Acknowledgements -- Chapter I: Introduction -- 1. Foreword to the introduction -- 2. Descriptive linguistics - objects and method. The functional principle -- 3. Scientific linguistics. Epistemological considerations -- 4. The hypothetico-deductive method -- Chapter II: Theory and strategy - C'est le point de vue qui crée l'objet (Saussure) -- 1. Preparing the raw material -- 2. The relation of theory to description, and of both to the speech-phenomena -- 3. The axiomatic approach -- 4. The three legs of the theory -- Chapter III: Function, system, and systemology -- 1. The first axiom -- 2. The notion 'self-containedness' -- 3. Earlier stages and development of the theory -- 4. Further on the theory of semiotic systems, and the sub-systems of language -- Chapter IV: Semiotic foundations of axiomatic functionalism - Ontological considerations and the 'linguistic sign' -- 1. The theory of indices -- 2. The ontology or 'signum-theory' -- Chapter V: Linguistic description I: General principles, and phonology -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Practical hints for successful descriptivism -- 3. Methodology and hypothetico-deductive logic -- 4. 'Pseudo-composites and pseudo-words' revisited -- 5. Productivity and pseudo-productivity. Analogy as motivation for the formation of new words -- 6. Productivity and non-productivity in so-called 'derivations' -- 7. Further notes on 'productivity' and potential pitfalls -- 8. Some further remarks -- 9. The notion 'simultaneity' -- 10. The phoneme as a simultaneous bundle of distinctive features -- 11. Phoneme tables as practical descriptive devices -- 12. Consonants, vowels, semi-vowels, and semi-consonants -- 13. The notion 'position', 'nuclearity', and 'peripheralness' in phonology -- 14. The notions 'neutralization' and 'archiphoneme' -- 15. The description of vowel systems.

16. Some further practical hints for establishing vowel-systems -- 17. The English vowel system -- 18. Some further examples of descriptive problems in phonology -- 19. Effective phonological description -- 20. Tone-languages of East and Southeast Asia -- Chapter VI: Linguistic description II: Syntax and the sentential level -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Direct and indirect tactic and non-tactic relations -- 3. Functional dependency versus occurrence dependency -- 4. Correlations between functional dependency and occurrence dependency -- 5. Parallel determination versus diverse determination -- 6. The notion 'semi-cluster' -- 7. The notion 'plereme' -- 8. Syntactic description -- 9. Concord and congruity -- 10. Syntactic patterns in English -- 11. Some remarks on 'sentence' and 'sentential entities' -- Chapter VII: Further examples of syntactic analysis and additional remarks -- Chapter VIII: Postulates for axiomatic linguistics. Revised version -- Bibliography -- Index to the definitions -- General Index.