Uddrag fra Propositions, [Nice1951] 046-0080

3/*51 ?n#tan«® In many system« the wel may be defined, as against the consonant, *y Its son-preaupposltlon of another wit *» a syntactic do- finit las - O" by lto acoustic features, in the Trubetskoy on stylo), '•hose semantic units have not yet veen isolated from the speech* continuum, ot because this is impossible, nor even because it is diffi«* cult, but rather because the climate of structural 11 pieties is oppo- sed to the ".usstioo being raised, hen these untie have been isolated it rill be found that they haw their own syntax, and that they have their own syntax, and that they haw their tøfinit lone In terms of this syntax j that they are define tie extenslonally «• well as intonsiomlly, ctk*. have a structure worth Investigating for its own sake, (4) The structural definition of semantic relations, ' iructurai semantics Is gøv vmå by the -ausc .general principle« as phone- las, and in par1 lcnlar by this principle of relevance, "fence if two connected semantic *«r it#*1 stand in complementary ’lotributton (thue never answering to a distinction of expression) they must be reyarded as variants of a single semantic wit, For instance the relations t’possessor of (an object)1’ and”agent of (a process)” between which the difference is automatically regulated by the meanings of the semantemes to which the relation apllics, are varia ta of the sans semantic unit, (Both variants occur i nominal combinations* only the second in actor-action phrases, and so on, H is not of course asserted that these are the only relations holding between the terms in :oration). The structure of semantic relations, apart from their complexity, 1© similar to that of phoneric relations, Jience the earns terms can tø used, and illustrated first from the phonemic plane, where we haw three principle relations * (1) Two asymmetric relitions (ArS Is incompatible with RrA) t (ft) A relation with equipollent poles I &<:. nence. (Equipollent, sine© an isolated unit is both before and aftey aero, (b) A relation with privatively contrasted poles i prominence (usually actualised by stress-differences m fcetveen svffa-lee, or by differences of syllabicity as between phonemes), (?ri- vative, since an isolated unit i *mors prominent than* the surrounding zeros), (ii) Ones symmetric relation t Juncture (open, closed ©to,) (ArB-OrA)• Juncture seen« always to be privative i m isolated unit has open Juncture with surrounding zero, (Hence open Juncture is the u marked pole of the opposition, iv© return to the semantic relation cited above. This relation is obviously asymmetri«* It can also be described as primitive, since the terra rast normally in isolation (e.g, impersonal v rbe) arc proceaalve and not agental, other terra being neither* The relation thus comes the heading of prominence” • (Though its definition is purely structural, the term answer© well ©rough to our instinctive feeling that the pro- dlcate is more prominent than the subject, that the object possessed rather than the posoeoaor is the *centre of attention* in -enitlval constructions, sad so on. But it mot be not d again < hat such terns as predicate and genitive do no belong to this level of analysis% they have semantic relevance but no ..©mantle status), ut it Is obvious that a to m such as prominence is insufficient