Inner Form and the Development of the Concept of Expression in Structuralism and Phenomenology (Špet, Jakobson, Merleau-Ponty)

Abstract

This paper analyses the contrasted role played by the concept of “inner form” in the structural and phenomenological perspectives on language of Gustav Špet, Roman Jakobson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. On the basis first of a brief overview of the concept’s antecedents in the theories of Wilhelm von Humboldt and the Humboldtian psychological tradition (Steinthal, Potebnja, Wundt, Marty), and then a comparative analysis of the general function of inner form in the works of Špet, Jakobson, and Merleau-Ponty, the paper suggests that inner form was a catalyser in the formulation of a new, structural and phenomenological conception of expres-sion. The productive ties of expression with inner form are demonstrated positively in the cases of Špet and Jakobson, and by negative contrast in the case of Merleau-Ponty. Where Špet and Jakobson formulate a triadic model (outer form – inner form – content) whose middle term is then identified as primary and as the bearer (or function) of language’s expressivity (i.e. its capa-city to express meaning through its particular verbal form), Merleau-Ponty remains bound to a binary opposition between form (or style) and content that condemns him to think of expression not as a functional property of language but in terms of a constant movement of subjective dis-tanciation (écart) and reappropriation.