![]() ![]() ![]() On the face of it, there is something odd about the fact that the very words we employ to determine the signification of other terms can themselves be employed in multiple ways. The same can be said of the associated verb, “to mean”: we can, for example, talk about both (a) what authors mean by their words and (b) what their words mean to their readers. Even in the case of those things that have been named, our extreme poverty of vocabulary brings us back again and again to the same expressions” (Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 12.10.34).ġ One of the most interesting aspects of the English noun “meaning” is that it is itself polysemous: the word means different things at different times, and this has been an undeniable force in the history of philosophy and literary criticism. “More seriously than this, many things lack names, with the result that either transference or circumlocution is necessary. ![]() His illa potentiora, quod res plurimae carent appellationibus, ut eas necesse sit transferre aut circumire: etiam in iis, quae denominata sunt, summa paupertas in eadem nos frequentissime reuoluit. It arose from necessity, imposed by the poverty and constraints of language later on, however, the pleasure and the charm it brought rendered it popular” (Cicero, De Oratore 3.155). “The third manner of speaking – transferring a term – has a broad range of applications. Tertius ille modus transferendi uerbi late patet, quem necessitas genuit inopia coacta et angustiis, post autem delectatio iucunditasque celebravit. ![]()
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