Comments on "Structure"

I found that there were many points in Benveniste's discussion of "structure" in linguistics that deserve further investigation. In his summary of Saussure's view of the systematic nature of language, he points out that any sign in isolation, that is without the context of a system, is characterized only by its lack of significance. This parallels the structuralist view in neuropsychology of "top-down" vs. "bottom-up" analyses; using the brain as an example, it is clear that each tiny segment of neuronal fiber is completely without function when isolated from its concomitants. The paralleled shift in linguistics from historical analysis to intrinsic structuralism shows that while each sign is always arbitrary, there is no diachronic basis for their incorporation into the system. They come together and function because that is all they have been known to do. Benveniste goes on to say that "certain combinations are frequent, others fairly rare, and still others, while theoretically possible, are never realized." It is important understand to what degree we are able to hypothesize about what is "theoretically possible" in language, and what elements of the structural approach are indeed intrinsic in our conception of discourse.