DE SAUSSURE, Ferdinand (1857-1913), linguist founder of structuralism; De Suassure was professor at Geneva (1901-13). He wrote Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes (1879) but his Cours de linguistique générale (1916), posthumously edited from his students' lecture notes, is one of the foremost works giving stimulus and direction to modern linguistics
Functionalists and structuralists