Substance

实体

A term used in linguistics to refer to the undifferentiated raw material out of which language is constructed - the sound waves of speech (phonic substance), the marks of writing (graphic substance). ‘Substance’ is here opposed to form - the abstract pattern of relationships imposed on this substance by a language. In Saussurean theory, meaning too is conceived as having substance, namely, the conceptual store of thoughts, feelings, etc., which exist independently of language. In modern Linguistics, however, the term tends to be restricted to the phonetic and graphetic media.

语言学用来指用以构建语言的不加区分的原材料——言语的声波（语音实体）和书写标记（字形实体）。这里的“实体”对立于形式——语言加在实体上的抽象关系型式。在索绪尔式理论中，意义也被视为有实体，即独立于语言存在的思想、感情等内存概念。但是现代语言学所指“实体”一般只限于语音和字形媒介。