This second volume of Problems of General Linguistics gathers, following the model of the first, twenty important studies published by Emile Benveniste between 1965 and 1972, with which a vast introduction to the problems of language is completed.

The first two articles, in dialogue form, deal with the evolution of linguistics and recent changes in doctrines about language. We then move on to the fundamental problem of communication and the sign, to the development of the semiology of language. The notions of structure and function are the subject of the following studies. The syntax is represented by the nominal composition and the auxiliary relations. After two studies dedicated to showing how man is implicit in the language, the last chapters carry out the investigation of the genesis of important cultural terms and concepts.