Gustave Guillaume
Encyclopedia
Gustave Guillaume is a French
linguist, philologist and Volney Prize
laureate.
Guillaume developed an original theory of
human language little known in the English speaking world but important in the French-speaking world, particularly in Quebec
. Introduced to linguistics by
the great comparatist Antoine Meillet
, a student of Ferdinand de Saussure
, he became
well versed in historical studies and the comparative method and adopted its mentalist
tradition and systemic view of language. In his first major publication, Le problème de
l’article et sa solution dans la langue française (1919), he set out to apply the
comparative method to the uses of the articles in Modern French in order to describe their
mental system hidden not in pre-historical time, but in the preconscious mind of the
speaker.
He did not succeed – it was to take him more than twenty years to discern the system of
the articles – but in 1929 with Temps et Verbe he did succeed in describing how the
systems of aspect, mood and tense operate to produce an image of time proper to the
event expressed by a verb in a sentence. This major breakthrough gave him a first view of
the mental system – the “psychosystem”, as he later called it – of the verb and made him
realize that, as a part of speech, the verb is a system of systems available to the speaker to
construct a verb each time one is required during the give and take of ordinary discourse
.
From that point on in his career, he tried to analyze how words of different types are
constructed – attempting to discern the grammatical systems
involved in configuring a
word’s lexical import to give rise to the parts of speech observed in French
and other
Indo-European languages
.
This breakthrough led Guillaume to the even more important conclusion that linguistics
involves far more than analyzing how we understand what we hear and read. He realized
that it is essential to adopt the point of view of the speaker and this involves far more than
just pronouncing words and linking them together to form a sentence: “To study a
language in circumstances as close as possible to the real circumstances of usage, one
should, like a speaker, start with the language in a virtual state and trace how the speaker
actualizes that virtuality.” (Temps et Verbe, p. 121) That is, before we can say any word
to express the specific experience we have in mind, we must call on the mental
potentialities acquired with our mother tongue to represent this experience by forming the
word’s meaning, both lexical and grammatical, and to actualize its physical sign. This
realization confirmed his initial postulate that language consists of langue and discours,
“tongue” and “discourse”, understood as an operative, potential-to-actual binary, and not
as a static dichotomy like Saussure’s langue and parole.
Guillaume’s constant concern to analyze words brought him to view each word type or
part of speech as the means of incorporating into words themselves certain syntactic
possibilities to be deployed in the sentence. The challenge this poses for a linguist is to
find the means of analyzing the preconscious mental operations, the
“psychomechanisms” as he called them, giving rise to each part of speech. This in turn
led him to examine languages where words are not formed in this way and in his last
years to suggest the bases for a general theory of the word, or as he used to say, the
vocable, to avoid the danger of foisting the Indo-European type of word onto languages
of a very different type.
Throughout his teaching career, from 1938 to 1960 at the École pratique des hautes
études, Guillaume wrote out his, usually bi-weekly, lectures. These, along with various
research notes and essays, make up some 60,000 manuscript pages kept in the Fonds
Gustave Guillaume at Laval University in Quebec City
. To date, 20 volumes of these
documents have been published (Presses de l’Université Laval). The only volume of
Guillaume’s writings translated into English is Foundations for a Science of Language, a
series of excerpts from various lectures and essays, the first of which, from his inaugural
lecture of 1952-1953, begins as follows:
For a brief introduction to his theory in English, see The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, and for a more lengthy introduction, see Language in the Mind. For the detail of all publications of Guillaume, as well as a bibliography of articles and volumes inspired by his theory, see the site of the Fonds Gustave Guillaume:
http://www.fl.ulaval.ca/fgg/
The Association international de Psychomécanique du langage (AIPL) organizes an international conference every three years for scholars influenced by Guillaume’s approach to language. http://www.psychomecaniquedulangage.org/
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
linguist, philologist and Volney Prize
Volney prize
The Prix Volney is awarded by the Institute of France after proposition by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres to a work of comparative philology....
laureate.
Guillaume developed an original theory of
human language little known in the English speaking world but important in the French-speaking world, particularly in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
. Introduced to linguistics by
the great comparatist Antoine Meillet
Antoine Meillet
Paul Jules Antoine Meillet was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne, where he was influenced by Michel Bréal, Ferdinand de Saussure, and the members of the Année Sociologique. In 1890 he was part of a research trip to the...
, a student of Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
, he became
well versed in historical studies and the comparative method and adopted its mentalist
tradition and systemic view of language. In his first major publication, Le problème de
l’article et sa solution dans la langue française (1919), he set out to apply the
comparative method to the uses of the articles in Modern French in order to describe their
mental system hidden not in pre-historical time, but in the preconscious mind of the
speaker.
He did not succeed – it was to take him more than twenty years to discern the system of
the articles – but in 1929 with Temps et Verbe he did succeed in describing how the
systems of aspect, mood and tense operate to produce an image of time proper to the
event expressed by a verb in a sentence. This major breakthrough gave him a first view of
the mental system – the “psychosystem”, as he later called it – of the verb and made him
realize that, as a part of speech, the verb is a system of systems available to the speaker to
construct a verb each time one is required during the give and take of ordinary discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
.
From that point on in his career, he tried to analyze how words of different types are
constructed – attempting to discern the grammatical systems
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
involved in configuring a
word’s lexical import to give rise to the parts of speech observed in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and other
Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
.
This breakthrough led Guillaume to the even more important conclusion that linguistics
involves far more than analyzing how we understand what we hear and read. He realized
that it is essential to adopt the point of view of the speaker and this involves far more than
just pronouncing words and linking them together to form a sentence: “To study a
language in circumstances as close as possible to the real circumstances of usage, one
should, like a speaker, start with the language in a virtual state and trace how the speaker
actualizes that virtuality.” (Temps et Verbe, p. 121) That is, before we can say any word
to express the specific experience we have in mind, we must call on the mental
potentialities acquired with our mother tongue to represent this experience by forming the
word’s meaning, both lexical and grammatical, and to actualize its physical sign. This
realization confirmed his initial postulate that language consists of langue and discours,
“tongue” and “discourse”, understood as an operative, potential-to-actual binary, and not
as a static dichotomy like Saussure’s langue and parole.
Guillaume’s constant concern to analyze words brought him to view each word type or
part of speech as the means of incorporating into words themselves certain syntactic
possibilities to be deployed in the sentence. The challenge this poses for a linguist is to
find the means of analyzing the preconscious mental operations, the
“psychomechanisms” as he called them, giving rise to each part of speech. This in turn
led him to examine languages where words are not formed in this way and in his last
years to suggest the bases for a general theory of the word, or as he used to say, the
vocable, to avoid the danger of foisting the Indo-European type of word onto languages
of a very different type.
Throughout his teaching career, from 1938 to 1960 at the École pratique des hautes
études, Guillaume wrote out his, usually bi-weekly, lectures. These, along with various
research notes and essays, make up some 60,000 manuscript pages kept in the Fonds
Gustave Guillaume at Laval University in Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
. To date, 20 volumes of these
documents have been published (Presses de l’Université Laval). The only volume of
Guillaume’s writings translated into English is Foundations for a Science of Language, a
series of excerpts from various lectures and essays, the first of which, from his inaugural
lecture of 1952-1953, begins as follows:
“Science is founded on the insight that the world of appearances tells of hidden
things, things which appearances reflect but do not resemble. One such insight is
that what seems to be disorder in language hides an underlying order – a wonderful
order. The word is not mine – it comes from the great Meillet, who wrote that ‘a
language involves a system where everything fits together and has a wonderfully
rigorous design.’ This insight has been the guide and continues to be the guide of
the studies pursued here.”
For a brief introduction to his theory in English, see The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, and for a more lengthy introduction, see Language in the Mind. For the detail of all publications of Guillaume, as well as a bibliography of articles and volumes inspired by his theory, see the site of the Fonds Gustave Guillaume:
http://www.fl.ulaval.ca/fgg/
The Association international de Psychomécanique du langage (AIPL) organizes an international conference every three years for scholars influenced by Guillaume’s approach to language. http://www.psychomecaniquedulangage.org/