Course in General Linguistics

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. All those who had the privilege of participating in his richly rewarding instruction regretted that no book had resulted from it. After his death, we hoped to find in his manuscripts, Obligingly made available to us by Mme. De Saussure, a faithful or at least an adequate outline of his inspiring lectures. At first we thought that we might simply collate F. De Saussure's personal notes and the notes Of his students. We were grossly misled. We found nothing - or almost nothing - that resembled his students' note books. As soon as they had served their purpose, F. De Saussure destroyed the rough drafts of the outlines used for his lectures. In the drawers of his secretary we found only Older outlines which, although certainly not worthless, could not be integrated into the material of the three courses. Our discovery was all the more disappointing since professorial duties had made it impossible for us to attend F. De Saussure's last lectures - and these mark just as brilliant a step in his career as the much earlier one that had witnessed the appearance of his treatise on the vocalic system of proto-indo - European.