When I speak it is in order to be heard.

In poetic language, in which the sign as such takes on an autonomous value, this sound symbolism becomes an actual factor and creates a sort of accompaniment to the signified.

Speech sounds cannot be understood, delimited, classified and explained except in the light of the tasks which they perform in language.

What's next? Shall we appoint elephants to teach zoology?

The search for the symbolic value of phonemes, each taken as a whole, runs the risk of giving rise to ambiguous and trivial interpretations because phonemes are complex entities, bundles of different distinctive features.

The function of poetry is to point out that the sign is not identical to the referent.

It is once again the vexing problem of identity within variety; without a solution to this disturbing problem there can be no system, no classification.