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The aim of general synchronic linguistics is to set up the fundamental principles of any idiosynchronic system, the constituents of any language-state. Many of the items already explained in Part One belong rather to synchrony; for instance, the general properties of the sign are an integral part of synchrony although they were used to prove the necessity of separating the two linguistics.

— Ferdinand de Saussure Cours de linguistique générale (1916)

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Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law.

Cours de linguistique générale (1916)

Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass.

Cours de linguistique générale (1916)

Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.

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Language is a system in which all the parts can and should be considered from the viewpoint of their synchronic interrelatedness.

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Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.

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