, and the more such a sphere is connected with language, the stronger are these ties. (Jakobson 1943a: 451)

Also why Latvia and Lithuania get along better than Estonia, which befriends Finland more than its southern neighbours..

In the 17th century, Polish was in Russia as Czech had been formerly in Poland, the language of polite society. In Moscow at that time, Polish was deemed an occidentalized variety of the Slavic tongue. Monk Avraamij disparaged the contemporary passion for Polish as in the preceding century Górnicki had satirized the Polish obsession with the Czech language. Not only through Ukrainian but also directly, Polish enriched the Russian vocabulary with numerous words, partliy indigenous, partly Czech in origin, and a great many of these words became deeply rooted. (Jakobson 1943a: 451)

"Vodka" being a superb example of a Polish word entering Russian. Johannes Aavik likewise enriched Estonian on the basis of Finnish.

Yet in Slavic countries, especially in Czechoslovakia and in Poland, they found not only imitators, but also excellent and original continuers. The incipient, rigorously mechanistic conception of form and function gave rise to an acute crisis in the formal school, and this crisis was the most productive in Polish and Czechoslovak science, where formalism evolved into a subtle structuralism. The last works of the [|] Prague Circle (J. Mukařovský, etc.) and the Polish group (M. Kridl, F. Siedlecki, etc.) widened the horizons of poetics and of all the "science of signs" (semiotic) and displayed a new, fruitful symbiosis of three Slavic creative trends. (Jakobson 1943a: 454-455)

Manfred Kridl developed an "integral method" (cf. Grishakova & Salupere 2015), and Franciszek Siedlecki (ibid.) worked on poetics and metrics.

Jakobson, Roman 1966e. Henry Sweet's Path Toward Phonemics. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 456-467.

While reading these and many similar testimonials in the various memoirs on Henry Sweet, I unwittingly fused these appraisals with the powerful impression I retained from the first, circumstantial conversation with J. R. Firth in a New York tavern toward the end of the 1940s and our last heart-to-heart talk of June 1960 in his enchanting Lindfield home. (Jakobson 1966e: 456)

His contact with Firth may also explain why he interpreted Malinowski's phatic communion in the key of greetings.

Sweet's linguistic doctrine proceeds from the thesis that "language is essentially based on the dualism of form and meaning". Hence all attempts to disregard this dualism and "to reduce language to strict logical or psychological categories, by ignoring its formal side, have failed ignominiously. The form of language is its sounds. (Jakobson 1966e: 457)

The form of the message and the meaning deciphered with the aid of the linguistic code.

When in 1943 L. Bloomfield was asked what were the works that gave an impulse to the phonemic part of his manual, he referred to Sapir and Trubetzkoy, but first and foremost to Sweet's note on "Significant Sound-Distinctions", from which, as the author of Language confessed, actually arose his term and idea of 'distinctive features'. (Jakobson 1966e: 464)

B-but "The very notion of feature, including its binary nature, also comes directly from Jakobson." (Waugh & Monville-Buston 2002: liv)

It is characteristic that even in the preface to his History of English Sounds from the Earliest Period, the author criticized the "one-sidedly historical spirit" of the German philological tradition or, as he said in 1874, the "mainly historical and antiquarian" tendencies of German scholarship. [↩] In his famous Presidential Address of 1877 Sweet condemned the exclusively genealogical orientation of comparative philology which values "the form of later languages solely according to the amount of light they throw on older forms". (Jakobson 1966e: 464)

Something I must keep in mind in my own historical and "antiquarian" approach to phatics, that it wouldn't ignore the novel contributions of later developments.

Jakobson, Roman 1944a. Franz Boas' Approach to Language. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 477-488.

Self-instruction can be dangerous, but in Boas' case it was his great power: he remained free of the various prejudices and antiquated ideas which weighed heavily on linguistics and ethnology. (Jakobson 1944a: 477)

Don't I know it.

Boas proceeded from exactly the same starting point: [|] although "the fundamental ideas of language" are in constant use by a speech community, normally they do not emerge into the consciousness of its members. But whereas the traditional doctrine was permanently inhibited by "the unconsciousness of linguistic processes", Boas (and also Sapir, who in this respect followed him faithfully) knew how to draw the correct conclusions from such premises: the individual consciousness usually does not interfere with the grammatical or phonemic pattern of language and consequently does not "give rise to secondary reasoning and to re-interpretation". The conscious individual re-interpretations of fundamental cultural institutions are capable of obscuring and complicating not only the real history of their formation but also their formation itself. (Jakobson 1944a: 478-479)

Phaticity has, unfortuitously, become one of the fundamental ideas of speech, and given way to numerous results of secondary reasoning.

Jakobson, Roman 1959e. Boas' View of Grammatical Meaning. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 489-496.

Once having chosen the active construction, the speaker must, furthermore, make such binary selections as (B) preterit (remote) or non-preterit: 'killed' vs. 'kills'; (C) perfect - in Otto Jespersen's interpretation (1924, 1954) retrospective, permansive, inclusive - or non-perfect: 'has killed' vs 'kills', 'had killed' vs. 'killed'; [...] (Jakobson 1959e: 490)

"Permansive" sounds awkward but valid.

Bilingual equations, but first and foremost the interpretation of concepts through equivalent expressions, is precisely what linguists understand by 'meaning' and what corresponds to Charles Peirce's (1934) semiotic definition of a symbol's meaning as its 'translation into other symbols'. Thus meaning can and must be stated in terms of linguistic discriminations and identifications, just as, on the other hand, linguistic discriminations are always made with regard to their semantic value. The responses of speakers to their language, or - as one could say now - [|] 'metalinguistic operations', are equational propositions which arise as soon as there is uncertainty whether both interlocutors use the same verbal code, and how far one's utterance is understood by the other. Such metalinguistic interpretations of a message through paraphrases or synonyms, or through actual translation into another language, or even into a different set of signs, play a tremendous role in any process of language learning, whether by infants or by adults. (Jakobson 1959e: 493-494)

Bilingual equations = interlingual translation; equivalent expressions = intralingual translation. The "response to" formulation carries an implication for the other metacommunicative operation, i.e. reducing uncertainty about relationship.

Jakobson, Roman 1956d. Sergej Karcevskij: August 28, 1884 - November 7, 1955. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 517-521.

His gradual dissolution of Russian speech from its amplest to its minutest constituents enabled him to outline several cardinal processes and to discern their semantic values. His grasp of intonations in their relation to syntactic structure, and to the various roles of the utterance within the dialogue, surpasses the limits of Russian philology and has influenced the theory and concrete study of intonation in international science. Linguistics will respond to his appeal to pursuit the pivotal inquiry into the structure of the dialogue as the primary form of discourse. (Jakobson 1956d: 519)

Could Karcevskij/Karcevski be the member of some linguistic circle Jakobson refers to with regard to intonation contours? From a random French paper: "Notre langage est composé d'énoncés. À chaque énoncé plus ou moins terminé correspond une phrase. La phrase est composée de mots qui sont reliés les uns aux autres selon les lois de la grammaire et assemblés par l’intonation." (Karcevski 1925: 12

The intersection of morphology and syntax attracted him to the captivating problem of the common semantic value of preverbs and corresponding prepositions, and the interplay of two rival aspects of language, the cognitive and the emotive, inspires his ingenious insight into interjections and especially into the curious link between them and conjunctions. (Jakobson 1956d: 521)

In 1956 Jakobson was trigger-happy to employ the functional lingo. The citation is to "Introduction à l'étude de l'interjection" (Karcevski 1941).

Jakobson, Roman 1963d. Efforts Towards a Means-Ends Model of Language in Interwar Continental Linguistics. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 522-526.

These efforts proceed from a universally recognized view of language as a tool of communication. Statements about language as a tool, instrument, vehicle, etc., can be found in any textbook, but, strange as it seems, the apparently self-evident inference from this truism was not drawn in the linguistic tradition of the last century. (Jakobson 1963d: 523)

Upon my last and rather recent reading of this very paper I noted that this was the exact sentiment Malinowski railed against with his terminological invention. By now I should add that the 19th century probably did not view language as a means of communication because the word carried, up to the first decade of the 20th century at the very least, the connotation of transport, e.g. water and rail communication (cf. upcoming post titled "Communication Reviews 1910"). In effect, PC is a tirade against the transport model of communication, of passing ideas qua packages from person to person.

It was precisely the reference to the tasks performed by the phonic elements of language which enabled the investigators to replace step by step the grossly material, metrical description of speech sounds by a relational analysis and to dissolve the sound-flow continuum into discrete constituents. (Jakobson 1963d: 524)

These discrete constituents are binary oppositions, i.e. the smallest indivisible units of language that appear in the sound-flow as simultaneous bundles.

Jakobson, Roman 1965d. An Example of Migratory Terms and Institutional Models (On the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Moscow Linguistic Circle). In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 527-538.

Although the members of such novel fellowships fully realized and stated their dynamic, creative and flexible character in comparison with the rigidly ordered and conventional academic societies, throughout the twenties they frequently applied the traditional label obščestvo 'society' and sobranie 'assembly' also to their own pioneering teams. (Jakobson 1965d: 528)

Situations of intellectual communion.

Each of them met in the home or study of its initiators and attempted to maintain an informal atmosphere; each included but a limited number of active, mainly young and identically oriented, participants; each favored discussion and was patently opposed to ready-made authoritative doctrines; each tended to promote some collective tasks. (Jakobson 1965d: 528)

Not all informal gatherings are mentally fruitless.

First the name of the newly launched association and two years later the title of its journal aroused an onomastic debate in the steering committee of the circle. It was objected that the strong extralinguistic connotations of the English vocable "word" inhibit the use of this term as a synecdochic representant of "languag." Therefore the editorial declared that "the title seemed to some of our friends too ambiguous": Why WORD? "Because the word, in its various aspects, is a focal point of the science of language." (F. de Saussure, E. Sapir and V. V. Vinogradov were quoted to reinforce this assertion). Moreover, "not only linguistics but also sociology, anthropology, and logic deal with the word. With the title WORD we intend to emphasize the multiform natural structure of linguistic reality and the necessity for studying language in all the fulness of its various functions and relations." This attitude was exemplified by opening the sequence of articles with two interdisciplinary studies - one on the social frame of language (Alf Sommerfelt) and the other on the similar application of structural analysis in linguistics and anthropology (Claude Lévi-Strauss). (Jakobson 1965d: 536)

Looks like I need to read Word beyond that one Cassirer paper on structuralism.

Jakobson, Roman 1953d. Results of a Joint Conference of Anthropologists and Linguists. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 554-567.

However, I have studied the theory of communication and I know that a statement contains information only when there is a two-choice situation. But for a man who closes a Conference there is no two-choice situation: it can never be heard from him that the Conference was not successful. (Jakobson 1953d: 555)

Jakobson's definition of communication.

Now, one can only agree with our friend N. McQuown who realized perfectly that there is no equality between systems of signs, and that the basic, the primary, the most important semiotic system is language: language really is the foundation of culture. In relation to language, other systems of symbols are concomitant or derivative. Language is the principal means of informative communication. (Jakobson 1953d: 556)

Language is the primary modelling system of culture, as Lotman would say. Note the appearance of "informative communication" elsewhere.

Let us analyse the basic factors participating in linguistic communication: any speech event involves a message and four items connected with it - the sender, the receiver, the topic of the message, and the code used. The relation between these four items is variable. E. Sapir analysed the linguistic phenomena prevalently from the point of view of their "cognitive function", which he conceived as the primary function of language. But this emphasis of the message on its topic is far from being the only possibility. At present, the emphasis of the message on its other [|] factors begins to attract greater attention among linguists both in this country and abroad, in particular the emphasis on the communicators - the sender and receiver. Thus we welcome Smith's keen observations of those linguistic components which serve to characterize the speaker and his attitude to what he is speaking about and toward the listener. (Jakobson 1953d: 556-557)

The phrase "connected with the message" might be symptomatic (as opposed to connected with the speech event). The topic of the message disappears in favour of reference (to the context), which in turn takes over the "cognitive function". Channel was inserted later in place of the communicative relationship - here embodied in the attitude toward the listener, as it is in I. A. Richards' independent work.

Sometimes these different functions act separately, but normally there appears a bundle of functions. Such a bundle is not a simple accumulation but a hierarchy of functions, and it is very important to know what is the primary and what The secondary function. I was pleased with all the stimuli which I found on this problem in Smith's paper. I shall, however, not use his very rich terminology. I must confess that I agree on this point with V. Ray. New terms are very often a children's disease of a new science or of a new branch of a science. I now prefer to avoid too many new terms. (Jakobson 1953d: 557)

The proceedings were published is a supplement to International Journal of American Linguistics 19(2) (1953) under the title Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics: Memoir, Issue 8 (Waverly Press, 1953). In any case, this is the boldest exclamation about his functional scheme; sometimes I've wondered if I dreamt up this passage where he says that one can distinguish primary and secondary functions, or even more, since they're supposedly in a hierarchy of dominant and subordinated functions.

The coinage "metalinguistics" is - I agree with Y. R. Chao and others - a little bit dangerous, because metalinguistics and metalanguage means other thhings in symbolic logic. Since it is better to have unclouded interdepartmental relations with logicians, one should rather avoid such ambiguities. (Jakobson 1953d: 557)

And yet he refers to logicians as the origin of this term.

Returning now to the linguistic functions - I mentioned the emphasis on the topic, on the sender, on the receiver; and we see how many new things we are able to do when analysing this paramount problem of [|] sender and receiver. Moreover, there is the possibility of an emphasis either on the code or on the message. This emphasis of the message on its own self is called the poetic function. (Jakobson 1953d: 557-558)

Thus "emphasis on" joins the company of "respond to" and "set on".

The proper subject of inquiry into poetry is precisely language, seen from the point of view of its preponderant function: the emphasis on the message. This poetic function, however, is not confined to poetry. There is only a difference in hierarchy: this function can either be subordinated to other functions or appear as the organizing function. The conception of poetic language as language with a predominant poetic function will help us in understanding the everyday poetic language, where the hierarchy of functions is different, but where this poetic (or aesthetic) function necessarily exists and plays a palpable role both in the synchronic and diachronic aspect of language. There are instructive border cases: the largest linguistic code unit functions at the same time as the smallest poetic whole, and in this marginal area the research of our frined D. B. Shimkin on proverbs is a fascinating theme, since the proverb is both a phraseological unit and a poetic work. (Jakobson 1953d: 558)

The dominant function "organizes" the subordinated ones. The code unit once again brings up the topic of holo- or set phrases.

When I read all that was written by the communication engineers, especially American and English (in particular E. C. Cherry, D. Gabor, and MacKay), on message and code, I realized of course that both these conjoined aspects have been for a long time familiar to the linguistic and logical theories of language here and abroad under various dichotomous names [...] (Jakobson 1953d: 558)

The million dollar question is: were Ruesch and Bateson (1951) among all that was read?

But at the same time I must confess that the Code-Message concepts of communication theory are much clearer, much less ambiguous, and much more operational than the traditional presentation of this dichotomy in the theory of language. I believe that it's preferable to work at present with these well-defined, measurable and analysable concepts without replacing them by new, once again somewhat vague terms, such as the "common core". (Jakobson 1953d: 559)

It could be argued that some vagueness would be beneficial when proceeding from language to culture, as "code" in cultural semiotics once again becomes ambiguous, in no way "measurable and analysable".

There are indeed many stimuli to be gained for linguists from the theory of communication. A normal communication process operates with an encoder and decoder. The decoder receives a message. He knows the code. The message is new to him, but, by virtue of this code, he interprets the message. To comprehend this operation we now have the great [|] help of psychology. One of the most pleasant experiences we had during this conference was Osgood's brilliant report on the psycholinguistic analysis of decoding and encoding processes. [↩] The receiver understands the message thanks to his knowledge of the code. The position of the linguist who deciphers a language he doesn't know is different. He tries to deduce the code from the message: thus he is not a decoder; he is what is called a cryptanalyst. The decoder is a virtual addressee of the message. The American cryptanalysts who, during the war, read the Japanese secret message were not the addressees of these messages. (Jakobson 1953d: 559-560)

Another iteration of the cryptanalytical model. Note that this distinction makes a reappearance in "Language in Operation", wherein he overhears a message aboard a train.

In the field of interaction between message and code, this Conference has shown great progress. We have discussed here, on various levels, the relation between two participants in speech communication. As we well know, one of the essential duties of language is to bridge space - to span distance - to create a spatial continuity - to find and establish a common language through the air. (Jakobson 1953d: 560)

Once again the relation between the communicants is elucidated only on the superficial spatio-temporal level.

There is the possibility of a search for at least a partial understanding, and these are in such relations interlingual mediators, interpreters - bilingual people. Here we reach a very relevant, decisive point. Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics, because the division into departments is artificial - the department of French, the department of Italian, etc. Are the contiguous languages in complete segregation? If there is an iron curtain, we know how easily such a curtain is penetrated by various forms of verbal communication. We know that there exist bilingual areas or bilingual groups of speakers, and the sociology of language presents us with interesting accounts of them. Since bilingual people can obviously speak to and influence a higher number of listeners, they consequently have a higher power, a higher prestige. What is then the result? There is an adaptation on the part of the bilingual person from one language to another and a subsequent diffusion of certain phenomena stimulated by bilingual people among non-bilingual people. (Jakobson 1953d: 561)

Compare to the bilingual translation blocs in Juri Lotman's semiosphere model.

We were accustomed to textbooks advocating a complete split between synchronic and diachronic linguistics. They were presented as two entirely diverse methodologies, two basically different problems. This is, in my opinion, obsolete and I am in complete agreement with the views of Hill: the history of a language can only be the history of a linguistic pattern, a linguistic system, which undergoes different mutations. Each mutation must be analysed from the point of view of the pattern as it was before the mutation and after it. Here we come to an important point. I formulate it in other terms than Hill, but I hope that we will be no less in accord. It seems to me that the great mistake and confusion, the sharp separation between synchrony and diachrony, was to a high degree due to a confusion between two dichotomies. One is the dichotomy of synchrony and diachrony, and the other is the dichotomy between static and dynamic. Synchronic is not equal to static. When at a movie I ask you what you see at a given moment on the screen, you won't see statics - you'll see horses running, people walking, and other movements. Where do you see statics? Only on the billboards. The billboard is static but not necessarily synchronic. Suppose a billboard remains unchanged for a year - that is static. And it is completely legitimate to ask what is static in linguistic diachrony. (Jakobson 1953d: 562)

Permanent dynamic synchrony illuminated further. The two dichotomies are discussed closer in relation with the Kazan school, somewhere above.

Smith, who has the rare gift of very concrete exemplification and presentation and operates with "differential meaning" as tangibly as with his rich uncle in the charming story he told us, said that we must find out whether the meaning is the same or different. He certainly realizes as well as we that it's easier to proclaim the principle of Sameness and Otherness than to resolve whether actually two Sign-Events implement the same Design, or whether the two Tokens are to be assigned to two different Sign-Types. Identification and differentiation are but two sides of one and the same problem, the main problem of the whole of linguistics on both its levels - signans and signatum, to use the good old terms of St. Augustine, or "expression" and "content" as L. Hjelmslev christens them in his glossematic life work. (Jakobson 1953d: 565)

Does mere otherness come with mere sameness?

It was insistently stated from 1867 by Peirce, who, I repeat, must be regarded as a genuine and bold forerunner of structural linguistics. As he said, the sign, in order to be understood, and the linguistic sign in particular, requires not only the two participants of the given speech event but needs, moreover, an "interpretant". According to Peirce, the function of such an interpretant is performed by another sign or set of signs that occur together [|] with the given sign, or might occur instead of it. (Jakobson 1953d: 565-566)

Hence interpretant becomes synonymous either with context (signs that occur together with the given sign) or with "equivalent expressions" (that might occur instead of it). To my knowledge this is a view unique to Jakobson.

Jakobson, Roman 1961a. Introduction to the Symposium on the Structure of Language and Its Mathematical Aspects. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 568-569.

This Symposium arose through the fortunate initiative of the American Mathematical Society which fully realized that the attention of linguists, logicians and mathematicians has become focused upon problems of mutual interest. (Jakobson 1961a: 568)

The results are published in Proceedings of Symposia in Applied Mathematics XII (1961), featuring Quine, Chomsky, Halle, Hockett, and others mentioned also in the anthropological conference summary. Rulon Wells's "A measure of subjective information" looks especially tantalizing; he also cantributed "Meaning and use" to Word 10 (1954).

Jakobson, Roman 1961b. Linguistics and Communication Theory. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 570-579.

When they define the selective information of a message as the minimum number of binary decisions which enable the receiver to reconstruct what he needs to elicit from the message on the basis of the daa already available to him, this realistic formula is perfectly applicable to the role of distinctive features in verbal communication. (Jakobson 1961b: 571)

Semitoic daa.

The notion of "redundancy", taken over by communication theory from the rhetorical branch of linguistics, acquired an important place in the development of this theory, has been challengingly redefined as "one minus the relative entropy", and under this new aspect has reentered present-day linguistics as one of its crucial topics. The necessity of a strict distinction between different types of redundancy is now realized in the theory of communication as well as in linguistics, where the concept of redundancy encompasses on the one hand pleonastic means as opposed to explicit conciseness (brevitas in the traditional nomenclature of rhetoric) and on the other hand explicitness in contradistinction to ellipsis. (Jakobson 1961b: 571)

Define pleonasm: the use of more words than those necessary to denote mere sense.

The constituents of the code, for instance, the distinctive features, literally occur and really function in speech communication. Both for the receiver and for the transmitter, as R. M. Fano points out, the operation of selection forms the basis of "information-conveying processes". (Jakobson 1961b: 574)

Phraseological alternative for "conveying meaning".

Language is never monolithic; its overall code includes a set of subcodes, and such questions as that of the rules of transformation of the optimal, explicit kernel code into the various degrees of elliptic subcodes and their comparison as to the amount of information requires both a linguistic and an engineering examination. The convertible code of language, with all its fluctuations from subcode to subcode and with all the current progressing changes which this code is undergoing, is to be jointly and comprehensively described by the means of linguistics and communication theory. An insight into the dynamic synchrony of language, involving the space-time coordinates, must replace the traditional pattern of arbitrarily restricted static descriptions. (Jakobson 1961b: 574)

There's a certain degeree of equivalence betwees subcodes. The dynamic synchrony is permanent.

Obviously "the inseparability of objective content and observing subject", singled out by Niels Bohr as a premise of all well-defined knowledge, must be definitely taken into account also in linguistics, and the position of the observer in relation to the language observed and described must be exactly identified. First, as formulated by Jurgen Ruesch, the information an observer can collect depends upon his location within or outside the system. Furthermore, if the observer is located within the communication system, language presents two considerably different aspects when seen from the two ends of the communication channel. Roughly, the encoding process goes from meaning to sound and from the lexicogrammatical to the phonological level, whereas the decoding process displays the opposite direction - from sound to meaning and from features to symbols. While a set (Einstellung) toward immediate constituents takes precedence in speech production, for speech perception the message is first a stochastic process. (Jakobson 1961b: 575)

Availing the importance of the cryptanalytical model: it's the connection point with Ruesch's work. Though the reference is to a paper in Toward a Unified Theory of Human Behavior (1956), it's probably that Jakobson had minimally read his "Synopsis of the Theory of Human Communication" (Ruesch 1953). The identification of framework and network in respective nomenclatures is essential for elucidating the role of the observer in overhearing a message on a train.

According to Weaver, the analysis of communication "has so penetratingly cleared the air that one is now, perhaps for the first time, ready for a real theory of meaning", and especially for handling "one of the most significant but difficult aspects of meaning, namely the influence of context". Linguists are gradually finding the way of tackling meaning and in particular the relation between general and contextual meaning as an intrinsic linguistic topic, distinctly separate from the ontological problems of reference. (Jakobson 1961b: 577)

Another passage that has festered in my mind for so long I might have thought I dreamt it up. By now it's self-evident that the semantic question is most closely related to the referential function, or, with reference to Charles Morris, without naming his name, the relation between sign and thing.

Jakobson, Roman 1963e. Implications of Language Universals for Linguistics. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 580-592.

Particularly fruitful are his remarks on what we would call, in Charles Peirce's terminology (1.c.), the 'iconic' aspect of word order: "The order of elements in language parallels that in physical experience or the order of knowledge." The initial position of a word in unemphatic speech can reflect not only precedence in time but also priority in rank (the sequence "the President and the Secretary of State" is far more usual than the reverse), or it may reflect a primary, irremovable role within the given message. (Jakobson 1963e: 585)

From what I've seen in this collection, Peirce's views of iconicity are somewhat odd when compared to the predominantly visual interpretation of iconicity in later interpreters (e.g. diagrams are iconic and probably some of the best examples of icons).

"The standard works on semantics," Weinreich states, "are on the whole preoccupied with the one semiotic process of naming." (Jakobson 1963e: 588)

Nimetamise semiootika.

Finally, the quesiton acutely raised by H. M. Hoenigswald and vividly discussed here - "Are there Universals of Linguistic Change?" - has enabled us to expose the most rigid of the habitual segregations, the fictitious chasm between the study of constancy and changes. (Jakobson 1963e: 591)

At first I read this as a diminutive of the philosophical term (Peirce/Clay?), quesit. But alas, it is a semitoic quesiton.

Jakobson, Roman 1964d. Results of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 593-602.

This representation would be even more complete, if there had been no annoying mishaps in the input and output of scientists, or, to put it in administrative terms, obstructions in the entry and exit permits. (Jakobson 1964d: 594)

Curious computer metaphor.

In both hemispheres, diverse regional schools bearing the names of cities or preceptors are losing their exclusiveness and forgetting their recent dissensions. If there are still here and there reservations of regionalism or esprit de clocher, they perhaps attract the lovers of antiques but have hardly a vital part in the worldwide scientific search. (Jakobson 1964d: 595)

How many such schools are left in science today? My impression is that these days they are more like academic lore.

In particular, as regards his [Giuliano Bonfante's] statement that "the Crocean or esthetic theory of language can and must be integrated with the structural theory" and that "special attention must be devoted to the 'peripheral' zone of language - slang, jargon, affective and expressive terms, child language, onomatopoeia, interjections", we observe at our meetings how strongly linguists today are absorbed precisely with the structure of all these "peripheral" phenomena. Let us quote just a few topics of the papers presented: "affective linguistic signs", expressive and appellative phonology with particular reference to the manifold function of pitch, the non-intellectual "spheres of communication", "emphasis as a grammatical category", "the emotion in a sentence", sound-symbolism, "the development of grammar in child language". All these problems are being gradually incorporated into the structural analysis of language. (Jakobson 1964d: 597)

Pretty much the whole gradient of phatic forms of communication in its various theoretical off-shoots.

Several instructive "sociolinguistic" papers (e.g., by Gumperz and Read) disclosed the promising development of this vital field of research, first outline by Lévy-Bruhl at the plenary session of the Copenhagen Congress of 1936. Yet one can hardly view the socio-linguistic influences on language as merely extrinsic factors. If we approach linguistics as just one among the conjugate sciences of communication, then any difference in the role of communication may evidently have "a potent effect" upon verbal communication. Thus the role assigned to the wider radius of communication by a nomadic society leads both to technological improvements in transportation and to a coalescence of language. (Jakobson 1964d: 598)

Sounds interesting but unable to find the source, the proceedings were published in French and unavailable online.

Benveniste's report devoted to the levels of analysis and splendidly synthesizing decades of his personal and international research gave insight into the hierarchy of all the coded linguistic units (le système de la langue), from the lowest, the distinctive feature - or merism, as he proposed to term this ultimate entity - to the highest, the sentence, which at the same time functions as a constituent of the free, no longer coded discourse. (Jakobson 1964d: 600)

The freedom of discourse is debatable, if mechanization or ritualization surpasses the level of sentence and includes a response, or a series of such exchanges, which may even be described as "profuse".

The descended operation underlies, for instance, the development of morphophonemics, which, as several speakers have disclosed (e.g., Lehiste, Harms, Graur, and Rosén), occupies an ever more important place in the build-up of scientific grammar, both synchronic and diachronic. (Jakobson 1964d: 600)

Ilse Lehiste, who donated her library to the University of Tartu.

The attention paid here to questions of discourse, to speech recognition, to the diverse functions of language in culture and society, and to the vast field of applied linguistics, illustrates once more how far our science is now from the definition, erroneously (as Godel disloses) attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure: "La linguistique a pour unique et véritable objet la langue envisagée en elle-même et pour elle-même." No doubt our science views language "in itself", yet not only "for itself", but also for the sake of language users and molders, because language is a tool, and the autarchic self-sufficiency of a tool would be a contradiction in terms. (Jakobson 1964d: 601)

The laxness of "function", and the goal-orientedness of a "tool".

Jakobson, Roman 1953e. Vestiges of the Earliest Russian Vernacular. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 611-619.

Yet then we are again confronted with a controversial question: were the Czechs familiar not only with the Glagolitic but also with the Cyrillic alphabet? (Jakobson 1953e: 613)

"The Glagolitic script is the oldest known Slavic alphabet."

Jakobson, Roman 1959f. While Reading Vasmer's Dictionary. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 620-649.

The most precious and miraculous stone (vsem kamnjam kamen') of Russian folklore, alátyr' or látyr', is undeniably an alternant of látygor' from Latýgora 'Latgalia', and means 'Latvian (stone)', i.e. 'amber'. (Jakobson 1959f: 624)

Latvia's amber trade is even mentioned in its GeographyNow episode.

The colloquial idiom antimónii razvodit' 'talk at random; expatiate on superfluous things; fool by fine words' is a pun-like contamination of dialectal antinomy and expanding antinomy. (Jakobson 1959f: 624)

Could this have been an inspiration for Malinowski?

I see no reason for separating R. kolobóit', Cz. klábositi 'chatter', from the Latvian kalbît 'chatter', Lithuanian kalbéti 'talk'.s (Jakobson 1959f: 628)

Eestikeeli "kelbas"?

kondráška 'nervous stroke', as well as the dialectal kondrá 'cry', seem to be after xandrá 'morbid depression', a further re-shaping of the Greek hypochondria. (Jakobson 1959f: 630)

Sandra, kas sa tead mida su nimi tähendab?

kudél 'tow' is a technical term which before the loss of the nasal vowels in Eastern Slavic, penetrated both into Finnish and into Chuvash. (Jakobson 1959f: 632)

Anna küüti - lohista mind kaasa.

malínovyj zvon 'soft timber of bells', connected through popular etymology with malína 'raspberries', referring originally, as noted by Trubetzkoy, to the famous bells from the Belgian town of Malines. (Jakobson 1959f: 635)

Malinowski!

xaltúra, which goes back to Latin chartularium, passed from clerical parlance into threatre jargon, where it came to mean 'an actor's extracurricular performance', in particular 'the performance of an actor off his usual stage', later 'slovenly performance done for mere profit'; in this meaning of 'negligent, unfair work for easy money' the use of this word was generalized in contemporary Russian. (Jakobson 1959f: 645)

I was just recently pondering this Russian word.

jákat' means primarily 'to speak a dialect where before stress the vowels /o/ and /e/ or only /o/ changed into /a/ after soft consonants'. [|] Only in a secondary, punlike use did this verb obtain the meaning of 'speaking too much about oneself'. (Jakobson 1959f: 648-649)

Yik-yak.

Jakobson, Roman 1970b. Tempus ← Rotatio → Adulterium. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 650-652.

[...] the French tour is not only a "regular turn" but also a vauvais tour, "a nasty trick"; all these rotatory vocables easily become ambiguous like revolution, which means either "a continuous, unalterable motion; or, on the contrary, "a violent and radical change". (Jakobson 1970b: 651)

The oxymoronic meaning of "revolution".

Jakobson, Roman 1969c. Linguistics in Relation to Other Sciences. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 655-696.

That fact is due primarily to the unusually regular and self-contained patterning of language and to the basic role which it plays in the framework of culture; and, on the other hand, linguistics is recognized both by anthropologists and psychologists as the most progressive and precise among the sciences of man and, hence, as a methodological model for the remainder of those disciplines. (Jakobson 1969c: 656)

Could be important if one allows for the equivalence between (communication) framework and network.

We witness a spontaneous and rapid international development of the new discipline which encompasses a general theory of signs, a description of the different sign systems, their comparative analysis and classification. Unquestionably, Locke and Saussure were right: language is the central and most important among all human semiotic systems. On these grounds "linguistics is the chief contributor to semiotic", as Leonard Bloomfield stated (1939: 55). Yet, on the other hand, any confrontation of language with the structure of different sign patterns is of vital significance for linguistics, since it shows what properties are shared by verbal signs with some of all other semiotic systems and what the specific features of language are. (Jakobson 1969c: 658)

This programmatic statement is iconic in the non-technical sense. Cue film semiotics, semiotics of clothing, and other such endeavors.

The variability of meanings, their manifold and far-reaching figurative shifts, and an incalculable aptitude for multiple paraphrases are just those properties of natural language which induce its creativity and endow not only poetic but even scientific activities with a continuous inventive sweep. Here, indefiniteness and creative power appear to be wholly interrelated. (Jakobson 1969c: 659)

Epigraph for paraphraseology.

One of the chief pioneers in the mathematical discussion of the finiteness problem, Emil Post, pointed to the decisive role which "language of the ordinary kind" plays in the "birth of new ideas", their rise "above the sea of the unconscious", and the subsequent mutation of vaguer, intuitive processes "into connections between precise ideas" (Post in Davis ed. The Undecidable, 1965: 430). (Jakobson 1969c: 659)

After finding out about the role of this figure in Peirce's writings I've collected iterations of the mind-as-a-body-of-water metaphors.

Throughout the long history of linguistics, criteria peculiar to technical constructs are imposed arbitrarily upon natural language not only by logicians but sometimes by linguists themselves. For example, we run up against heteronomous and forced attempts to reduce natural language to declarative statements and to view requisitive (interrogative and imperative) forms as alternations or paraphrases of declarative propositions. (Jakobson 1969c: 660)

Another functional category.

A further area of semiotic embraces a wide range of idiomorphic systems which are but indirectly related to language. Gesture accompanying speech is defined by Sapir as an "excessively supplementary" class of signs (Sapir 1963: 7). Despite the usual concomitance of gesticulation with verbal utterances, there is no one-to-one equivalence between the two systems of communication. There are, moreover, semiotic patterns of bodily motions disjointed from speech. These patterns, as in general all sign systems independent in their structure from language and performable also out of touch with verbal means, must be subjected to a comparative analysis with special regard for the convergences and divergences between any given semiotic structure and language. (Jakobson 1969c: 661)

This might be particularly fruitful with regard to greetings, which take both verbal and nonverbal forms.

[...] various relations between the addresser and addressee, in particular intrapersonal, interpersonal or pluripersonal communication. (Jakobson 1969c: 661)

Typology comparabe to those of Mahaffy and Ruesch.

The question of presence and hierarchy of those basic functions which we observe in language - fixation upon the referent, code, addresser, addressee, their contact or, finally, upon the message itself (see "Linguistics and Poetics") - must be applied also to the other semiotic systems. (Jakobson 1969c: 661)

Emphasis on contact, rather than channel.

In particular, a comparative analysis of structures determined by a predominant fixation upon the message (artistic function) or, in other words, a parallel investigation of verbal, musical, pictorial, choreographic, theatrical, and filmic arts belongs to the most imperative and fruitful duties of the semiotic science. (Jakobson 1969c: 662)

Semiotics has indeed become primarily a tool of art criticism.

Second, all forms of communication mentioned are accompanied by some verbal and/or other semiotic performances. Third, if non-verbalized, all of them are verbalizable, i.e. translatable into verbal messages. (Jakobson 1969c: 663)

All of nonverbal reality is theoretically or hypothetically translatable into verbal messages. Language has its limits.

At present, Talcott Parsons (in Sociological Theory and Modern Society and "Systems Analysis: Social Systems") systematically treats money as "a very highly specialized language", economic transactions as "certain types of conversations", the circulation of money as "the sending of messages", and the monetary system as "a code in the grammatical-syntactical sense". He avowedly applies to the economic interchange the theory of code and message developed in linguistics. (Jakobson 1969c: 665)

Cue Citizens United and political campaign donations as a free speech issue. Money talks.

Any verbal code is convertible and necessarily comprises a set of distinct subcodes or, in other words, functional varieties of language. Any speech community has at its disposal 1) more explicit and more elliptic patterns, with an orderly scale of transitions from a maximal explicitness to an extreme ellipsis, 2) a purposive alternation of more archaic and newfangled dictions, 3) a patent difference between rules and ceremonial, formal and informal, slovenly speech. The areally distinct and manifold sets of rules permitting, prescribing, or prohibiting talk and science are destined to serve as a natural preface to any veritably generative grammar. Our linguistic performance is, furthermore, governed by a competence in dialogic and monologic rules. In particular, the varied verbal relations between the addresser and the addressee build a substantial part of our linguistic code and border directly upon the grammatical categories of person and gender. (Jakobson 1969c: 667)

More on the permanent dynamic synchrony. Also, rules of verbal decorum.

Yet this same diversity may be characterized as the chief target of international linguistic thought in its endeavors to overcome the Saussurian model of Langue as a static, uniform system of mandatory rules and to supplant this oversimplified and artificial construct by the dynamic view of a diversified, convertible code with regard to the different functions of language and to the time and space factors, both of which were excluded from the Saussurian conception of the linguistic system. (Jakobson 1969c: 668)

Likewise, PDS.

He [Lévi-Strauss] envisage a "dialogue" with linguists on relations between language and society. One may recall Durkheim's comprehension of the ever increasing superiority of linguistics among social sciences and his paternal admonition to build up a "linguistic sociology" (cf. H. Alpert, Emile Durkheim and Sociology, 1939) (Jakobson 1969c: 669)

Is this what Malinowski was (poorly) attempting?

[...] and, finally, the assemblage of reversible hierarchy of diverse concurrent verbal functions and operations (referential, conative, emotive, phatic, poetic, metalinguistic). (Jakobson 1969c: 673)

Is operation synonymous with function?

Like any other social modeling system tending to maintain its dynamic equilibrium, language ostensively displays its self-regulating and self-steering properties. (Jakobson 1969c: 676)

References to O. Lange's Wholes and Parts: A General Theory of System Behavior (Warsaw 1962), and A. Ljapunov's "O nekotoryx obščix voprosax kibernetiki" in Problemy kibernetiki 1 (1958), possibly the source for Juri Lotman's "modelling systems".

They are metaphorically described as "punctuation marks" or "commas" (F. Jacob, "Genetics of the Bacterial Cell" 1966: 1475) and actually correspond to the delimitative devices used in the phonological division of the utterance into sentences and of the latter into clauses and phrases (Trubetzkoy's Grenzsignale 175). (Jakobson 1969c: 680)

This is Trubetzkoy's "Die phonologischen Grenzsignale" in Proceedings of the 2nd International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (Cambridge, 1936).

As soon as such team work is achieved, the speech analysis will obtain its thoroughly sientific foundations and will respond to the "exigencies of relativistic invariance" as the binding methodological requirement for any field of modern research (Bohr 1962: 71). (Jakobson 1969c: 688)

Semitoic sience.

Jakobson, Roman 1970d. Language in Relation to Other Communication Systems. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 697-708.

The structural characteristics of language are interpreted in the light of the tasks which they fulfill in the various processes of communication, and thus linguistics may be briefly defined as an inquiry into the communication of verbal messages. (Jakobson 1970d: 697)

The interrelation of structure and function.

We analyze these messages with reference to all the factors involved, namely, to the inherent properties of the message itself, its addresser and addressee, whether actually receiving the message or merely meant by the addresser as its virtual recipient. We study the character of the contact between these two participants in the speech event, we seek to elicit the code common to the sender and to the receiver, and we try to determine the convergent traits and the differences between the encoding operations of the addresser and the decoding competence of the addressee. Finally, we look for the place occupied by the given messages within the context of surrounding messages, which pertain either to the same exchange of utterances or to the recollected past and to the anticipated future, and we raise the crucial questions concerning the relation of the given message to the universe of discourse. (Jakobson 1970d: 697)

What is the character of contact? How should this be interpreted? The factor of context is already quite clear.

When envisaging the roles of the participants in the speech event, we have to discern the several essential varieties of the interconnection, namely, the fundamental form of this relationship, the alternation of the encoding and decoding activities in the interlocutors, and the cardinal difference between such a dialogue and a monologue. A question to be studies is the increase in the "radius of communication", e.g. the multipersonal exchange of replies and rejoinders or the extended audience of a monologue which may even be addressed "to whom it may concern". (Jakobson 1970d: 697)

Evidently the character of the contact consists of the amount of participants and the turn-taking sequence. (In Malinowski's treatment, the reciprocity of roles.)

[...] with an imminent request for investigating the internalization of speech and the varied facets of inner language which anticipates, programs and closes our delivered utterances and in general guided our internal and external behavior, and which shapes the silent retorts of the tacit auditor. (Jakobson 1970d: 698)

The relationship between intrapersonal and interpersonal communication (preceding, during, and after).

In this sign the signans is tied to its signatum "regardless of any factual connection". The contiguity between the two constituent sides of the symbol "may be termed an imputed quality", according to Peirce's felicitous expression of 1867. (Jakobson 1970d: 700)

Thus, imputedness must originate from "A New List of Categories"

Any sign requires an interpreter. The perspicuous type of semiotic communication involves two separate interpreters, the addresser of a message and its addressee. However, as mentioned above, inner speech condenses the addresser and addressee into one person, and the elliptic forms of intrapersonal communication are far from being confined to verbal signs alone. The mnemonic knot on a handkerchief made by Russians to remind themselves to accomplish an urgent matter is a typical example of an inner communication between the earlier and later self. (Jakobson 1970d: 702)

The origin of Juri Lotman's theory of autocommunication.

A system of conventional symbols decoded by the receiver with no intentional addresser of the message is present in various forms of divination. A traditional code of omens permits the augur to elicit believed influences upon human affairs as the signata of observed variations in the flight of birds who are only the source of such messages without being their addressers. (Jakobson 1970d: 702)

And on the other side one may overhear a message and be a receiver without being the addressee.

The code of recognized equivalences between parts and their correlation with the whole is to a greater degree a learned, imputed set of parallelisms which are accepted as such in the framework of a given epoch, culture, or musical school. [↩] Several inferences can be drawn. The classification of relations between signans and signatum outlined at the beginning of the present paper posited three basic types: factual contiguity, imputed contiguity, and factual similarity. However, the interplay of the two dichotomies - contiguity/similarity and factual/imputed - admits a fourth variety, namely, imputed similarity. Precisely this combination becomes apparent in musical semiosis. The introversive semiosis, a message which signifies itself, is indissolubly linked with the esthetic function of sign systems and dominates not only music but also glossolalic poetry and nonrepresentation painting and sculpture [...] (Jakobson 1970d: 704)

The fourth type of sign. The quintessential achievement of Jakobson's Peirceanism.

The most important transposition into another medium is writing, which insures a greater stability and an accessibility to addressees distant in space and/or time. (Jakobson 1970d: 706)

This should have profound implications when the speech function is studied in written messages.

Jakobson, Roman 1971d. Retrospect. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Second edition. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 711-724.

It was, one may say, the most prescient forerunner of modern linguistics among scholars of the late nineteenth century, Mikołaj Kruszewski, who in 1882 wrote to Jan Baudouin de Courtenay that in addition to the extant science of language it is necessary to establish and develop "a new one, more general" and definable as "a certain kind of phenomenology of language". According to the proponent, "the permanent foundations of such a science are to be found in language itself". The young linguist must have detected the concept of phenomenology in Eduard von Hartmann's Phänemenologie des Unbewussten (1875), which H. Spiegelberg's History of The Phenomenological Movement (1965) views as "an isolated landmark on the way from Hegel to Husserl". Kruszewski's earlier statements disclose that it was the "unconscious character" of linguistic processes which evoked his "magnetic attraction" to the logic of language and to the problem of general linguistic laws. (Jakobson 1971d: 714)

If one can dream of one day reading Marty, one can also dream of reading this.

Finally, our links with the so-called Prague school of psychology and with its initiator, C. von Ehrenfels, the first propounder of the focal concept and label Gestalt, certainly left their imprint on the upgrowth of the Prague Linguistic Circle. (Jakobson 1971d: 716)

Christian von Ehrenfels

The uniformity of the code, "sensibly the same" for all the members of a speech community, posited by the Cours and still recalled from time to time, is but a delusive fiction; as a rule, everyone belongs simultaneously to several speech communities of different radius and capacity; any overall code is multiform and comprises a hierarchy of diverse subcodes freely chosen by the speaker with regard to the variable functions of the message, to its addressee, and to the relation between the interlocutor. In particular, the subcodes offer a scale of transforms ranging from explicitness to the gradual degrees of phonological, grammatical, and narrational ellipsis. When one-sided concentration on the cognitive, referential function of language gave way to an examination of its other, likewise primordial, underivable functions, the problems of the code-message relationship showed much greater subtlety and multivalence. (Jakobson 1971d: 719)

And yet another iteration of permanent dynamic synchrony.

Hence, no changes can be understood or interpreted without refernece to the system which undergoes them and to their function within this system; and, vice versa, no language can be fully and adequately described without an account of its changes in progress. Saussure's "absolute prohibition to study simultaneously relations in time and relations within the system" is losing its validity. Changes appear to pertain to a dynamic synchrony. [↩] The diachronic linguistics of today examines the succession of dynamic synchronies, confronts them, and, in this way, delineates the evolution of a language in a wider historical perspective, with due attention not only to the mutability of the linguistic system but also to its immutable, static elements. The concentration upon the system and the application to diachrony of the same analytic principle as those employed in synchrony has enabled the diachronic research of our time to achieve impressive results in the field of internal reconstruction; and, on the other hand, when focusing upon the historical stratification of linguistic systems, explorers observe new, significant affinities between this stratification and the synchronic patterning of language. (Jakobson 1971d: 721)

I think I finally figured out what I can use PDS for - a metatheoretical system of phaticity.

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