Syntactics
Syntactics is that department of semiotics (the general theory of signs) that has to do with the relationships of a sign to other signs. As is often the case in science, the term denotes both a domain (the relationships between signs) and the teaching of it.
term
The term syntactic was coined by Charles W. Morris . The concept presupposes a theory of the sign , where it is trilateral because it is constituted by three relationships: A sign has a relationship to what it denotes (the denotation and designate), the user of the sign and to other signs. Each of these three relationships establishes a sub-area of semiotics: semantics is concerned with the relation of the sign to what is designated , pragmatics with the relation of the sign to its user, and syntactics with the relation of the sign to other signs.
The Linguistics distinguishes between two types of relationships between characters: A sign has syntagmatic relations to the characters with which it is connected to a message, and paradigmatic relations to characters belonging (especially the same language) the same system of signs and in the message could stand in its place. Morris does not make this distinction. However, his remarks suggest that his syntactic addresses both types of relationships.
The syntactic is often confused with the syntax . However, this is a sub-area of grammar (and thus linguistics ), the necessary complement of which is morphology . In semiotics, on the other hand, morphology does not occur. In addition, grammar is next to phonology ; and this too has no counterpart in the doctrine of the trilateral sign. Apparently Morris' syntactic is supposed to exhaust all formal properties and relationships of signs.
Terminus
Morris only uses the term syntactics for the term , which is a neologism he coined. The associated adjective is syntactical for him . The intention is evidently to stand out against the (thousands of years old) term syntax , whose adjective in English is mostly syntactic . This intention was often not understood in reception. In lectures on Morris's theory of signs, the term syntactics is often explicitly or implicitly replaced by syntax . A reinterpretation of the word syntax in the sense of a general doctrine of formal relationships between signs was already pioneered in Rudolf Carnap's Logical Syntax of the language that Morris knew.
example
The term syntactics is used in all varieties of semiotics, including in visual communication for the analysis of visual signs ( posters , pictograms , commercials , comics and others).
Traffic signs are an example of syntactic relationships . The traffic sign "Driving ban for motor vehicles" (right) is composed, for example, of the combination of a basic symbol (prohibition) and a reference symbol (motor vehicle). These two have a syntagmatic relationship to one another. The relationships between this traffic sign and other traffic signs such as the sign “No driving for trucks” are its paradigmatic relationships.
The meaningful connection and the combinatorics of the meaning of the two components of the sign as well as its overall meaning is the task of semantics. The possible effect that such a sign has on the viewer is a matter of pragmatics .
See also
literature
- Foundations of the Theory of Signs . 1938. German title: Basics of the theory of signs . In: Charles William Morris: Fundamentals of the theory of signs, aesthetics of the theory of signs . Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 1988. ISBN 3-596-27406-0 .
swell
- ^ Morris, Foundations of the Theory of Signs (1988), pp. 23 f.