Abstract
French linguistics (especially that of the linguists of the Société de linguistique de Paris) is one of the most important sources of reflections on language in the Prague Linguistic Circle. Our paper aims at describing the exact mechanisms of transmission of ideas.
We will focus on the work of Antoine Meillet, who was repeatedly put forward by the members of the Cercle as a central figure of French linguistics and - surprisingly - designated as the "dean of European structuralism". We will show which works and ideas found their greatest resonance in the Cercle and how they were elaborated.
At the end of our investigation, Patrick Sériot's thesis on the "ontological" nature of Prague structuralism is partially confirmed, but paradoxically its sources turn out to reside especially in the evolutionary linguistics of Antoine Meillet.