In his dissertation, he sought to explain certain irregularities in Indo-European vowel gradation by postulating additional 'laryngeal' consonants, whose existence was only confirmed thirty years later with the discovery of Hittite.  
In his dissertation, he sought to explain certain irregularities in Indo-European vowel gradation by postulating additional 'laryngeal' consonants, whose existence was only confirmed thirty years later with the discovery of Hittite.  Despite achieving such success in historical linguistics, by opposing what he termed langue, or the state of speech at a given time, with parole, individual speech, he advocated the study of languages as static structures, emphasizing what he called "synchronic" over "diachronic" linguistics.  FTP, name this Swiss linguist who is most famous for lectures he gave which were later published by his students as Course in General Linguistics.
In his dissertation, he sought to explain certain irregularities in Indo-European vowel gradation by postulating additional 'laryngeal' consonants, whose existence was only confirmed thirty years later with the discovery of Hittite.  
Ferdinand de Saussure