Saussure argues that syntagmatic relations are more like multiplication than addition. Adding – eux to desir is not putting together “independent units”; rather the two “form a product, a combination of interdependent elements, their value deriving solely from their mutual contributions within a higher unit.”
At another level, we can say the same about sentences: Words are not added up in a sentence, but the sentence is the product of something more like multiplication, the product of the interdependent elements of the sentence.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Ethics of Rhetoric in Times of War
What we say matters. And the way we say it matters. This is especially true in times…
How the State Failed Noelia Castillo
On March 26, Noelia Castillo, a twenty-five-year-old Spanish woman, was killed by her doctors at her own…
The Mind’s Profane and Sacred Loves
The teachers you have make all the difference in your life. That they happened to come into…
