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RESEARCH PRODUCT

De Cratyle à la TME : une longue tradition dans le débat sur la motivation ou l’arbitraire des mots

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In the specialized literature, the concepts of motivation and arbitrariness refer to very different realities. Using some essential readings, we endeavour to clarify these points in the "motivated vs arbitrary nature of lexical forms" debate inaugurated in Plato's Cratylus. Amongst other things, these reveal that the lexical motivation phenomenon is more complex than the supporters of the Saussurian doxa of arbitrariness would have us believe. Even if a considerable amount of time separates the first forms of language from the most ancient linguistic forms available to us and any attempt to reconstruct these original forms is based upon an illusion, it is, nevertheless, possible to decipher the primitive principles of their formation.