P

PARADIGM (PARADIGMATIC) Technical term in neo-Saussurean linguistics, but one which Saussure himself did not use. It often replaces Saussure’s série associative (‘associative series’), which is a set of signs linked by partial resemblances, either in form or in meaning. Saussure described such sets as being established ‘in the memory’ and the items thus associated as forming a ‘mnemonic series’. Substituting paradigmatic for associative seems to place the emphasis rather on the notion (which Saussure discusses) of sets of items related by the possibilities of substitution in a particular position. The flexional paradigm familiar from Latin grammar (dominus, dominum, domini, etc.) is cited by Saussure as just one type of example of an associative series. (RH)

See also SYNTAG M.