Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Foreword -- Part I. The World Into Which He Was Born -- 1. Rising to prominence -- Switzerland and its neighbour, Geneva -- The noble Saulxures of Lorraine -- In Monsieur Calvin's Geneva -- Becoming bourgeois -- Horace-Bénédict de Saussure -- Reforming the Collège de Genève -- The glory of Mont Blanc, the infamy of the Revolution -- 2. His grandparents' and parents' generations -- The Congress of Vienna -- Albertine Necker de Saussure -- Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure -- Alphonse de Saussure -- Fanny Crud -- Count Alexandre de Pourtalès -- Augusta Saladin de Crans -- The Genevese Revolution of 1846-1848 -- Théodore de Saussure -- Adèle Pictet -- Henri de Saussure -- Countess Louise de Pourtalès -- 3. The heritage of linguistics and semiology -- Continuity and progress -- The history of linguistics according to Saussure -- The emergence of linguistic thought in Greece -- The Christian Middle Ages -- Renaissance and Enlightenment -- The encounter with Sanskrit and the beginnings of comparativism -- The vowels of primitive Indo-European -- Part II. Early Years to the MéMoire -- 4. 1857-1873 -- Birth and childhood -- Mons-Djémila and Henri Dunant -- Hofwyl -- The Franco-Prussian War -- Institution Martine -- Infatuation -- Collège de Genève -- 5. 1873-1876 -- First love -- Gymnase de Genève -- Adolphe Pictet -- 'Essay for reducing the words of Greek, Latin & German to a few roots' -- Tragedy and triumph -- Université de Genève -- 6. 1876-1878 -- Société de linguistique de Paris -- To Leipzig -- Courses at Leipzig -- First publications -- Indo-European a -- Family matters and military service -- Remembering Pictet -- 7. The Mémoire on the original vowel system of the Indo-European languages -- Getting there first -- The Neogrammarian manifesto.

Reclaiming simplicity, relocating complexity: a1 and the sonant coefficients -- Phonemes -- Disyllabic roots -- Laws and dogma -- The book's reception -- Möller and laryngeals -- Part III. Doctorate and Paris Years -- 8. 1879-1881 -- Berlin and Whitney -- Retreat to Geneva, return to Leipzig -- The Sanskrit genitive absolute -- Voyage to Lithuania -- To Paris -- The école Pratique des Hautes études -- 9. 1881-1884 -- First courses -- Inner speech and linguistic signs -- Learning to teach -- Dismantling the phoneme -- Difference and intentionality -- Adjunct Secretary -- Weddings -- Publications -- 10. 1884-1888 -- 'Theoretical explanations' and 'Generalities about linguistic method and the life of language' -- Théodore de Saussure's book on the French language -- Teaching -- Family crisis -- Lean years -- 11. 1888-1891 -- Courtship -- Friends and rivals -- Leave -- René de Saussure and difference -- Return and adieu to Paris -- Part IV. Return to Geneva -- 12. 1891-1894 -- Inaugural lectures -- Double essence -- Marriage and family -- Coloured hearing -- 'The immensity of the work' -- 13. 1894-1899 -- The International Congress of Orientalists -- Pro and contra Whitney -- Grief and grievances -- Indogermanische Forschungen articles and other writings -- The spirit world -- Lectures on the syllable -- 14. 1899-1903 -- Léopold de Saussure's colonial linguistics -- Fin de siècle -- French versification -- Dialect research and local place names -- Postscript from Mars -- Publication by proxy: Naville -- 15. 1903-1906 -- Legends and myths -- Personal legend -- Publication by proxy: Odier -- Losing his parents -- From Saturnian metre to anagrams -- Another responsibility -- 16. 1907-1908 -- The first course in general linguistics -- Rethinking phonology -- Signalling linguistics proper -- February break -- Language change -- Language and speech.

Order and linearity -- Diachronic and synchronic -- René and Esperanto, Léopold and Chinese astronomy -- Landmarks -- Part V. Final Flourish -- 17. 1908-1909 -- The second course in general linguistics: the individual and the social -- Semiology -- Units and values -- Diachronic, (idio)synchronic, and panchronic linguistics -- Return to Paris -- Syntagms and associations -- Abandoning anagrams -- The Jubilees of Calvin and the Académie -- 18. 1909-1911 -- Comparative grammar of Greek and Latin -- The third course in general linguistics -- Linguistic geography -- A new course: la langue -- Arbitrariness and linearity -- Entities, units, identities -- Limiting the arbitrary -- The fourth course in general linguistics? -- Static linguistics: one last go -- 19. The end: 1911-1913 -- Home and away -- Last work -- And so to bed -- William Rosier -- Bally and the Chair of Stylistics -- 'Anodyne jokes at my expense' -- Getting personal -- Pyrrhic victory -- January-February 1913 -- Reactions -- 20. Opus posthumous -- The Cours de linguistique générale -- Friends and family -- Structuralism and its aftermath -- Saussurean studies -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography of work on Saussure -- Index.