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System and substance
Hitherto we have been concerned with sources of variation in the substance of the spoken chain, but only a minority of such variations could be said to aid communication; some may ultimately do so, but the majority when first used are a hindrance, or at best are neutral. The essential complement of the substance of communication is the system: this requires stability of functional units which are discrete in form yet overlap sufficiently in function to provide a margin of redundancy.
The dichotomy of ‘form’ and ‘function’ is one that is taken for granted in descriptive linguistics: in any living language, it is open to observation what precise functions are borne by any given phoneme or morpheme, and the problem is no more than one of accurate description. But to anyone looking for the causes of change, it is by no means always clear whether a change takes place primarily because a function in the system is not being performed efficiently (i.e. adequately for ‘expressive needs’), or because of any of the mechanical reasons outlined in chapter 2. Indeed, Saussure went so far as to deny that a history of functions (i.e. of systems as distinct from forms) is possible at all; for him, system was a synchronic manifestation only. Since Saussure there has been continual controversy: some have supported a mechanical solution, others a functional one (and yet others have denied the possibility of discovering any solution at all).
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