Re: SUO: Definition Of A Sign
>Pat Hayes wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > JLA> What the primitive informational unit can be,
>> > if it is not a sign, escapes me.
>> >
>> > I agree with Lee. The term "sign" is more traditional and
>> > shorter than "informational unit". Whether any signs are
>> > or can ever be "primitive" is an empirical question.
>>
>> Maybe I have been misled by the terminology, but
>> I take 'sign' in the singular to refer to a simple
>> lexical item, or even a single character. In this
>> sense, a sign is rarely a useful unit of information,
>> which usually requires a more elaborated structure
>> with an internal productive syntax.
>>
>> Perhaps Lee or John could enlighten us on what they mean by 'sign',
>> and what distinguishes signs from other representational structures?
>>
>> Pat
>
>?~~~~~~~~~?~~~~~~~~~?~~~~~~~~~?~~~~~~~~~?~~~~~~~~~?
Semiotic sign is much more than the widespread sign notion (Pat, I
assume you have in mind traffic lights, graphemes, pictorial elements
and the like).
'Sign' is primarily a relation between an item from some vocabulary
of a language (natural, formal, or artificial), and an intended
meaning. The difficult points for its intuition are:
1) a sign relation requires some context and participants in a
communication event;
2) the relational notion of sign - due to Peirce as well as to the
linguist Ferdinand de Saussure - involves the very complex issues
related to the way organisms conceptualize the external world
3) humans explain intended meanings by way of languages, namely by
applying the sign relation over and over
4) some entities are mainly used as interpretants of something else
5) the interpretant of something else is often called 'sign' (as in
JLA message)
6) semiotics investigates not only languages with vocabularies
including linear items made of characters, but also diagrammatic
languages, 'gesture' languages (as those used by deafs), simpler
languages involving natural phenomena (smoke signals), etc. For all
these languages, the 'sign' relation founds their semiotic similarity.
Re 1)
The (formal) definition (or primitive description) of a lexical item
is only an approximation of the average shared intended meaning for
some (possibly huge) domain. An actual intended meaning is given in a
certain spatio-temporal context with someone who 'produces' a
linguistic expression for a certain purpose, usually taking into
account the expected conceptualization capability of a 'receiver'.
Re 2)
Lexical structures only partially map conceptualization structures
that only partially map external world structures. There are
cognitive and concrete invariants though, which are being
investigated.
Re 3)
One should take care of distinguishing linguistic items _taken as_
interpretants vs. items _used to_ describe the intended meaning.
Some semioticians (specially in the neo-Peircean tradition of Umberto
Eco) talk of 'intertextual reference' as the only possible reference.
Actually, their research program has removed real world entities from
consideration: interpretants refer to other interpretants, in a
(virtually) unlimited interplay.
Re 4)
For example, medical signs or symptoms (jaundice, logorrhea) are
classified as 'signs' and not as 'color', 'pigmentation', 'behavior',
etc. because they are relevant as diagnostic interpretants rather
than as basic ontological entities.
Hope this can help clarifying and not opening a flame ;-)
Aldo Gangemi
Aldo Gangemi
Ontology and Conceptual Modelling Group
CNR-ITBM
Viale Marx 15 00136 Rome Italy
+390686090249
mailto://gangemi@itbm.rm.cnr.it
http://saussure.irmkant.rm.cnr.it
--
{ GERI STEVE ph:+39 06 441737 (10,4)
{ C N R - ITBM fax:+39 06 44230229
{ VIA MORGAGNI 30/E secr:+39 06 7001774
{ 00161 ROMA ITALY
{ ONTOLOGY & CONCEPTUAL MODELING GROUP
{ E-MAIL: steve@itbm.rm.cnr.it
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\ /
&§§§§& ˆ o
§ @ @ & 0
§§ ( )& 00o
§ &&&&& /
§§§§§ /
§§§ /