significatio

Next it gives a definition of the related terms suppositio and copulatio, and the differences between the terms significatio, suppositio and copulatio.

Peter of Spain

The link between significatio and suppositio is the following.

Peter of Spain

The distinction between significatio and suppositio naturalis persisted throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Peter of Spain

When some word has acquired a signification by an impositor (= someone who bestows a meaning upon a word), then it connotes a univeral nature or essence, and acquires a natural capacity to stand for all the actual and possible individuals that share in this common nature; it owes this capacity to its significatio.

Peter of Spain

The counterpart of significatio, the formal constituent of every meaning, is the word's capacity to "stand for" different things

Peter of Spain

Suppositio is dependent on significatio, because supposition can only occur via a term that already has some significatio.

Peter of Spain

From this definition and the example just presented it appears that the extensional features of significatio and suppositio naturalis overlap.

Peter of Spain

The primary semantic property of a word is its significatio, in Peter's definition, the "representation of a thing by a word in accordance with convention".

Peter of Spain

There is a more telling difference between significatio and suppositio naturalis, however.

Peter of Spain

The significatio of a word depends on its imposition, i.e., the application originally given to the word in question.

Peter of Spain