Handbook of Semiotics by Winfried Noth - SemioticSigns.com

variants of sense (seeMeaning 3.), as Faltin
claims (1985: 30), butfour tlpes of referential
function.
3. Ttiadic Models of the Sign
Triadic sign models comprise a nonhomogeneous
group of semiotic theories distinguishing
three correlates ofthe sign, sign vehicle, sense,
and referent (cf. Meaning). ln some cases,
there is no clear-cut disdnction between dyadic
and triadic models (cf. 2.1.1). For surveys
of triadic sign models see Gomperz (f 908: 76-
9I) and Lieb (l98la).
3.I.2 GENUINE TRIADS AND THE SEMIOTIC TRIANGLE
Genuine triads are based on the concept of mediation
(cf. I.3.3): a third correlate is related to
a first via a second. After Gomperz (1908 77),
Ogden & Richards (1923: I l) have represented
the triadic structure of the sign by
means of a triangle. This diagram (cf. Fig. Si 2)
has become known as the semiotic triangle (cf.
Lyons 1977: 96, Lieb l98fa). It shows the
three correlates ofthe sign in the order (I) sign
vehicle, (2) sense, and (3) referent (Ogden &
Richards use different terms, cf. synopsis in
Fig. S 3). The domed base line indicates the indirect
nature of the relationship between the
sign vehicle and the referent and thus the path
of mediation from (l) to (3). However, the order
of the relata in the process of triadic mediation
has been interpreted in different ways.
3.7 Some Types of Triailic Sign Moilek
The nonhomogeneous character of these sign
models can be illustrated in a tentative typology
of triadic models. The basic disdncdon will
be berween triads that are reducible to dyads
and genuine triads.
3.I.T TRIADS REDUCIBLE TO DYADS
Some riadic sign models are actually reducible
to rwo dyads. These may be either subsequent
or alternative dyads. Locke's definition implies
two subsequent but still potentially independent
dyads: words are signs of ideas and ideas
are signs of things. Anselm's distinction between
signlf catio, the relation between word
and concept, and appellatio, the relation benveen
word and thing, implies two alternative
dyads. In modem semantics, too, the distinction
between sense and reference is sometimes
taken to be a matter of alternative dyads. This
is the theory that words have either sense or
reference (cf. Meaning I.). Others have postulated
a genuine triad claiming that there is always
some sense and reference in signs.
SIGN
VEXICLE
Fio 5i 2. The semiotic triangle (cf. text).
REFERENT
Aristotle's definition of words as signs of the
soul, and the latter as likenesses of actual
things, gives the outline of the standard order
ofthe triad: (l) signvehicle-(2) sense-(3) referent
(Fig. Si 2). Sense is the mediator o[ the referent.
ln medieval semiotics: "Vox significat
rem mediantibus conceptibus" (cf. Lyons
1977: 96). This is also the order of Ogden &
Richards's triad and of Vygotsky's mediational
view of the sign. Peirce's definition of the sign
($ 2.228) enumerates the three relata
representamen-interpretant-object in the
same order, but within his categorial system,
the object is a phenomenon ofsecondness, and
the interpretant is one of thirdness.
In contradistinction to this smndard order of
the triad, Plato's and Aristotle's sign models
also suggest a different interpretation of the sequence
of the relata (cf. Schmidt 1969: I3).
Since in the Platonic radition, ideas are "likenesses"
of acual things, this early picture theory
of meaning (cf. Image 2.2) assigns the
object in a way the first place within the triad:
3. TRIADIC MODELS OF THE SIGN I 89