Identities, differences, and analogies

This paper examines the problem of differential identification as posed in Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale. The solution proposed by Ducrot seems unlikely to have been Saussure’s own and would result in recognizing a proliferation of variants for every sign in the system. Saussure’s analogy with handwriting appears to provide a more promising line of approach, but in the end leads to no less intractable difficulties.