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sélectionT'^^ The situation is far from clear. Is sé like re'i And what about gl,
which seems to escape the category o f prefix? “It is possible, as far as such
a prefix is concerned, that there is no definite meaning and that analysis
o f this is reduced to a purely morphological distinction, to the vague con
sciousness that there is here an element that one cannot confuse with other
categories o f elements. This prefix can be recognized more or less clearly by
the language without possessing definite meaning.”^^
For Saussure, finally, the test o f whether elements are recognized by
the language is the extent to which one can employ them in a new forma
tion: “What is the absolute, peremptory proof that these prefixes are living
elements o f the language? It can only be analogical creation. It is because
I can form redémissionnner [resign again], recontempler [recontemplate],
without ever having heard them (cf ail the re’s people place before words
that according to the dictionary do not take it!).”^** Though the appeal here
is to the performative possibilities inscribed in the structure o f the system,
and especially to “creative analogy,” the logic gestures also toward what
texts are able to do— ^what they are able to bring o ff Whereas linguists
have conceived o f creative analogy as “false analogy,” which introduces
new forms on the analogy with others when there are historically attest
ed forms that should have sufficed, Saussure argues that, on the contrary,
so-called false analogy, with its productivity, is a true manifestation of the
structure o f the language. “Tout est grammatical dans I’analogie” [Analogy
is grammatical throughout] (F 226; E 165). Analogical creation reveals the
language’s sense o f its operative constituents, its structure.
“La création analogique,” which Saussure calls an “immense phe
nomenon,” is itself only a special case o f the general operation o f inter
pretation, whereby “the linguistic system represents its units to itself [se
représente les unités] and organizes them for itself in this or that fash
ion, and then it can use them for creation by analogy.”^® “La langue ne se
trompe pas” [A language never errs] (F 251; E 183).
26. Engler, Cours, 2951.2.2100.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., 390.2.2590.
29. Ibid., 379.2.2527.
The Sign: Saussure and Derrida on Arbitrariness
131
132
C O N C E P T S
“La langue ne se trompe pas,” and linguists need to try to find out
what distinctions it makes, with what units it operates. “The language
spends its time interpreting and decomposing what in it is the contribu
tion o f preceding generations— that’s its career! [c’est là sa carrière!]— so
as to then with the sub-units it has obtained combine them in new con
structions. Thus somnoler [doze] could only be fijrmed by decomposing
the verbs in -er and somnolent in a particular way.” ^° The adjective somno
lent [sleepy] comes from Latin somnolentus, “smelling o f sleep,” composed
o i somn + olentus “sleep” + “smelling,” but in modern French somnolent is
analyzed somnol + ent, as if it were an adjective deriving from a present par
ticiple; and therefore the verb o f which it wouldhe the participle, somnoler,
has been created. This is an example o f how language— the linguistic sys
tem— leads a life o f its own, representing itself to itself
All o f these issues— the status o f prefixes, analogy versus false anal
ogy, and the system’s decomposition or self-analysis— lead us back to the
same point, which is Saussure’s view o f the linguistic system, a view that is,
finally, startling in its simplicity. He speaks o f “the fundamentally identical
character o f all synchronic facts” (F 187; E 136) and maintains that “units
and grammatical facts are only different names for designating diverse as
pects o f the same general fact: the functioning [jeu] o f linguistic opposi
tions” (F 168; E 122). Riedlinger’s notes for the second course sum it up
nicely:
What does everything that exists in a state of the language consist in? [En quoi
consiste tout ce qui se trouve dans un état de langue?] I said that it was the play
of differences (comes from the fact that the word is arbitrarily chosen!). There is
a perpetual opposition of values by means of phonic differences, but these are al
ways differences which are manifested in a relative unit; within a vaster unit that
brings them together we have sub-units which are opposed to each other. Every
thing comes down to differences, to groupings. Now here we must posit a fun
damental distinction— ^which I have said nothing about up to now— if we wish
to make any progress: . . . There are two ways for a word to be near, coordinated
with, related to, in contact with another; we can call this the two spaces of exis
tence of words, or the two spheres of relations among words.
30. Ibid., 386.2.2573.
31. Ferdinand de Saussure, Deuxième cours de linguistique générale d ’après
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