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3.2 TYPES OF COMMUNICATIVE SYSTEM
Nomenclature and calculations as the simplest Communicative Systems
Let us make use of the basic terms for indicating the most important types of communicative arc chain-links and the types of communicative arcs themselves we have so far introduced, and also the concepts of identification and communication processes, in order to show the particular features of the simplest- though not of simply communicative arcs, but of whole communicative systems, i.e. complete combinations of the various means for effecting a certain type of communication with many end chain-links. Naturally in the memories of interpreters capable of effecting mutual communication, a means must be produced for identifying and reproducing special classes of signs, and also there must be produced means not only for direct, but also for sign stimulation of denoters patterns. In other words processes such as !!X - !!X" - !oX"; !!X - !Y"; !X"a - !!X - !X"b - !Y"b.
If any of the internal denoters are generalised patterns (it does not matter whether they are utilitarian or essence) then they are capable of functioning as standards for identifying occasional patterns and including them in some class of patterns of other. Consequently generalised patterns can be regarded as gestalts and they can be designated by a corresponding index.
The simplest of such communicative systems are nomenclatures and calculations. If the communicative system consists of arcs which contain only usually associated links, the number of signs represented by the formed gestalts oX"1 , oX"2, ---, oX"k, and of end abstract chain-links, e.g. oY1, oY"2, ---. oY"k is limited, or "end". Such a communicative system is fully completed by an enumeration of pairs, consisting of associations of sign patterns and izogenic homomorphic abstract end chain-links as patterns of Internal denoters; this is not connected with whether the communicants have some other patterns apart from those which are embraced by usual communicative arcs linking the given enumeration of end patterns, i.e. apart from the linked patterns oX"1 - oY"1, oX"2, - oY"2, ---, oX"k - oY"k (in the memory of each of the communicants).
For any such arc k during the communication act, the expression !oY"ak - !X"ak - !oX"ak - !!Xk - !!X"bk -!oX"bk - !oY"bk, where associations between all patterns are usual, is acceptable.
We can name such a communicative system a nomenclature. For example, if we examine the methods of designating numbers within the limits or confines of the first ten and we consider that communication is employed exclusively for naming the figures, then this will be a typical nomenclature communicative system, retained in the memory of each of the communicants in the form of enumerations of the end patterns (the enumeration oY"1 - 10 of 10 segments of a numerical series) and ten patterns oX"1 - 10 of the signs of these end chain-links, where the reproduced signs, changing into physically observable objects, i.e. permitting the chain of events: !oX" - !!X.
If there is an end enumeration of patterns taking the role of "element" internal denoters, for example, the patterns °Y", and an end enumeration of patterns of relationships which these element patterns are capable of entering into with each other (an enumeration of "relative" patterns, e.g. the patterns oR"); and if to units of these two end pattern enumerations ("element" and "relative") there are assigned, usually, methods of reversible reflection (providing pre-sign communication), or, the more general case, other patterns subject to reversible usual reflection, i.e. internal signs, e.g. of the pattern oX"; - then, obviously, by "pointing" by means of signs to concrete elements and relative patterns as Internal denoters, the following can be made evident for communicants: an enumeration of the elements of a complex whole as well as the structure of links between them, i.e. the links structure of element patterns aided by relative patterns preserved in the memory of the transmitting communicant. C. Peirce called the means of expressing such structured internal denoters through signs, diagrams.
If within the memory of the transmitting communicant any large amount of such complex denoters is contained or arises, then, while the composition of the components remains invariable, i.e. while they are "built" from the "same element and relative patterns" (the patterns oY" and °R"), any of them can be "transferred" to a diagram in the form of a sequence of signs and re-created in the memory of the receiving communicant as a complex pattern consisting of type oY" and type oR" components.
Consequently in this case we are concerned only with the apparent possibility of creating signs for an infinite number of denoters. In fact, pre-sign and sign communication is established through the fixing of the nomenclature link between the end enumeration of components of complex denoters and the end enumeration of reproduced patterns of signs, e.g. reversible gestalts of the signs. This is especially to be seen when patterns which are complex denoters form a linear structure. Whatever laws are implicit in such chains of elementary denoters within the boundaries of a complex denoter, the communication process is nevertheless reduced to a chain-link reversible stimulation of signs of each of the succeeding complex denoter element patterns, and in this sense the communicative system itself is non-universal. It is true of course that there is another aspect to this problem: how do the complex internal denoters themselves form? It is evident that this aspect is not directly related to the question of how such denoters, having already formed, and being generalised and subject to stimulation in the receiving communicant's memory are designated, but we would remind the reader that in examining the mechanisms of universal anticipation and the difference between formal and essence abstractions we have to a certain extent already answered this question.
If all variants of complex internal denoters from the element and relative patterns result from a clearly limited enumeration of the properties of these patterns, or an enumeration of the permissible relationships, then such combinations of element and relative denoters can be called calculations.
What the relationship of the calculation components as internal denoters is towards external ones, i.e. to objects of the external environment, is also a special problem. It is important for us to once again acknowledge the following: quite independently of whether the end enumeration of internal denoters is given in the form of a single "list" of integrally whole patterns, either examples of these denoters are components of complex denoters in some calculation or other which have been set by the "list", or else the complex internal denoters themselves are "born" according to the rules which result from the properties of element patterns, which are the "construction material" for complex denoters; and in all these cases the link of the internal signs with internal denoters remains a firm, usually fixed simply deciphered, receiving communicant. All communicative systems of this sort are not universal and are narrowly special. Also they only employ usual communicative arcs. End, and non-end, chain links of these arcs are fixed, and they exist before the act of communication, although of course in a non-stimulated state. In calculation a complex denoter of any structure is consequently stimulated in the memory of the receiving communicant only by means of usual communicative arcs of the type.
This remains the case also when the introduction of signs for certain complex denoters and for integrally whole independent simple denoters is allowed. In other words, diagram communicative systems can both provide calculation with an Infinite number of signified denoters, both simple and complex, and they can also have a multi-tiered structure of their own, though at the same time remaining nomenclature communicative systems.
An example of diagram nomenclature communicative systems can be provided by symbolic methods of description, and the representation of formalised theories. The actual concepts of these theories, of abstract patterns oY", which are capable of joining a strictly defined enumeration of relationships set in the form of the relative patterns oR", form in the mind of the mathematician complex denoters designated by diagrams of mathematical signs oX" - X, in communicative situations where mathematical knowledge is transmitted. But the principles whereby this communication is effected remain simple and nomenclature (this word is used here adjectively).
Let us look at an example. Let a combination of element abstract patterns being grouped as complex denoters be represented by the enumeration oA"1---, oA"5, and all kinds of complex denoters are formed only because of the rise of contiguity relationships between these patterns. Then, if the presence of this relationship is to be represented, for example, by a pair of external signs X, on the basis of the reversible reflection of internal signs X", each of which is simple associated with a corresponding pattern of an element abstract denoter A", then, in order to designate the whole multiformity of complex denoters from the simple elements A" (and even in the given, most simple example there can be 1024 of them), five signs are sufficient.
So one of the circular diagram structures will be shown as X"1 X"2 X"3, X"4, X"4, X"5, X"5, X"1.
The simplest occasional communicative systems.
The nomenclature communicative systems examined (pre-sign sign, diagram), are, as we have noted already, narrowly specialised and usual. Any pattern not enveloped by a usual communicative arc, is unable to take the role of internal denoter.
If not only simple arcs are used for purposes of communication, but complex communicative ones also, i.e. arcs containing non-end chain links between the pattern of a sign and the pattern of a denoter, then, until all associations between the chain-links of the arc are usual, the nomenclature character of the communicative system remains invariable.
But if just one single association of a simple or complex communicative arc can be occasional, a communicative system ceases to be nomenclature because it is no longer possible to give an end exhaustive list of denoters (independent ones or ones which are diagram components) which can be provided by a given communicative system. The role of the end chain-link can now be taken by any (izogenic or non-izogenic concrete or abstract) pattern, providing there is a basis for its situatively conditioned occasional association with any of the communicative chain links.
It is clear that occasional communicative systems are at the same time universal, although they are not equally efficient, because the end internal denoter can prove to be one where the foundations for its associations (direct association or one via an intermediary) with the pattern of the sign are Insufficiently reliable. In such cases the receiving communicant cannot guess what the character of the associations is which should lead from the received and identified sign to the end chain-link of the communicative arc, and consequently the arc will never be closed and the communicative act will not be effected.
Nevertheless in other more favourable cases even a pattern which does not enter an izogenic pair can be "transmitted" because of occasional associations to a receiving communicant. Naturally before this it must rise In the receiver's memory for which "piecemeal" stimulation of patterns already present can be utilised; a combination of these patterns is capable of forming - either well or badly - a complex derivative pattern, homomorphic to the pattern in the transmitting communicant's memory. This is essentially an occasional variant of diagram communication.
What is even more favourable far occasional communication are those conditions in which patterns which must become end ones in the communications act and which are izogenic and homomorphic before this act although they are not chain links of usual communicative arcs.
The language of a child who knows a limited number of word signs which are being reproduced,0X" , with their concrete internal sense denoters Y", and using occasional associations for "plugging-in" new occasional senses E" to the available limited set of signs being reproduced 0X", belongs to this class of communicative systems. Also the system of gesture language, when people who do not have a common national language communicate belongs to this class.
Unlike a child's language used in a language milieu, the language of gestures is even more natural in the following respect: with the communicators there are not in the beginning any usually reproduced signs 0X", and those speaking (or, rather, those "communicating" and not yet speaking) are compelled to search, among all the possible patterns 0E" they have in their memory, for ones which by their nature allow more or less reversible reflection. These patterns themselves start to be used not only in pre-sign communicative acts, i.e. not only for pointing to their gestalts 0E" as internal denoters, but also to situatively associate themselves creatively in the role of intermediaries with those end patterns E" which do not yield to reversible reflection, so that reversible patterns provide the birth of signs proper (although occasional ones):
!E"a - !!ee - !°E"a - !!E - !!E"b - !!ee - i°E"b - !!ee - !E"b .The presence of a denoter in the reception zone of both communicants, for example, object E, can prove to be extremely useful at this initial stage of "isogennicisation" and the "sociologisation" of the reversible patterns 0E". Further, on the basis of the mechanisms already examined, (according to Rule 14), transfocal patterns 0E" of signs with maximally reduced indicators 0e" and denoter patterns E", which are most effectively catered for through a combination of patterns under formation, will be created. So on the basis of the reversible patterns 0E" the gestalts 0X" of the signs X will form, and also the gestalts 0x" of the indicators x of these signs X.
If the number of denoters is limited and in this connection the end number of abstract internal denoters is easily created, then a communicative system has a tendency to form as a nomenclature or an enumeration of type 0X" - 0Y" usual arcs. But if a requirement develops to supply an unlimited number of denoters E by sign communication, then a polarisation must occur among the patterns E" of denoter E. A certain part of these patterns (patterns C") can, according to Rule 14, join in a usual link with the abstract patterns 0X" of the signs, while the remainder (the patterns E") can be supplied only by means of occasional associations with a group of patterns C" of the denoters C. But these intermediary patterns C", as we have already seen, acquire a tendency to reduce certain of these features which previously corresponded to the properties of the denoter original patterns C of these patterns C, so that as a result the resemblance of intermediary patterns C" with their original patterns is lost and the intermediary patterns are transformed into formalo-logical abstractions. They embody the generalised features 0Y" of those patterns E" which are supplied by them in the act of communication, i.e. they take the role of internal denoters, occasionally associated by resemblance with usual internal denoter-intermediaries °Y".
Bearing all this in mind we can detail further the classification of types of patterns and communicative arcs in communicative systems and understand the particular character of the most complex of these systems - natural languages.
Meaning, sense, the linguistic sign, the speech sign, the moneme, and natural language.
We have already decided to call formal-logical and essence abstractions social, for the group of interpreters, if they are izogenic, homomorphic and usual.
We shall call the following the meaning of the sign: the social abstraction 0Y" (Fig.8) which has formed in communication acts as a result of the mediation, in an association chain, of the abstract pattern 0X" of the sign (permitting reversible reflection) with the pattern E" (from the open set E" of patterns, as internal denoters, containing the property Y", represented by the abstraction 0Y" as a generalised pattern of this property Y", and being end chain-links E" of the communicative arcs); while we shall name as senses the communicative arc end chain-links E", entering with their meanings 0Y", into occasional resemblance associations, as a result of which the arcs are closed, through the mediation of meanings, in any concrete act of communication.
FIG 8
1. X-Vocal Symbols (Linguistic Outlines) From b-The Communicator
2. Form of Vocal Symbol, [X"]
3. Linguistic Meaning (Morpheme) [°X"]
4. Moneme
5. Association Through PR (Implication) [-!XY-]
6. Meaning (Semanitis) [°Y"]
7. Association Through Similarity (Allusion) of Meaning and Thought
8. Occasional Meaning [E"Ј]
9. Usual Meaning [°C"]
10. Occasional Figurative Meaning [Ce"]
11. Occasional Direct Meaning [C"o]
12. Association Through Similarity (Allusion) of Meaning [!!cc]
13. Neolinguistic Thinking Units [cp/ck"/ek"]
14. A - Communicator
15. Thinking Units [CK"]
16. Linguistic Units
Consequently with the pair of communicants a and b senses are those izogenic and homomorphic internal denoters (not necessarily usual, as, for example, the patterns 0C" in Fig. 6, and in fact more often occasional, as for example the pattern E"b, the pattern C"e and the pattern C"0 ), the stimulation of one of which (in the act of communication between the pair of communicants a and b) leads to the stimulation of a second internal denoter. For example the stimulation of pattern E"a in the memory of communicant a (not shown in Fig.8) through the speech sign X, leads to the stimulation of the pattern E"b in the interpreter's memory in Fig.6.
The abstract pattern 0E" of the sign, having begun to form at the stage of occasional reversible reflection, could not lose - while its link with the forming meaning was still based on a resemblance association - those features which provided that resemblance, even if those features were not sufficiently suitable for reversible reflection to be effected.
But after the resemblance association between the pattern of the sign and the meaning has sooner or later changed into a contiguity association, properties which are not important for resemblance have a chance of dying out not only in the generalised pattern - meaning - but in the pattern of the sign. Only those features X" , which provide the most effective reversible reflection and perception, where, in principle, resonance of its indicator part 0x" with the occasional sign pattern X" is sufficient to stimulate this intential pattern 0X" - only those features must be fixed in this pattern of the sign.
Such a sign pattern 0X", adapted only for reversible reflection in usually realised acts of communication with the aid of the meaning 0Y" will be named a linguistic sign or linguistic morpheme. It is clear that izogennic linguistic signs cannot in the final analysis become social.
Examples of the original pattern X of the linguistic sign 0X" which are physically evident in an external environment as a result of reversible reflection will be called the speech signs of a given linguistic sign, or speech morphemes.
The unit of two social patterns usually associated by contiguity - meaning (semantemes) and linguistic language (morphemes), i.e. the usual association 0X" - !xy - 0Y, will be called a moneme.
The term moneme emphasises the fact that we are concerned with a certain unit of independent components. In the given case this is a unity of morpheme and semanteme, i.e. of a generalised pattern of the sign and its meaning. But insofar as only as a result of the appearance of such unities a sign system is transformed into a universal means of communication, i.e. into a natural language, should a moneme be regarded as a minimal linguistic unit, and in this respect its function could be more accurately described by the term "glosseme".
The sum or combination of patterns C", usually associated with the meanings 0Y" and therefore not requiring bases to be sought for association with the meanings 0Y" (when in concrete acts of communication these patterns C" take the role of sense) will be called the usual sense (s). In the apposite case senses will be called occasional.
It will be obvious, without any proof being required, that the generalised abstract patterns C" can be most stable homomorphic and usual, i.e. the patterns oC". Consequently the basic mass of usual senses relate to the abstract patterns 0C".
It is also clear that having engaged in a usual link, usual senses themselves acquire functions of meditation when there are associations of occasional (and as a rule extremely) concrete senses C" with the meanings 0Y" in the chains for example, !!"Ce - !! pp - !°C" - ! yy -!0y" in Fig.8. But since these abstract senses 0C" are above all not created in connection with the communicative interactions of the interpretor with the environment, they do not turn into meanings but remain senses, though usual ones.
So we come to the conclusion that the usualisation and socialisation of a certain set of reversible signs, meanings and abstract senses provides a chance to close an unlimited - both in practice and in principle - number of end chain-links, with an occasionally communicative arc. Here the same end links (senses) can be closed - even in the one situation - with various arcs. If use is made of various components of end and intermediate senses for their association with meanings. Communicative arcs will be even more varied if the same end forms are linked by arcs in various external situations with various sets of accompanying stimulated forms.
Only in this case do we obtain those types of communicative systems which have all the components of natural language, while preceding aspects of communication ("gesture language" and childrens language), although universal, cannot be called language in the full sense because the communicative behaviors of any pair of objects is at this level of the system's development only occasional, unique, and irrepeatable; "the linguistic collective" is in principle completed by a single pair of communicants only, and the process of communication remains for an outside observer incomprehensible in many aspects.
But at the same time all occasional aspects of communication, since they are based on a constant search for occasional links between patterns involving both external circumstances and the communicative state of the partner, in principle impossible without universal anticipation, prognosis etc, as heuristic aspects of pattern operation. Nomenclature and calculation require no intermediary operations; they can utilise only the simplest types of usual advance reflection. Therefore they can be easily realised in modern computers, whose programmes are compiled precisely in order that the maximum determination be reflected in them and there be no heuristics as creative activity.
So we come to the first rough formulation of differences between artificial "languages" and communicative systems represented by natural languages, we have still to dwell on this problem in a little more detail, but before this it is necessary to compare our view of semiotic categories, as expounded above, with the most widely known semiotic concepts.
QUESTIONS OF SECONDARINESS AND OF THE MATERIAL NATURE OF SIGNS AND MEANINGS.
A reasonably deep comparison of views on the nature of initial semiotic concepts and other points of view would turn into a separate investigation greatly exceeding our work in scope. Therefore we shall restrict ourselves to certain remarks, referring the reader to both specialised and popular books and articles containing a rich biography and comparative analysis of the countless semiotic concepts [12; 34; 53; 66; 78; 144; 149; 165; 170; 193].
One of the most contentious aspects of semiotics is the question of the material nature of the sign and meaning.
The division of the components of a sign situation into material and non-material is to be found with the stoic philosophers in their contrast of the "corporeal" and the "non-corporeal". The vocalised designating word and the external designated substratum (the sign and the denoter in our terminology) are corporeal. The designated is non-corporeal (the denoter's pattern or the internal denoter in our terminology). Moreover the stoics recognised that for a vocalised word to be received it must "exist previously" in the memory of the receiver, for otherwise in spite of the fact that the word will be heard, it will remain "un-received". Consequently the presence of a fourth component and particularly of the pattern of the sign (or of the internal sign) was also considered by the Greeks to be essential for a sign situation, but they mentioned this only when reasoning that sound and the substratum are corporeal and what is designated is non-corporeal [II. p.96].
Baudouin de Courtenay and Peirce revived this 4-point figure but modern semiotics have basically reduced the solution of the most important problems of the sign to an analysis of 3-point figure or "triangles".
As we understand it, in developing the ideas of those scientists, the pattern of the sign (the internal sign) and the pattern of the denoter (the internal denoter) cannot be called "non-corporeal" and, consequently non-material. They are distinct from original patterns not in a loss of materiality, but in "secondariness" regarding the observable reality, since they are physical reflections of the physical properties of original patterns received by means of the sense organs. If it is also taken into account that one original pattern becomes a sign with regard to another only because of an association between patterns, and an association ultimately arises as a physical consolidation or fixing of pattern links on the psychic substratum, then the relation between the internally signified and the signifying is corporeal and material, though at the same time secondary.
We have functionally defined the deputising role of the sign with regard to the denoter as the capacity to arouse in a chain of associations that pattern which is stimulated when the interpretor interacts with the denoter.
Here our definition coincides with a number of others, but it seems to point more definitely to those internal mechanisms which make a sign a sign.
In the opinion of L.O. Resnikov, "the sign is an external phenomenon whose sense for us is in its arousal in our consciousness of a thought concerning another subject or phenomenon" [149, p.96]. From our definition this comes as a particular case and it narrows too much the circle of possible internal "denoters", because Resnikov sees as the pattern of the "other subject" only the thought concerning or of that subject. But since with the aid of the concsiouness reflection relates to a number of ideals, we must assert on the basis of Resnikov's formulation that the denoter (the "meaning") of a sign can only be something "ideal" and, therefore, "non-material". After conclusions of this sort attempts to see semiotic situations in non-living nature or hopes of reproducing them electronically seem ill-based.
Poltoratsky and Shvirev define the deputising function of the sign differently. "The substitution of a designated subject by a sign is to be seen in the sign fulfilling in the framework of certain activity of the subject one of those functions which was previously peculiar to the designated subject" [144, p.32].
Since it is not specifically shown here exactly which function of "the designated" the sign fulfils, our definition, limiting the deputising function, comes under the above formulation as one of the particular cases.
However the too "wide" definition given above does not contain any purely sign characteristics of the sign. For substitution can be expressed for example in a man using a knife instead of a screwdriver to remove a screw. Does this mean that a knife is a sign of a screwdriver?
Let us give another example. During years of poor harvest peasants baked cakes of crushed bark. Does this mean that bark is a sign of cereals? Of course not, because not just any functional replacement is a sign substitution. And this boundary between sign and non-sign substitution in Poltoratsky's and Shvirev's definition is not revealed. From this viewpoint not only the solution but also the posing of the problem of the "materialness" or non-materialness" of the sign and the signified is impossible.
D.P. Gorsky's position in establishing the essence of the sign is far more concrete. "A is the sign of B if object B arouses through A the same response reactions in an animal as the direct influence of the object" [46, p.55]. But neither does this definition finally say which same reactions exactly object A must arouse in order to be the sign of object B. It is emphasised in our scheme that these are special internal reactions! the stimulation of the pattern of the signified object B, i.e. the stimulation of the internal denoter.
The motivation for trying to speak of the interpreter's "reactions" is understandable because it is considered that a reaction consists of externally observable changes in behaviour and, consequently, "material" essences. However the falseness of the materialism of interpretation has been demonstrated long ago.
L.A. Abramyan's definition of the sign if close to ours. "If objects A, C, C are linked through relationships so that A's influence on C causes changes in the latter which were previously caused by B's influence on C, then object A is the sign of B for C". [3, p.56-57]. "The events A and B must be represented in C in the form of its internal intense and dynamic states "a" and "b" so that A's influence can cause a change in it corresponding to the character of the event B which has still not occurred". [3, p.56].
Unlike Gorsky this writer speaks not of a reaction in general, but of "internal intense and dynamic states" of the interpretor C.
Consequently such an Interpretation of the essence of a sign situation can no longer be adduced to the simplest schemes of the type "stimulus-response".
If it is remembered that in our explanation of the nature of the sign the fact of the stimulation of the pattern in the interpreter under the influence of the original pattern is also seen as the change of the interpreter from one state to another he will find it easy to note that Abramyan's definition includes our definition of the sign as a particular case. But a great degree of common ground in these formulae brings us to the fact that the interpreter's capability for not simply changing from one state to another in a certain sequential order of these states but for also stimulating the reflections of external objects as patterns capable of entering various types of associations, and for preserving a certain degree of similarity with the original patterns, and for effecting direct and reversible stimulation and reflection - all these aspects of it remain unrevealed in Abramyan's formulation. Therefore it is natural that he cannot speak of the internal sign and the internal denoter, and without them as we have seen one cannot succeed in defining the concept of the sign, or meaning, or sense. This all leads to Abramyan returning to the "triangles" which show little of the nature of the sign and meaning.
"Reality of meaning is conditioned by the existence of the two-sided relationships of the sign - towards the subject of designation and to the addressee" [3, p.56]. "...The relation in which meaning is confirmed is, strictly speaking. a three-sided relation (A - is the sign of B for C)" [3, p.59]. "...Meaning is briefly and adequately defined above all through the relation of the sign to the subject of designation" [3, p.59].
Such components of a sign situation as the pattern of the sign and the pattern of a denoter have disappeared from view. and there are no justifiable reservations about the relation being no less material than the subject provides with an opportunity to understand the ontology of the "materialness" of meaning and the sign relation.
Definitions such as "the sign in the end is a substantive bearer of non-substantive properties - i.e. of meaning -[3, p.51], explain nothing.
In our scheme original patterns and patterns are equally material; the association between patterns which provide the possibility for one original pattern to become the sign of another is also material. The patterns and original patterns are only as causes and effects and since the material nature of an effect has never been in doubt if it has been stimulated by a certain cause in corresponding conditions, then not only an external but also an internal denoter can be related to the number of material objects, though these are secondary.
On the other hand, having defined the sign functionally as an external object the stimulation of whose pattern is capable, on the basis of an association, of stimulating the denoter's pattern, we can estimate the degree or corporeality of the sign itself.
Connected to the fact that to carry out its function a sign must influence the interpretor so that its pattern is stimulated, the requirement for minimal corporeality of the sign as external object is set by the capacity of this object to have an effect on the Interpretor's sensors even though it be the minimum without which it would be impossible to form and stimulate the formed pattern of the sign. And since the sign pattern as an integrally whale transfocal pattern can be stimulated even with the stimulation of just the pattern of the indicator, after which the sign is capable of carrying out its substitution role, then with the formation of patterns of objects taking the role of signs the degree of difference between the pattern of the sign and the pattern of its indicator is reduced to a minimum. Moreover even the indicator always requires full "reproducability", so that within the framework of indicator reproduction of signs additional reduced communication is possible.
As has already been stated, our concept of the nature of the sign and its semiotic categories can be traced back to the ideas of Baudouin de Courtenay and Charles Peirce, before they were distorted by the interpretations of C. Morris and his followers. The concepts of the material nature of the sign and of its pattern in the memory of the interpreter, just like the pattern of the denoter and the association between these patterns resulting from this conception, develop the monistic tendencies of Soviet semiotics and philosophy, based on the Leninist theory of reflection, according to which the brain, as "the human organ of recognition" "does not shed any metaphysical light, but is a piece of nature, reflecting other pieces of nature" [2, vol.18, p.256]. A critique of dualist concepts from these positions has been conducted in Soviet semiotic literature by A.G. Volkov and I.A. Khabarov, who show that if we do not recognise the material unity of the world then we must recognise "the Impossibility of identifying semiotic formations which do not materially exist" [36, p.20]; ones for example like the "linguistic referent", concerning which I.F. Vardul asserts that it "does not exist empirically (i.e. in space and time) [31, p.5]. The introduction of such a non-empiric category to sign theory makes even an attempt to establish the principles of meaningful communication with modern and future cybernetic machines senseless.
Closer to our concept of the nature of the sign situation is, it would seem, the semiotic concept of V.M. Pavlov. In his scheme the presence is also taken into account not only of the sign and denoter, but also of their patterns within the psyche of the interpreter. "The sign's link with the signified in the first place rests on the link of the sound pattern with the (sensitive) pattern of the thing" (from an unpublished manuscript of 1976: The Interface between linguistics and the Associated Sciences in the investigation of the problem of the Linguistic Sign, (P.77), where "the link ...with precisely the sensitive pattern is a necessary Indicator of "signness" (ibid P.62).
Among the latest books of this type V.M. Sonsev's [165] can be mentioned, and especially B.G. Thairbekov's book and dissertation. Demonstrating the incomplete nature of the "triangular" schemes of the sign situation, he says that" in man's consciousness... a pair of patterns arises which are a mapping of two various objects - the denoter and the sign...". Here "the stimulation in the consciousness of the elements of this pair occurs in two directions ..." [170, p.37] (i.e. it is a question of that phenomenon which in our scheme is called "reversible or inverse stimulation").
Certainly in these works there is no special distinction between a sign and a communication situation and therefore such details of the internally signified - like the sequential chain of meaning, usual sense, and occasional sense -are not mentioned in them nor are the details of the pattern of the sign itself: the a priori gestalt, the a posteriori gestalt, phases of the transfocal pattern etc).
The interpretation we have suggested of the multi-element nature of an internal denoter, fixed to a sign pattern, agrees very well with the ideas of B.A. Serebrennikov who considers that in meaning, which is a pattern and fixed in the psyche, only the most obvious features of the pattern of a real (or imagined) object which are sufficient for identifying (in our scheme they are indicators) are represented. Consequently the full pattern of this object which is stimulated through meaning can be correlated with our interpretation of usual sense [159, p.51-52]. It is true that meaning for Serebrennikov is not a separate pattern but the "kernel" of a full pattern, and the explanation of the use of linguistic signs in occasional senses (not in usual ones)-with the nature of the sign and meaning interpreted in this way-becomes more difficult. Much attention is indeed paid to this aspect of the semantics of linguistic signs in the works of N.D. Arutyunovu [17].
In our scheme the distinction between meaning and sense fully corresponds to the formula of V.A. Zveginstev so that it accords with our definition of significance where such expressions as "combination of possible meanings", or "valency of the word" are used [55, p.123].
But insofar as such an identification of meaning and significance is extremely common, especially in structuralist works, then we must examine the problem of the correlation of meaning and significance.
Meaning and Significance. F. de Saussure did us a great service with his division of the diffuse concept of the semantics of linguistic units into two independent categories meaning itself, and significance. If we remember that de Saussure's indivisible psychic unit of "acoustic pattern" and "idea" corresponds to our concept of the moneme, and that de Saussure called the idea "meaning" (which interpretation has been preserved in our scheme after the mechanisms of abstraction have been defined), then the distinction between meaning and significance, defined by de Saussure as the place of a named bi-lateral unit (i.e. moneme) in a network of relations (resemblance and contiguity) with other units of the same level becomes clear in principle [166, p.112-120].
If we generalise the concept of significance for any systems (not only sign ones), it is as previously defined: as the place of an element of a system in the network of its links and relationships with other elements of this system. In other words the element is regarded in this case as a links junction in the structure, where we understand by "structure" a linkage structure (according to our previous definitions). Therefore significance is characterised as an element of a system not from the point of view of those of its Individual features which it possesses outside the system, i.e. not as the substance of a system, but exclusively from the point of view of its external features which are revealed in the element's links with other elements in the linkage structure of the given system. If only the significance of the element is named, it exists for us as a junction, as a bundle of "pure relationships", or as the meeting-place of links at a point which has neither measurements nor other properties outside the given structure.
If we examine the relations network in particular, the structure of oppositions and identifications not of elements in general but of monemes, we shall see that the place of any moneme in this structure will correspond to what de Saussure called the signficance of the linguistic sign.
It is quite obvious that any functional feature allowing one semantic unit to be distinguished from another must be given consideration; thus; until linguists distinguished meaning from significance their ideas concerning the semantics of linguistic units were extremely imprecise. But it does not at all follow from this that after the discovery of significance as an important semantic characteristic of the sign, meaning "lost its meaning" for the theory. However the tendency to understand the correlation between significance and value in such a way is already evident with de Saussure, when he says that "the word is not only invested with meaning, but also, and mainly, with significance, which is something quite different". [166, p.115].
The supporters of "purely structural" methods of investigating language have gradually changed the "mainly" of de Saussure into a categoric "exclusively", and in so doing have in fact excluded meaning from the list of categories worthy of scientific attention, we have so far constantly come against this attempt to describe all semantic characteristics of meaningful units through indicating their place in a network of sense contracts with other units, and, consequently, through a description of the significance of these units without any account being taken of what such characteristics are called, be it significance, structural meaning, meaning, sense etc. [12-14, p.58]. And so, instead of the two semantic characteristics of the sign discovered by de Saussure people have again started to take only one into account: significance. Many semantic problems of linguistics and semiotics have thus been deprived of solution. For example, if we only pay attention to the sense relationships of one moneme to others, the prime cause of their rise and development remains abscure, even with a detailed description of the network of these relationships.
In our scheme no trace of mystery remains. Since components of monemes are patterns then they can as such enter into associations. Consequently by their nature monemes are capable of being Included in a network of mutual relationships and therefore they themselves create significances at each junction of the structure of these relationships. This is an example of how a system's substance influences the same system's structure.
However a structure under formation has, in its turn, an influence on a system's structure. This is understandable: if, for example, monemes are identified or are contrasted (set apposite) to each other in acts of communication when the means of expressing senses are being selected, then, as we have seen, this also leads to the transformation of the patterns themselves, which are moneme components, and to a change of their potentials to associate with each other. Thus a system's substance changes. And any changes in the ability of monemes to enter an association again leads to the restructuring of a structure, to the fixing, or usualisation of some links, and the weakening of others, etc. [116]
Consequently if we remember that one of a moneme's components is the meaning it represents, be becomes clear that meaning is one of the factors forming the significance of monemes, while significance transforms (the) meaning, so that nothing can be regarded as the "main" thing, and everything is equally necessary. It is important to take into account both meaning and significance, and their constant interaction.
Types of significances. Our scheme allows us to direct our attention to the fact that a moneme's significance is a resulting characteristic. It is determined not only by the associative properties of meanings, i.e. abstract communicative patterns oY" indicating senses, but also by the properties of "acoustic patterns", i.e. of what we named linguistic signs as patterns of speech or sound signs, and abstract patterns 0X" associated usually by contiguity with the patterns 0Y". Moreover, the association of monemes both with abstract usual senses 0C" and with occasional senses C" have an influence on the monemes; the occasional senses C", being patterns of the components of the external events C, cannot help introducing changes into the significance of monemes when there are notable changes in the relationships between the denoters C, whose patterns C" quite often take the role of occasional senses C".
Consequently, not only what is signified by a linguistic sign has several tiers (the denoter C, the occasional sense C", the usual sense oC", the meaning oY"), but also the significance must be examined separately on each of these tiers, because we can be interested in the place of the meanings 0Y" in the network of their relations with other meanings, and in the place of the usual senses 0C" in the network of their relations to other usual senses etc. Moreover the association of monemes is influenced by associations between the linguistic signs oX", and between their original patterns - the speech signs X. These associations are now completely non-semantic, but since they influence the significance of monemes, they too contribute to the formation of semantic language units. In the light of the above it must be absolutely clear how much the picture of the semantics of a sign system is simplified and distorted when the results of all the factors influencing the significance of senses, meanings, linguistic signs and speech signs are projected on to the one plane of "combinations" and "distributions" of speech (or text) units [67; 210]. And that surprising obstinacy with which many linguistis, logicians, philosophers, semioticians strive to reduce all data on what is significant in sign systems to data on just the "combinability" of the speech signs X, is explained by acknowledged or unacknowledged behaviouristic "materialism", which acknowledges as existing only those phenomena which are on the surface and which therefore permit a direct "feeling". It is clear that with such an approach the essence of a phenomenon cannot be revealed even if the phenomenon is described in "strict" mathematical symbols. And the contrary is true: an understanding of a phenomenon's essence opens the way for the most effective use of mathematical means and postulations for a deep study of the systems we are interested in.
In this connection let us again turn our attention to the following: The structure of relations between the units of a particular tier, e.g. between monemes, can be related from a mathematical viewpoint to the class of "internal functions" obtained as a result of the units of a certain set being reflected onto units of the same set, i.e. as a result of the set being reflected on to itself.
Then the significance of any element in this "Internal function" is the reflection of a given element on to the whole set which it is joining, or is part of.
But a set can be reflected not only on to Itself but on to other sets. In this case we obtain an "external function" i.e. the structure of external links and relations, an inter systems structure.
Our communication scheme allows us to reveal such inter systems structures. For example, a structure of associations between a set of linguistic signs 0X" (i.e. the patterns 0X" of the speech signs X) and a set of meanings which are usually associated with them oY" (one such associative link, a certain moneme is represented in Fig.6) is close to a uni-sign structure.
A structure of usual associations between a set of meanings 0Y" and a set of usual senses oC" is more complex because, as we shall see later, the same group or set of meanings can be associated with several usual senses.
A structure of associations between a set of occasional senses C" (which does not have a permanent composition of its elements) and a set of usual senses 0C" is conditioned situatively and is therefore highly capricious. These associations can only be occasional and they are mostly unique, as an occasional sense frequently takes the role of an internal denoter only in a concrete situation, a single time during its ephemeral existence as a current pattern of a current event (for example, the sense C"e and the sense C"0 in Figure 8).
Naturally the task of the researcher consists of revealing and describing not only the structures of relations between the units of one tier, but also of inter systems structures. And, exactly as in "internal structures", the concept of an element's significance in a network of inter systems, inter tier links can be distinguished. It is only in this case that we shall be able to understand, for example, what the technology is of en expression link of the usual senses °C" through the meanings 0Y", and of the occasional sense C".
Our scheme allows us to take into account another important circumstance in the discovery of various types of significance of the communicative system: the extent to which a significance has been usualised.
All those intrasystemic and intersystemic associations which have been usualised, fixed, "trodden in", form usual significances. Moreover, since intentials and potentials to engage in various types of links, if they are non-usualised, are Inherent, as we understand it, in all elements of a communicative system, we can investigate both intential and potential significances of signs, meanings, senses etc.
In concrete acts of communication only certain usual associations and potential associations which have become intential are stimulated, we can therefore speak of extential significance. But before concrete links which are usual or potential (only occasionally actualised) are stimulated, they have been "warmed up" by preceding circumstances, they have been prepared for, or orientated towards, stimulation. It is accordingly very Important, knowing the usual ones, to have the means of also establishing intential significances, which have arisen occasionally, and influence most directly what the extential significances will be in a given act of communication taking into account the conditions of the communication intercourse situation.
If the concept "usual" is seen as the opposite of the concept "occasional", i.e. "non-usual", then the concept "extential" unites any types of stimulations which have actually arisen, i.e. both usual ones and those potential ones which have changed into intential ones, and then also into stimulated ones, though only in specific situative circumstances.
Since a communicant, when choosing a means of expressing a certain sense, is above all reliant on his ideas as to what the patterns and their usual significances in associative networks are, then the area of semiotics which studies communication conditions, is entitled to independence because it starts by taking into account usual links. In particular, if it is a question of calculations and their diagram (matic) use, no other types of semiotic significances should be taken into account. Usualised links can be set "simply" (mathematical use of this work - translator), and information about the Individuality of associating elements becomes necessary.
But a universal system of communication is being studied, and especially if it is a question of building cybernetic machines which associate on more or less the same principles as people associate by means of natural language, then account must be taken not only of usualised associations but also of the intentials and potentials of associating units. In this case we cannot therefore regard each component of communicative arcs as a bundle of "pure relationships": account must be taken of the internal properties of each associating pattern, and of the specific character of the substance of the communicative systems. And if we want to present even a crude model of such a system we cannot do without elements of reflexive algebra which allows the potentials and intentials of the partner in each act of communicative interaction to be assessed.
Only with a detailed concept of the types of things signified and the types of significances, taking them as intra - and intersystems networks of relations and associations, can we find answers to many vexed questions of the nature of polysemantics, synonmy, the transfer of meanings etc. [114-116].
Moreover, by taking into account the variety of types of significances we can examine the problem of correlations not only between usual and occasional significances, but also between the static and dynamic characteristics of structures which have arisen in communicative systems, and we can see the sources of the latest so-called active concepts in semiotics and linguistics and compare them to the concepts of the systems approach, "classic" synchronic structuralism, and "traditional" substantialism [120].
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