Roman Jakobson

Roman Osipovich Jakobson  was a scholar of Russian origin;  he was a pioneer of the structural analysis of language, which became the dominant trend of twentieth-century linguistics, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century. Influenced by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, Jakobson developed, with Nikolai Trubetzkoy, techniques for the analysis of sound systems in languages, inaugurating the discipline of phonology.

He went on to apply the same techniques of analysis to syntax and morphology, and, controversially proposed that they be extended to semantics (the study of meaning in language).