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A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas.

The task is to investigate speech sounds in relation to the meanings with which they are invested, i.e., sounds viewed as signifiers, and above all to throw light on the structure of the relation between sounds and meaning.

At first acoustics attributed to the different sounds only a limited number of characteristic features.

Sound is the vocabulary of nature.

Instead of following one another the sounds overlap; a sound which is acoustically perceived as coming after another one can be articulated simultaneously with the latter or even in part before it.

Speech sounds cannot be understood, delimited, classified and explained except in the light of the tasks which they perform in language.

Hearing, which, by the motion of the air, informs us of the motion of sounding or vibrating bodies.

Language is not merely a set of unrelated sounds, clauses, rules, and meanings; it is a total coherent system of these integrating with each other, and with behavior, context, universe of discourse, and observer perspective.

Acoustic phonetics, which is developing and increasing in richness very rapidly, already enables us to solve many of the mysteries of sound, mysteries which motor phonetics could not even begin to solve.

Words have not only a definition... but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound.