Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics.

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

Acoustic phonetics, which is developing and increasing in richness very rapidly, already enables us to solve many of the mysteries of sound, mysteries which motor phonetics could not even begin to solve.

Linguistic sounds, considered as external, physical phenomena have two aspects, the motor and the acoustic.

A linguist deaf to the poetic functions of language and a literary scholar indifferent to linguistics are equally flagrant anachronisms.

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.

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.