Benveniste entre tradition et innovation : un cours au Collège de France de 1939

The influence of Antoine Meillet and his school can be observed in Benveniste’s work. Nonetheless, Benveniste’s conclusions are undoubtedly original and autonomous. The article aims at shedding light on this dialectic between tradition and innovation by analysing some preparatory notes for a course of comparative grammar, which was given by Emile Benveniste at the Collège de France in 1939 and focused on the category of number. Attention will be paid to the definition of the dual and the hypothesis concerning its disappearance. The analogies between Benveniste’s considerations and the conclusions drawn by Meillet and the scholars who had been his students, i.e. Cuny, Gauthiot, Tesnière and Vendryes, are evident. Nonetheless, as it will be shown, Benveniste makes original remarks, which originate from his aptitude for problematisation.