Filologija, No. 46-47, 2006.
Original scientific paper
De Saussure's syntagmatics and the phrase- structure syntax terminology issue
Tomislav Stòjanov
orcid.org/0000-0002-6972-6518
; Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper considers syntagmatics and the relationship between a syntagm and a phrase-structure syntax in the teachings of Ferdinand de Saussure, whose structuralistic methodology had a great impact on the syntactic chapters in Croatian grammars. Due to its methodological imperfections and inadequacies, the study of syntagm/phrase-structure syntax as derived from de Saussure's structuralism is not the methodology contemporary Croatian grammars should rely on. The paper was motivated by dissatisfaction with the insufficient representation of the phrase-structure syntax as a syntactic discipline and a lack of its integral treatment in Croatian grammars. Since syntagm is not an appropriate term for the syntactic phrase- structure unit, and the alternative terms (e.g. phrase, expression, set, group Š fraza, izraz, skup, grupa in Croatian] ) are not precise and explicit enough, the paper proposes a fundamental division of syntactic units and the terms tagmeme/syntagmeme for the basic and derived forms. The first part provides a conclusion that de Saussure defines the syntagm through syntagmatic relationships, and that in turn they result from linear delimitation. Defined in such a way, the syntagm is not a syntactic unit, but a sequence (string) which can also represent some other units of different grammatical levels. The second part gives an outline of Croatian grammars and syntaxes according to their familiarity with phrase-structure syntax. It also provides four reasons and eight general conclusions about the methodology used in Croatian grammars. The last section considers the relationship between the methodology and the theory through a grammatological aspect. It offers a relationship grid that covers minimal, primitive, basic and derived syntactic units with regard to syntactic entities of relation, syntactic categories, and the proposed terms of tagmeme and syntagmeme.
Keywords
syntagma; syntagmatics; tagmeme; syntagmeme; Croatian language grammar; Saussure; structuralism; syntactic unit; phrase- structure syntax; terminology
Hrčak ID:
22288
URI
Publication date:
28.2.2007.
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