BREV TIL: Charles Ernest Bazell FRA: unsure (1951-01-07)

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7/1- pi

Dear professor bazeli,

fhank you very much for pour letters, which clearea up various points in your' articles. - I am. sorry that I have not been able to answer until now.

It is very funny that you consider yoyrseif as"tne pnly linguist who cannot unaerstand v*nat is meant by "in piaesentia"? 'for at the same time you are the only linguist by whom I have found the expression "in pxaesentia”. Ana I wondered what you meant, how I see that something like Hjelmslev’s "forløb" is intended. - 1 realty agree with Jacobson in trie point that- orå'åijry is not simpi zero as compared with nasality, iou seem to assume a neutralization uetwee n and t ( manifested as t) ana say that it is the whole point of neutrqli- zanon that a leatuie is replaced by zero. - but if the manifestation is opposite. what then? and what in cue case of banish d/p neutralised ai- xhaxéjadxax finally so that you may use either oi them without" distinction? neutralization means the. suspension oi an opposition, ana you maj say that there is one distinctive feature less, xmx in final banish b than in mi- tiai o, - out zero distinction does not imply that one memo or of the op.,..o- sition must oe called zero, ou may can it unmanned or extensive, out that is not the same thing. - by the » ay I have not ye.t ^rasped pour distinction between, syncretism and neutralization. — It is true that there is & contradiction between what I wrote^aoout syncrtism of cases and what aaa is found in my "fonetik", but I was not so convinced that my aouots were right then. In your second letter you say many interesting trunks aoout sequence ana accent and related phenomena. - I should prefer to return to these questions later in the spnn the relational definition c£ phonemes. At the moment I am opsy with an article on a quite different question; tne possibility oi a classification of on an auditory oasis ana tne relation of tnis classification to tne physical classification .(In particular I am discussing Komao Jakob- sons terminology ana nis somewhat bold parallelisms between physical and auditory phenomena.)-*- I was glad to nave your explanation oi "Role", and I find your comparison between "sit" ana "ibus" striking.

when i am ^oirig to take up my article on

mb H

We have had a series oi very interesting discussions in tne autumn in tne linguistic Circle aoout syntactic relations, where your articles were also mentioned. - We came to the consiusion that Hjeimslev’s relations (selection, solidarity, combination; are of a quite different Kind from the ordinary syntactic relations (like e.g. subordination). - H#xx.xx Seiec- tion is a relation between two invariants ( one element presupposes always —at this stage oi the analysis - another ) Subordination is a relation between variants , it is a relation in a _iv«n chainz single chain, ana it is of no interest to which invariants tne variants belong and now the othex variants belonging to the same invariants behave, ihey axe only of interest as endpoints oi thy _iven relation ( in tnis case of tn- subor- dination). - ix you take a sentence line "he saw a stone wail", you cannot find any selection between stone or wail, but on tne contrary combination (eithei of them may be left out;, - but t stone is subordinate to wail,-- because wail is equivalent to the group stone wail; out it is oily so because oi the meaning v tne substance oi the content;. A similar case m French is "u a m ie0 philosophy a grecs. ” - is aoove alii interested

xhe _iOooematic analysis

in cia

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possibilities of relation. - The traditional syntactic analysis consi. aere tne relations as oucia, oat Kwtx£n&xx&m.axxex&fcxxKL!SiyxxHCi genoiaily re- lati^ns wnicn nave no xx Bxpxøsaxøz fixed expression , out are found on tne oasio of the meaning. iJsufixfftxoKfc Subordination, predication . oo- jectreiation etc. may be found in many different languages because they are logical rather than linguistic relations, but tney may of course in some languages-,^ linguistic of particular mo-tpnem^i^ c

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ax, Jtx^c that is:generally tney axe variants nidoricnsen tried to

ase-morpnemes. - reduce tne syntactic relation ru danisn to relations oetween certain verbal and nominal morphemes, fnese relations do not coincide absolutely with tne traditional relations, out nave somethin^ In common with tnem. - We discussed if worn order may constitute tne expression of ‘such a reia- tion, e.g-. Danisn direct and indirect object,(dud it se*ams never to be iixeai - In teat case worn oraer v*ouia oe tne eispresjaian 01 a morpheme out somenow this is xsfxx&xyx a^era, tne Americans also Soem to- be found on the basis of a- suo.stantiai analy- sis. - - *

The immediate constituents of

We are oOin6 to continue tne arscuosion sxxxxdJ&xi in tne new year. l xmxx,diMxlx stop here , for the present, lor. I am very busy with tin article t «od 1 am goinw to uive a lecture on this topic in Osro at one enu of t-uo month, ana i am aid aid that I sh il not be able to get id ready1 in. Dime, because my l cannot worm veij- nara at b:m moment.

“ " jlwiwiW

Yours sincerely

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it is confusing tnat tne "content" of case .morphemes seems to be Ihis too maxes the commutation between tnem Hxxtix a dubious

relations.

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