Abstraction as a limit to semiosis
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Date
2013
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
De Gruyter
Abstract
In highly evolved culture, discourse is made up of complexes of implicit
and explicit inter-textual relations, which form the meanings for new signifiers.
Meanings for common abstract nouns are derived from the modeling of
typical situations in everyday narratives. However at a further level of abstraction,
models of discourses, which themselves contain abstract concepts, provide
meanings for what are called �hyper-abstract� nominals. Here a certain limit is
reached, and it is argued that this diachronic, onomasiological process provides
a constraint on the notion of �unlimited semiosis.� This constraint has both natural
and ethical aspects.
Description
Keywords
Unlimited semiosis, Abstraction, Symbolic, Infinity, Concrete, Discourse
Citation
Wood, T. (2013). Abstraction as a limit to semiosis. Semiotica, 197: 65-77