Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

The idea of structuralist theory has achieved the status largely on the account of
Saussure Object of Study which made it the major linguistic theme of the later
years after his death. The linguists were also much influenced by the notions of
Saussure, although less directly. The essay forms the basis of a concept of
language as a vast network of structures and systems was emphasised on the
syntagmatic relationships of the Saussurean emphasis in structures which was
taken as the keynote of a number of theories of language and which underlies
many other linguistic approaches to language. The central tenet of structuralism
is that the phenomena of human life, whether language or media, are not
intelligible except through their network of relationships, making the sign and
the system (or structure) in which the sign is embedded primary concepts. As
such, a sign -- for instance, a word --gets its meaning only in relation to or in
contrast with other signs in a system of signs. Thus we can analyse that
Saussures Object of Study has its basis of the structuralism theory.

In Saussure's view , the language is a system of signs , each of which consists of

two parts: SIGNIFIED ( concept ) and SIGNIFIER (sound image). And the
relationship between these two parts is arbitrary. Therefore the linguistic cannot
attempt to explain individual signs in a piecemeal fashion. Instead he must try to
find the value of a sign from its relations to others its position in the system.
The two principal types of relations which Sauusure identified are
SYNTAGMATIC and PARADIGMATIC relations. The former is a relation
between one item and others in a sequence, or between elements which are all
present , such as the relation between weather and the others in the following
sentences.
e.x. 4-1

If the weather is nice, we will go out.

There are syntactic and semantic conditions the words in a syntagmatic

relation must meet . For example, e.x. 4-2a below is an acceptable sentence,
but B) and C) are not.
e.x. 4-2
a. The boy kicked the ball.
b. *Boy the ball kicked the.
c. *The ball kicked the boy.

The words in (b) are arranged in a way which violates syntactic rules. First, the
countable noun boy cannot occur without a determiner before it. Second, the
words in boy the or boy the ball are not in any grammatical relations with each
other. They are neither in subordination like boys there or in coordination like
boys and girls. Lastly, the is an article and cannot function as the object of
kicked. And in (c), the ball is inanimate while the verb kick requires an animate
subject.

The order of words is also influenced by semantic considerations. Whether (a)

or (b) in ex. 4 -3 will be used depends on the meaning.
Ex.4-3
( a) The boy chased the dog.

(b) The dog chased the boy.

The PARADIGMATIC relation , Saussure originally called ASSOCIATIVE, is

a relation holding between elements replaceable with each other at a particular
place in a structure, or between one element present and the others absent. For
example, in the context The _______ is smiling, there are constrains on the
possible elements occurring here. As is obvious, verbs definitely cannot be used
in this place. The most likely candidate is a noun. But there are also strict
constrains on the possible type of nun occurring here. First, it must be an
animate noun, nouns like book, desk are not possible choices. Second, even
within the type of animate nouns, only those which have a semantic component
of human are most naturally used with the verb smile. Trees, cats only smile in
children's stories. Thirdly, the noun must be in the singular to occur with is
smiling, so nouns like boys, men are excluded. In other words, only singular
human nouns like boy, girl, man, woman, student are capable of occurring in
this con text. And these words are said to be in a paradigmatic relation here.
They can substitute for each other without violating syntactic rules.

One thing to be noted is that the constraints on words in a paradigmatic relation,

different from those in a syntagmatic relation, are syntactic only. Semantic
factors are not taken into consideration here.words in a paradigmatic relation are
comparable only in terms of syntax. They have the same syntactic features. But
they are not replaceable with each other semantically. They do not mean the
same, which is obvious from the words boy, girl, man, woman and student.

In Saussure's original theory, these two relations are applicable at every level of
linguistic analysis. At the phonological level, for example, the phoneme /p/ is in
a syntagmatic relation with the phonemes /i/ and /t/ in the word pit; and it is in a
paradigmatic relation with /b/, /s/ and /h/, as they are capable of replacing /p/ in
the context /_it/ to form an English word. These two relations together, like the
two axes of a ordinate, determine the identity if al linguistic sign. That is, the
value of a linguistic sign is determined by the signs with which it can combine
to form a sequence, and the signs with which it contrasts and can replace in this
sequence.

The sequence which a sign forms with those it is in a syntagmatic relation is

sometimes called a STRUCTURE , to use the word in a more restricted sense;
and the class of signs which are in a paradigmatic relation are sometimes called
a SYSTEM , with system also referred to as the HORIZONTAL relation, or
CHAIN relation. And the paradigmatic relation also known as the VERTICAL
relation, or CHOICE relation.
Structuralism
As it is defined by Richards and Schmidt (2002) it is an approach to linguistics
which stresses the importance of language as a system (p519). Therefore,
language is no longer seen as separate units ( such as sounds, words, sentence)
but as a structured system.