Abstract
This article examines the idea of the "potentiality" of language phenomena as expressed by Vilém Mathesius in 1911, and its relation to the debate on the general or basic concept of a linguistic category, discussed by Roman Jakobson, Louis Hjelmslev and others around 1935. We track the concept of potentiality in Roman Jakobson's and Louis Hjelmslev's texts from the period, then we point out similarities with ideas expressed by Émile Benveniste around the same time.
Next, we examine Mathesius' very different idea of potentiality as the state of linguistic expressions that may be otherwise. However, by tracking the problem through Mathesius' later texts, I follow how his theorization gradually develops to converge with Jakobson's.
I will stress the importance for Mathesius as a professor of English philology of the problem of the sentence, with a focus on the Focus-Topic articulation theory in the whole process.