Last week, we studied about Syntagm and Paradigm for understand structuralism.
Syntagm is a linguistic unit consisting of a set of linguistic form that are in a sequential relationship to one another.
And Syntagm is always composed of two or more units. Also, often contrasted with paradigm.
Paradigm is a set of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles.
I learned those two things in visual class when we study about Saussure’s theory.
For example, ‘I love coffee’ is syntagm. It mean separate elements brought together in an agreed, logical sequence.
Besides, ‘Coffe I love’ is doesn’t make sense. That means if the structure of syntagm is wrong, it related to make wrong sentences.
In easy way, we can omit the milk and sugar and we can substitute black tea for green tea.
At first time, this theory is quiet difficult for me because Korean have different type of structure.
When we want to say “I Love coffee”, if it’s translate into Korean, “I coffee Love”.
We can change grammar order while we speak and also we can understand what they want to say.
However, even if we use different kinds of language, I think basic structure is all same.
For instance, we can substitute any elements for another in the same set. Like we can make sentence like ‘a cup of coffee/tea.’
Due to this story, I can think about structuralism and Syntagm and want to know about Saussure’s theory.