On the Se otic Function of Cucurbits

In semiotics signs are classified differently according to which school of semiotic thought the classifier sympathizes with, but most taxonomies re-cognize at least three categories: icons (real likeness between the sign and what it stands for), indices (a causal relationship) and "signs proper" (whose characteristic feature is their arbitrariness—in the Morse-code, for instance, the "b"-sign could just as well stand for "a " if only everyone agreed on the change). It is of fundamental importance to anyone trying to understand its nature and function to know whether a sign is arbitrary or not. The literary symbols that authors use are often arbitrary and vary with the culture and period of the text. Indeed "symbolification " is a term used by some linguists to denote the process whereby an author takes any code element in his syntagm and invests it with a special meaning through manipulation of the context. "Symbol " would thus be associated with lability—that half of the dual nature of language which permits us to us