Linguistics through its proper mirror-glass: Saussure, signs, segments.

This article starts from a typology of sign models and sign functions in order to assess Saussure's classification of linguistics as a branch of semiology. Saussure's definition of the linguistic sign raises the issue of a possible semiotic approach of the morpheme (unit of expression and content). In Saussure, and even more so in American structural linguistics, the approach of morphology is characterized by low 'semiotic investment'; rarely, if at all, is the notion of 'linguistic sign' made operational within their conception of morphological analysis, in spite of interesting opportunities for its use. In poststructuralist work (natural morphology; linguistic functionalism), the perspectives for a semiotic approach of morphology are promising. The final part of the paper formulates some requirements for a rigid approach of the morpheme as a linguistic sign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]