This article stresses the unheeded fact that (apart some sparse mentions among listed language components), there is no syntax in Saussure’s work, neither in the CLG nor in the ÉLG. This has baffled his disciples, except Tesnière, whose main work is entirely devoted to structural syntax, though it does little to bridge the gap separating Saussure from Chomsky. For Chomsky, it is well known, puts syntax at the very core of language and linguistic theory, thus creating a tradition which still surfaces even in the works of those linguists who explicitly reject formal models. The article goes on to question the legitimacy of this trend, by investigating the real content of syntax and its divisions. As a result of this examination, it appears that syntax, far from being nuclear, might simply be an epiphenomenon of the linearization of speech and the vocalizing of meanings. The Saussurean principle according to which in la langue, there are nothing but differences is sufficient to account for phenomena which formalists explain away through a complex syntactic component.