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synonymous with "symbol"? Certainly not, because when Aristotle speaks expressly of signs (semeia) in the Rhetoric, he means symptoms, natural events from which one can infer something else. Aristotle is simply saying that, even though words are conventional symbols, insofar as they are uttered they can also (or in first instance) be taken as symptoms of the evident fact that the one who speaks has something to say in his mind. |
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All this becomes clearer a few sentences below, where Aristotle remarks that, since even vocal sounds can be taken as signs (or symptoms), also inarticulate noises, like those emitted by animals, can act as symptoms. He says "noises" (agràmmatoi psòphoi), not "sounds," because, as Ammonius and all the subsequent commentators will explain, he is also thinking of certain animals, such as fishes, which do not emit sounds but make some noise ("quidam enim pisces non voce, sed branchiis sonant"will say Boethius"et cicada per pectum sonum mittit"). Aristotle says that these noises manifest (deloûsi) something. |
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Now, what happens with the first influential translation of De interpretatione, made by Boethius? Boethius translates both "symbol" and "sign" with nota, so that the Aristotelian nuance gets lost. Moreover, he translates deloûsi not as "they show," but with significant (they signify). |
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Aristotle spoke of the noises of animals, and lexically distinguished a noise from a sound. Unfortunately, from Boethius onward, the medieval commentators translated the Aristotelian phoné (sound) with vox, and psòphos (noise) with sonus. Thus from the medieval commentators animals without lungs emit sounds, but animals with lungs emit voices, and voces can be significativae. The road is open for a significant bark of the dog. |
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The bark of the dog appears for the first time in Ammonius, and in the Latin world with Boethius as an example of vox significativa not ad placitum (by convention) but rather naturaliter (see figure 7.1). Thus a sound that for Aristotle was a sign is placed under the headings of vox significativa, where also stand words or symbols. In the same category. Boethius places the genitus infirmorum, the whinny of the horse, and even the sounds of animals without lungs that "tantu sonitu quodam concrepant." Why do these sounds signify naturaliter? Evidently because one is able to know, through them, their cause by a symptomatic inference. |
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