Levi-Strauss is the Structuralist anthropologist in the study of myth. In his structuaralist analysis, what constitutes a myth is not the individual versions, but all the versions together. In studying myth, what one does is study as many versions of the myth as can be found, then abstract from those versions a general pattern or sequence. Levi-Strauss derives at least some of his principles from the linguistics of Saussure: "it is the combination of sounds, not the sounds themselves, which provides the significant data." It is the combination of the versions of a myth, and not the individual versions themselves, which provides significant data.
        Levi-Strauss insists that "myth cannot simply be treated as language if its specific problems are to be solved; myth is language: to be known, myth has to be told; it is a part of human speech." From this, he derives the principle that "Myth, like the rest of language, is made up of constituent units." These constituent units, or mythemes, are relations, and the meaning of a myth is to be found in "bundles of such relations."
        Levi-Strauss uses two terms to characterize mythological time--synchronic and diachronic--which he relates to the Saussurian distinction of langue and parole. The synchronic is "reversible" while the diachronic is "non-reversible." To study language synchronically would be to study it as an entire system at a given point in time; to study language diachronically would be to study it and its development over a period of time.
        Levi-Strauss' method is roughly as follows: He classifies mythemes and then assigns them numbers. He then arranges those mythemes on a chart arranging vertical columns of the same number from left to right on the page.