La diversità strutturale tra lingue romanze e lingue indoeuropee antiche e il suo ruolo nello sviluppo del pensiero linguistico di Ferdinand de Saussure.

This paper investigates the importance that the systematic comparison of ancient Indo-European and Romance languages had in the genesis of Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistic thought. After showing that the presence of references to Romance languages was a constant in Saussure’s teaching practice and that his scholarly interest in Romance languages, particularly the dialectal varieties of Romance Switzerland, was profound (though not resulting in numerous publications), it is shown how the comparison between the structural features of ancient Indo-European languages and Romance languages has significantly conditioned the development of some key notions of Saussure’s theory of language in general, such as the arbitrary nature of language.