Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.

Every linguistic sign is located on two axes: the axis of simultaneity and that of succession.

At first acoustics attributed to the different sounds only a limited number of characteristic features.

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

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.

Semantics, or the study of meaning, remained undeveloped, while phonetics made rapid progress and even came to occupy the central place in the scientific study of language.

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.