[humanmarkup-comment] **PC-23-Section 4.2.22

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Title: **PC-23-Section 4.2.22

**This means that the issue requires special attention and will include extra material. The To: portion contains significant changes. The material after the second horizontal rule is Sylvia's argument. I have not had enough time to reconsider this.

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23. Sylvia Candelaria de Ram, Section 4.2.22 Sign, minor changes in <xs:documentation> and explanatory text

Note: These changes have not been made in the stand by corrected versions.

From: "A concrete denotation of a specific meaning.  Common signs include pictures or drawings, although a human posture like a clenched fist, an outstretched arm, or a hand posed in a "Stop" gesture may also serve as signs. The main difference between a sign and a signal is that a sign has a specific meaning and usually requires training.  For example, an ape or dog can be taught to respond consistently and appropriately to signs but teaching them Morse Code is much harder if at all doable. 

Communicating simple messages swiftly and efficiently, simple signs may be culturally and location-specific, that is, meaningful in a locale (a stop sign) or culture (the Hindu greeting of folded hands)."

To:     "A Sign is a form denoting something, i.e., having a concrete denotation, or a specific conceptual meaning.  Common signs include pictures or drawings, and a human posture like a clenched fist, an outstretched arm, or a hand posed in a "Stop" gesture may also serve as signs. A signal is a sign vehicle.  The main difference between signs and signals in practice is that a sign may be part of a system of signs and usually requires training to recognize and replicate.  For example, a dog can be taught to respond consistently and appropriately to simple signs, especially if they are iconic (directly representational), but teaching them Morse Code (a conventional sign system dependent on spelling, an abstraction from a sound code) is much harder if at all doable"

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I believe the original is in error and that this is a necessary set of changes. 

?? "denotation" means what the sign stands for, not the sign itself.  Rather unusual way of expressing it, but a sign is 'notation' for the "denotation"!   Semiotics for Beginners at:

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem-gloss.html#vehicle

describes how A signal is a sign vehicle.

?? Morse code is a sign system.  A signal, in hard science and in my view of semiotics (not the common usage where signal and sign are not very distinct), is concrete.  In contrast, a sign (such as 'the letter A'  as opposed to "this letter A:  'a' ", or 'a' handshake in general but not some particular instance of handshaking) is a generalization, like an "average" over particular concrete signals.  Examples of signals include particular sound waves used to communicate, visual patterns of logos or written letters, gestures, and the like.   Admittedly, in the literature there is some ambiguity, by people who haven't had to discriminate the handling of them in implementations.  All the more reason for us to get it right!

Apes do have the capacity to use abstract writing systems.  The claim that they don't is also in error; viz. Sarah.  Chimps are in fact very good at it.  And dolphins probably can use, let alone have a behavioral response to, parts of Morse code.  I trust my additions here may make it more clear?

Sylvia adds from: http://www.indiana.edu/~educp550/shtcrs.html

Semiotics, An Introduction, Donald J. Cunningham, Indiana University, Bloomington; Gary D. Shank , Northern Illinois University

By the way, their description of Sign is Piercean:

" In Peirce's terminology, the sign stands for something, called the object, by creating an interpretant, an
additional sign which stands for some aspect of the object. This interpretant may be generated in the mind of someone and represents in
some respect or other the object, but is not itself that object. In other words, our experience of the world is mediated through signs and
can never, therefore, be isomophoric with the objects of the world. In essence we create our world of experience by creating signs as

we interact with objects in our environment."

 I think we've got that view of Sign covered pretty well

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Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com