ABSTRACT
In his comparison of the methodological viewpoints shared by economics and linguistics (Chapter 7, section 1), Saussure draws attention to the distinction which is made between 'political economy' and 'economic history'. He relates this distinction to that between synchrony and diachrony (CLG: 115-16). In order to study these distinctions more effectively, Saussure proposes that the linguist do so along the two axes of 'simultaneity' and 'succession', which correspond to the AB and the CD axes in Saussure's diagram (CLG: 115). This is reproduced in Figure 8.1. The axis of simultaneity (AB) 'concerns relations between things which co-exist, relations from which the passage of time is entirely excluded', whereas along the axis of succession (CD) 'one can never consider more than one thing at a time' (CLG: 115).
