Benveniste, Émile

Benveniste, Émile 

Born May 27, 1902, in Halab (Aleppo), Syria. French linguist. Student of A. Meillet. Specialist in general and European linguistics.

Benveniste is an adherent of structural linguistics. As distinct from F. de Saussure, Benveniste thinks that the linguistic sign is not arbitrary, since it is determined by the system of a language (The Nature of the Linguistic Sign, 1939). Benveniste also works in the field of general semiotics. As a specialist in Indo-European languages, Benveniste is famous for his theory of the structure of the Indo-European root and for numerous studies of Iranian languages.

WORKS

Noms d’agent et noms d’action en indoeuropéen. Paris, 1948.
“Problèmes sémantiques de la réconstruction.” Word, New York, 1954, vol. 10, nos. 2–3.
Etudes sur la langue osséte. Paris, 1959.
Problèmes de linguistique genérale. Paris, 1966.
In Russian translation:
Indoevropeiskoe umennoe slovoobrazovanie. Moscow, 1955.