Handbook of Semiotics by Winfried Noth - SemioticSigns.com

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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
he thing (l) evokes the idea (2) which names the word (3). A still different order is suggested by Husserl's phenomenology of meaning (q.v. 3 I.3) Husserl's theory of the "meaning endowing act," in connection with his Platonic view of sense, assigns the first place within the semiotic triad to sense: sense (l) "gives life" to a "name-Thing" (2) which refers to the object (3). More generally, the order (I) sense-(2) sign vehicle-(3) object is the order of semiosis from the point of view of sign production, while the order (l) sign vehicle-(2) sense-(3) referent is the order of semiosis from the point of view of the interpreter. 3.2 The Triailic Sign: A Synopsis The semiotic riangle (Fig. Si 2) is the framework of the following synopsis of major triadic definitions of the sign (Fig. Si 3). The synopsis is based on the following definidons: l. Plato: Crotylus (cf. Arbitrariness 1.1.l, Meaning 3.1.I, Gomperz 1908: 79, Schmidt 1969: 19, Coseriu 1970: 46, Schmitter 1987: 28,32). The Greek terms are name-6vopo, v6poq, idea, notion-si6oq, l.6yog, 6tov6r1po, sound, voice-g06yyoq, e06Tpo, and thing-rpdypo, ouolo. 2. Aristode. De interpretatione (I6a tans. J. L. Ackrile; cf. Lieb l9BIa): "Now spoken sounds (q
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