PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION We have often heard Ferdinand de Saussure lament the dearth of principles and methods that marked linguistics during his developmental period. Throughout his lifetime, he stubbornly continued to search out the laws that would give direction to his thought amid the chaos. Not until 1906, when he took the place of Joseph Wertheimer at the University of Geneva, was he able to make known the ideas that he had nurtured through so many years. Although he taught three courses in general hnguistics in 1906-1907, 1908-1909, and 1910-1911—his schedule forced him to devote half of each course to the history and description of the Indo-European languages, with the result that the basic part of his subject received considerably less attention than it merited. All those who had the privilege of participating in his richly rewarding instruction regretted that no book had resulted from it. After his death, we hoped to find in his manuscripts, obligingly made available to us by Mme. de Saussure, a faithful or at least an adequate outline of his inspiring lectures. At first we thought that we might simply collate F. de Saussure's personal notes and the notes of his students. We were grossly misled. We found nothing or almost nothing that resembled his students' notebooks. As soon as they had served their purpose, F. de Saussure destroyed the rough drafts of the outlines used for his lectures. In the drawers of his secretary we found only older outlines which, although certainly not worthless, could not be integrated into the material of the three courses. Our discovery was all the more disappointing since professorial duties had made it impossible for us to attend F. de Saussure's last lectures and these mark just as brilliant a step in his career as the much earlier one that had witnessed the appearance of his treatise on the vocalic system of Proto-Indo-European. We had to fall back on the notes collected by students during the course of his three series of lectures. Very complete notebooks were placed at our disposal: for the first two courses, by Messrs.Louis Caille, Leopold Gautier, Paul Regard, and Albert Riedlinger; for the third the most important by Mme. Albert Sechehaye and by Messrs. George D^gallier and Francis Joseph. We are indebted to M. Louis Brtitsch for notes on one special point. All these contributors deserve our sincere thanks. We also wish to express our profound gratitude to M. Jules Ronjat, the eminent Romance scholar, who was kind enough to review the manuscript before printing, and whose suggestions were invaluable. What were we to do with our materials? First, the task of criticism. For each course and for each detail of the course, we had to compare all versions and reconstruct F. de Saussure's thought from faint, sometimes conflicting, hints. For the first two courses we were able to enlist the services of M. RiedUnger, one of the students who have followed the thought of the master with the greatest interest; his work was most valuable. For the third course one of us, A. Sechehaye, performed the same detailed task of collating and synthesizing the material. But after that? Oral delivery, which is often contradictory in form to written exposition, posed the greatest difficulties. Besides, F. de Saussure was one of those men who never stand still; his thought evolved in all directions without ever contradicting itself as a result. To publish everything in the original form was impossible; the repetitions inevitable in free oral presentation over-lappings, and variant formulations would lend a motley appearance to such a publication. To limit the book to a single course and which one? was to deprive the reader of the rich and varied content of the other two courses; by itself the third, the most definitive of the three courses, would not give a complete accounting of the theories and methods of F. de Saussure. One suggestion was that we publish certain particularly original passages without change. This idea was appealing at first, but soon it became obvious that we would be distorting the thought of our master if we presented but fragments of a plan whose value stands out only in its totality. We reached a bolder but also, we think, a more rational solution to attempt a reconstruction, a synthesis, by using the third course as a starting point and by using all other materials at our disposal, including the personal notes of F. de Saussure, as supplementary sources. The problem of re-creating F. de Saussure's thought was all the more difficult because the re-creation had to be wholly objective. At each point we had to get to the crux of each particular thought by trying to see its definitive form in the light of the whole system. We had first to weed out variations and irregularities characteristic of oral delivery, then to fit the thought into its natural framework and present each part of it in the order intended by the author even when his intention, not always apparent, had to be surmised. From this work of assimilation and reconstruction was born the book that we offer, not without apprehension, to the enlightened public and to all friends of linguistics. Our aim was to draw together an organic whole by omitting nothing that might contribute to the overall impression. But for that very reason, we shall probably be criticized on two counts. First, critics will say that this "whole" is incomplete. In his teaching the master never pretended to examine all parts of linguistics or to devote the same attention to each of those examined materially, he could not. Besides, his main concern was not that. Guided by some fundamental and personal principles which are found everywhere in his work and which form the woof of this — fabric which is as solid as it is varied he tried to penetrate ; only where these principles find particularly striking applications or where they apparently conflict with some theory did he try to encompass. That is why certain disciplines, such as semantics, are hardly touched upon. We do not feel that these lacunae detract from the overall architecture. The absence of a "linguistics of speaking" is regrettable. This study, which had been promised to the students of the third course, would doubtlessly have had a place of honor; why his promise could not be kept is too well known. All we could do was to collect the fleeting impressions from the rough outlines of this project and put them into their natural place. Conversely, critics may say that we have reproduced facts bearing on points developed by F. deSaussure's predecessors. Not everything in such an extensive treatise can be new. But if known principles are necessary for the understanding ofa whole, shall we be condemned for not having omitted them? The chapter on phonetic changes, for example, includes things that have been said before, and perhaps more definitively; but, aside from the fact that this part contains many valuable and original details, even a superficial reading will show to what extent its omission would detract from an understanding of the principles upon which F. de Saussure erects his system of static linguistics. We are aware of our responsibility to our critics. We are also aware of our responsibility to the author, who probably would not have authorized the publication of these pages. This responsibility we accept wholly, and we would willingly bear it alone. Will the critics be able to distinguish between the teacher and his interpreters? We would be grateful to them if they would direct toward us the blows which it would be unjust to heap upon one whose memory is dear to us. Geneva, July 1915. Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The second edition is essentially the same as the first. The editors have made some slight changes designed to facilitate reading and clarify certain points. Ch. B. Alb. S. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION With the exception of a few minute corrections, this edition is the same as the preceding. Ch. B. Alb. S.