Oscillation, Synchronic Variation, Diachronic Evolution

Three notions of modern linguistics that touch on variation in language are defined & clarified with examples from French, in addition to a chart of the partially overlapping properties & elements of the notions. (1) Introduced in 1911 by Vilem Mathesius (1964), the notion of oscillation is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:La Linguistique (Paris. 1965) 2008-01, Vol.44 (2), p.25-44
Main Author: Feuillard, Colette
Format: Article
Language:fre
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Three notions of modern linguistics that touch on variation in language are defined & clarified with examples from French, in addition to a chart of the partially overlapping properties & elements of the notions. (1) Introduced in 1911 by Vilem Mathesius (1964), the notion of oscillation is held to imply a fixed axis from which individual realizations vary, whether they involve variants of the signifiant (allophones & allomorphs) or the signifie (the distribution of semes), word order variants, or variant marking of syntactic functions. (2) The term variation is distinguished from oscillation & is reserved for synchronic competition betwsen linguistic units in which one competitor gains ground at the expense of another; variation is shown to occur in the same areas of language where oscillation is observed. (3) Diachronic evolution does not occur until one competitor in synchronic variation is completely excluded from the language system. A three-stage process of oscillation, synchronic variation, & diachronic evolution is outlined for phonemes, monemes, forms, syntactic functions, & semes. Adapted from the source document
ISSN:0075-966X