736 BenueCongo Languages

mile (19021976) Benveniste, E

es, Institute of Language StudiesUnicamp, E Guimara o Paulo Campinas, Brazil Sa
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Benveniste, a French linguist known for his work on enunciation, was one of Antoine Meillets principle disciples and succeeded him at the Colle ` ge de France. His work is composed of two centers of interest: the analyses of languages and general linguistics. His historical analyses are fundamentally dedicated to the Indo-European (and to the Indo-European languages). The synchronic analyses are generally on the French language (Kristeva et al., 1975). His reflection on general linguistics, though it was not his most frequent occupation, has left important contributions to linguistics, as well as to the constitution of a general semiology. Following this path, he arrived at a distinction expressly made only in 1966 (Benveniste, 1967, 1969a), through which it is possible to comprehend his own theoretical and analytical route. He distinguished two modes of significance in the language: semiotics (that characterizes the sign as an element of the system) and semantics (mode of significance engendered by the enunciation).

Language and Enunciation

An important trait of his work is in the manner in which he considered that the language (the semiotics) contains the marks of the enunciation (of the semantics). He was primarily concerned with the description of the language, of the semiotics, but as a structure that has the marks of the enunciative process that it allows (Arrive and Normand, 1997). Regarding the semiotic mode, he carried out studies that had wide repercussions throughout the entire second half of the 20th century. For example, we have the study of personal pronouns, the verbal persons, and the French verbal system. These studies always have the characteristic of describing the forms of the language as marked by their role when enunciated. Through this process, he arrived at a characterization of the personal pronouns and verbal persons that redoes the tripartite division of grammatical persons. For Benveniste, two persons exist (Iyou) and enter into a correlation with the nonperson (he). Regarding the articulation between the semiotic and semantic modes, he left the distinction between the two planes of enunciation that became a classic and is widely utilized. It deals with the distinction between discourse and history. To better understand

this distinction (semantic), it is necessary to note that it is done on the basis of description of the language (semiotics). In the study of the French verbs, referred to above, Benveniste (1959) distinguished two paradigms one that is organized around the perfect and another around the aorist. The first includes the present, but the second does not. For Benveniste, the discourse is the enunciation plane marked by the presence of the speaker in what is said, dealing with the functioning of the perfect system, while the history is the enunciation plane that does not mark the speaker in what is said; what begins to function is the aorist system. Still dealing with the relationship of the two modes of significance, he was concerned with important aspects, such as the question of enunciative functioning and the constitution of subjectivity, which appeared, for example, in De la subjectivite dans le langage (1958a) and Lappareil formel de le nonciation (1970). In the first of these studies, he developed one of his most decisive theoretical theses. Language is not an instrument of communication; it is constitutive of the subjectivity that is, in truth, intersubjective. There is no I (the subject) without you. And the comprehension of the thesis gains in specificity if we consider another of his better-known texts: La nature des pronoms (1956). In this work, he considered that the pronominal system is also divided by two different correlations: on the one hand, the personal correlation that separates the person from the nonperson and, within the personal correlation, the subjectivity correlation that separates the first person, the I, from the second person, the you. The he is the mark of the nonperson. If we go back to the French verbal system, we will see that the personal correlation projects itself over the enunciation modes correlated to the discourse, while the nonperson belongs to the historical plane. In the Lappareil formel de le nonciation (1970), we will find a search for the characterization of the enunciations functioning. In this text, Benveniste presented a definition of enunciation, of the semantic level functioning that he already practiced: the enunciation is putting the language to use by an individual act of utilization (Benveniste, 1970). In this way, the passage of the language (semiotic) to the enunciation (semantic) is done by the speaker who is, for the entire group of language descriptions that Benveniste offered, the parameter that gives meaning to the enunciations at the enunciative instance. The distinction between the semiotic and the semantic

 mile (19021976) 737 Benveniste, E

was fundamental for Benveniste to bring the reflection on the specificity of verbal language in relation to the other semiological systems into the domains of semiological studies. He affirmed that only language combines the two modes of significance (semiotic and semantic), and this is what makes language capable of speaking not only of things and of other semiological systems but of speaking of itself, which means that language is capable of speaking of language, characterizing itself by this metalinguistic capability. Another important aspect of this distinction is that it permitted Benveniste (1969a) to formulate a relation among the various semiological systems, differing from other more common systems that deal with this relation as something on the order of inclusion or belongingness. For Benveniste, the various semiological systems interpret one another. In other words, their relationships are relationships of signification. And, as mentioned above, the language does not include and is not included by other semiological systems. The difference is in its metalinguistic capability, actioning both the semiotic and the semantic systems. In the domain of general linguistics, aside from the formulations that sought to characterize the enunciation, in his N veis de ana lise lingu stica (Levels of linguistic analysis) (1962), he established the distinction between form and meaning in a very specific manner. He affirmed that, taking any linguistic element, its form is obtained if one observes into what other elements it can be divided, and its meaning is obtained if one observes into which superior level element it is integrated. In this manner, he showed, at the same time, the connection between form and meaning and defined the meaning as belonging to the plane of the relationships in the language. Another important discussion in which he became involved was the question of sign arbitrariness. In Nature du signe linguistique (1939), he agreed with Saussure on the fundamental character of the value as a constituent of the linguistic sign, but disagreed on the arbitrary character of the significant/signified relationship. For Benveniste, what is arbitrary is the relationship between the sign and the thing. The relationship between significant and signified is necessary. To stay within the Saussuarean system, that is, in the consideration that nothing external to the language is of regard, he brought into play this other characterization of the fundamental relationship of the sign. It is interesting that Saussure disregarded the reference, but Benveniste would later include it (1967, for example) and considered it as belonging to the plane of enunciation (of semantics, in his words).

The Historical Studies

A first and decisive aspect in this regard is that he treated Indo-European as a language just as any other and tried to reconstruct it based on a systematic conception of the language and not as something on the plane of the successivity of the forms (Benveniste, 1935, 1948). This work unfolded in the consideration of the history and culture. Considering that the systems of representation and the social structures are organized like linguistic structures, Beneveniste, through the analysis of the Indo-European languages, dedicated himself to the reconstruction of the culture and history that are signified within them. And, in this work, his position affirming that the categories of thought do not preexist languages gained form and force. These determine those. He also showed this aspect in a specific manner in a text on the categories in Aristotle (Benveniste, 1958b). These aspects assumed a very particular configuration as he elaborated the linguistic character of signification in an extraordinarily rich form. To illustrate, we quote him: By comparison and through a diachronic analysis, it is a question of making a signification appear where, in the beginning, we had only a designation. The temporal dimension, therefore, becomes an explicative dimension (1969b: 12). To him, the temporal dimension is explicative of how something becomes a sign, when a signification, that is not a relation of designation, of reference, then emerges. Regarding this work, we can recall the comments made by Barthes (1984) when Problemas de lingu s tica geral 2 (Problems of general linguistics 2) was published: This pure linguist, whose objects of study apparently belong to the general linguistic apparatus, transcends, never ceases in reality, to take language in what could be called its concomitances: the work, the history, the culture, the institutions, in short, everything that constitutes the reality of man. The Vocabulary of the Indo-European Institutions, the studies of agent names, of the preverbs prae- or vor-, are texts that denature the linguistic discipline, that realize this subversive movement by which the disciplinary compartmentalization crumbles and a new, nameless science appears. (p. 6, l. 3ff.) Through the systematization, the relationships, Benveniste illuminated the signification of the languages that he studied. He showed that treating signification as a merely situational thing is very little. It is true that he was involved in a search for origins, but what remains is not this. Fundamentally, it is the richness of the question of linguistic signification as something that cannot be reduced to desires or intentions, nor to relationships with objects. What

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he called signification is of interest. In other words, in languages, what is interesting are the language relationships. And, in face of this fact, the semiotic order gains in its capacity to describe and explain human phenomena. Another important question in Benveniste is that his semantic reconstruction procedure included, and regarded as decisive, the consideration of the uses of linguistic forms, of the contexts in which the form is susceptible to appear. One does not have the right to presume it, positively or negatively, in name of verisimilitude (1966: 290). Therefore, his reconstruction method necessarily considered what he called the semantic mode of significance. It is by the observation of this mode that the linguist decides on how to organize the semiotic mode. Another indispensable aspect that should be registered is the important presence of Benvenistes thought in linguistic production from the second half of the 20th century on. To mention just a few, we can recall how Antoine Culioli, Oswald Ducrot, and many others, who today dedicate themselves to semantics based on enunciation studies have Benveniste as a base reference. This reference is not restricted to French linguistics. It extends to all of Europe, including Russia, and America in general. On the other hand, his diachronic work also has interesting repercussions in the work of many that came after him, such as Starobinski.
See also: Barthes, Roland (19151980); Culioli, Antoine (b. 1924); Ducrot, Oswald (b. 1930); Meillit, Antoine (Paul Jules) (18661936); Saussure, Ferdinand (-Mongin) de (18571913).

Bibliography
Arrive M & Normand C (eds.) (1997). Emile Benveniste vingt ans apre ` s. Linx. Paris: Universite de Paris X.

Barthes R (1984). Benveniste. Libe ration, 10111976. In Le Bruissement de la langue. Paris: Seuil. Benveniste E (1935). Origines de la formations des noms en indo-europe en. Paris: Maisonneuve. Benveniste E (1939). Nature du signe linguistique. Acta Linguistica, I. Copenhague. In Benveniste (ed.) (1966). Benveniste E (1948). Noms dagent et noms daction en indo-europe en. Paris: Maisonneuve. Benveniste E (1954). Proble ` mes se mantiques de la reconstruction. Word, X . In Benveniste (ed.) (1966). Benveniste E (1956). La nature des pronoms. For Roman Jakobson . In Benveniste (ed.) (1966). Haia: Mouton. Benveniste E (1958a). De la subjectivite dans le langage. Journal de Psychologie, JulySeptember, PUF. In Benveniste (ed.) 1966. Benveniste E (1958b). Cate gories de pense e et cate gories tudes philosophiques, 4, PUF. In de langue. Les E Benveniste (ed.) (1966). Benveniste E (1959). Les relations de temps dans le verbe franc ais. Bulletin de la Socie te de Linguistique, LIV(I) . In Benveniste (ed.) (1966). Benveniste E (1962). Les niveaux de lanalyse linguistique. Proceedings of the 9th international congress of linguistics. In Benveniste (ed.) (1966). Cambridge. Benveniste E (1966). Proble ` mes de linguistique ge ne rale. Paris: Gallimard. Benveniste E (1967). La forme et le sens dans le langage. Le langage II. In Benveniste (ed.) (1974). Neucha tel: La Baconie ` re. Benveniste E (1969a). Se miologie de la langue. Semio tica I, II. Mouton. In Benveniste (ed.) (1974). Benveniste E (1969b). Le Vocabulaire des institutions indoeurope ennes. Paris: Minuit. Benveniste E (1970). Lappareil formel de le nonciation. Langages, 17. In Benveniste (ed.) (1974). DidierLarousse. Benveniste E (1974). Proble ` mes de linguistique ge ne rales 2. Paris: Gallimard. Kristeva J, Milner J-C & Ruwet N (eds.) (1975). Langue, discours, socie te . Paris: Seuil.

Berber
S Chaker, INALCO, Paris, France A Mettouchi, University of Nantes, Nantes, France
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction
The Berber language is one of the branches of the large Hamito-Semitic (Afroasiatic) linguistic family, which also includes Semitic, Cushitic, ancient Egyp-

tian, and Chadic. With all that this notion implies, Berber can be considered as the aboriginal language of North Africa because currently there is no positive trace of an exterior origin or of the presence of a preor non-Berber substratum in this region. As far back as one can go (first Egyptian accounts: cf. Bates, 1914/ 1970), the Berber language was already installed in its present territory. Particularly, the toponymy has not allowed us to identify, up till now, any kind of pre-