Semiotic Machines - an Introduction
Pragmatics according to Morris 1938
AUTHOR: Dr. Gerd Döben-Henisch
FIRST DATE: Aug-6, 1996
DATE of LAST CHANGE: Sept-29, 1996
To understand the pragmatics of Morris one has to take into account his holistic view of semiosis and his distinctions between syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics.
Regarding the process of semiosis Morris distinguishes four moments, four aspects within this process: the sign vehicle [S], the interpreter [O], who receives the sign vehicle as an event, the designatum [D], that is what a sign refers to for the interpreter, and the interpretant [I], that is the reaction of the interpreter according to the designatum of the sign (cf. Morris 1971: 19, 20)). Every one of these four terms presupposes the others, i.e. the concepts are interdependent, they can only be introduced simultaneously (cf. Morris 1971: 19, 57f). Thus these four terms are basic terms of a possible theory of semiotic according to Morris.
Presupposing now those four terms Morris subdivides the field of semiotic into the subfields of syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics (cf. Morris 1971: 23).
Semantics deals with the relationship between sign vehicles and a designatum (S <---> D). A designatum can be a real existing object (for instance another sign vehicle) or a kind, a class of objects. In the first case Morris speaks of a denotatum and says that the sign denotes the object; in the second case the sign designates a designatum. A single object can be an element of a class (cf. Morris 1971: 20f).
If a sign vehicle refers to 'what is pointed at' or 'what it directs attention to', then this sign is called an indexical sign (cf. Morris 1971: 37).
All others are characterizing signs where Morris distinguishes icons, which exhibit a certain specified set of the characteristics of the designatum, or symbols, all the characteristic signs which are not icons (cf. Morris 1971: 37).
A concept is for Morris a semantical rule 'determining the use of characterizing signs' where a sign can either refer to an object or to already introduced signs. Signs referring directly to objects he calls primitive terms and he says that these 'must be taken for granted' (cf. Morris 1971: 37f).
Morris assumes that an abstract designatum can be compared with the elements of a concrete situation (things, properties of things, relations between things, complex states of affairs). If the designatum conforms to the real situation, it is true (cf. Morris 1971: 38f).
Semantics can only be worked out on the basis of a complete syntactics and a thing-language talking about possible designata. Syntactics deals with the relationships between sign vehicles (S <---> S) and demands the concept of a structure (cf. Morris 1971: 21, 22, 36).
Semantical rules are referring in the real process of semiosis to habits of sign usage which leads to the point of view of pragmatics. Therefore must semantics be supplemented by pragmatics (cf. Morris 1971: 41f).
Pragmatics deals generally with the relationship between sign vehicles and the interpreter which are, for Morris, at that time, in almost all cases living organisms (Roland POSNER writes that Morris 1975 told him, that he is very interested in the case of machines replacing biological organisms as sign users (POSNER 1991:115) ) (cf. Morris 1971: 21, 43).
Now, applying our concept of a theory to pragmatics and looking to pragmatics from the point of view of pure pragmatics, then the writings of Morris are revealing some structure.
According to Morris the system is confronted with two main kinds of stimuli S: sign vehicles SV and properties P of the surrounding situation Sit. These stimuli are triggering perceptual events SV' and Sit' where the perceived situation Sit' has to be understood as an assemblage of discernible perceived properties P'. The system is stimulated through the perceived sign vehicles SV' to take account of a possible designatum D. This assumption has several implications: (i) that the designatum D has previously be generated on the basis of perception by some process of 'abstraction', i.e. any designatum has to be understood as an assemblage of possible properties P' distinguishable as more 'concrete' or more 'abstract' objects. (ii) One has to assume an established relationship between the perceived sign vehicles SV' and the related designatum D through some 'encoding process' resulting in a lexicon-like structure. (iii) The actual perceptions can exploit these lexicon-like structures reproducing the the encoded elements of the generated relations by 'articulation' or by 'understanding'.
A designatum D can furthermore raise the 'expectation' of objects with properties of P'. These expectations can be 'compared' with the findings of the actual perception consisting of SV' and Sit'. Depending from the similarity of the expectation and the actual perceptions the expected situation can be 'confirmed' by the perceived situation or not. The reference to a designatum accompanied by 'implicit inferences' can lead to the 'preparation' of the system in advance for possible responses in the future observable as as certain habits (cf. Morris 1971: 45,46).
We can condense these remarks to a first sketch of a possible formal structure representing the pure pragmatics of Morris.
PRAGMSTR(x) iff x = <O,R,A >
with
O = <MO,SO>
MO = <SV, SV', P, P', R', R>
SO = <[0,1]>
R = <Sit, Sit', D, Abstr, Enc, Artic, Underst, Expect, Confirm, Prepar, Act>
and
Perc = SV' u Sit'
SUBSET(Sit,P) & SUBSET(Sit',P') & SUBSET(D,P')
Abstr: Perc ---> D
Enc: SV' x D ---> SV' x D
Artic: Perc x (SV' x D) ---> SV'
Underst: Perc x (SV' x D) ---> D
Expect: D ---> D
Compare: Perc x D ---> [0,1]
Prepar: D ---> R'
Act: Perc x CovertR ---> R
SUBSET(DATA_sr, SV^n x Sit x R)
This sketchy version of a theory is still too vague to be used seriously, but it can serve as the starting point of further improvements. Before we will proceed we have nevertheless to consider some of the limitations of this concept.
Comments are welcomed to doeb@inm.de
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