I mean 'time' here broadly to refer both
to the time that passes between the beginning of the production of the
syntagm and its end, as well as to the longer time that ends up implicating
all those involved in the speaking. I interpret conversational analysis
in the spirit of Sacks to have demonstrated that syntagms can cross the
boundaries between speakers, that they are joint construction, with the
implication that the classic example below, as well as all of Saussure's,
are limit cases, useful for pedagogical or hermeneutic reasons but not
fundamental.
These pages are intended to suggest how this might work.
[opening]
Too little attention is paid to Saussure's
discussion of syntagmatic relationships ([1915]:
122 ff.).
And yet this is the bias through which time enters structure. Indeed a focus on the syntagm reveals that structure requires time.
[example]
[coda]
In the production or reception of this sentence the whole (gestalt, meaning)
is revealed in time. The gestalt is not available as such until all the pieces
are in their place (thus the possibility of misfires, jokes, poetry, etc.).
The sequence {[opening]/[example]/[coda]/[but...]} is itself, or course, an example of a syntagm in the sense discussed here.
[but (toward a new opening)]
This restatement of Saussure does not show how Saussure can be taken interactionally
rather than psychologically. To do this we must go through an alternate
intellectual tradition--pragmatism--which is often presented as antithetical
to structuralism .