Abstract

Medieval semiotics is not a precisely defined discipline, but rather a complex of reflections on the concept of sign. Scholastic learning as a commentary tradition and the analysis of basic terms are some of the reasons for the development of medieval semantics and semiotics. The central notion of medieval semantics is signification, understood as the establishment of understanding. The sources of this theory are to be found in Augustine and Aristotle. There was a perfectly clear notion in the Middle Ages of what signification is; however, there was great disagreement about the objects of signification. Another aspect of that theory was a threefold division of language, and the relations among objects, concepts and language. The notion of signification plays a great role in medieval reflections and it seems that the metaphysical theories of the Middle Ages depend on that specific semantics involving signification.