Semantica fra cognizione e mondo: sviluppi della teoria semiotica attuale e modelli di conoscenza

Abstract

Since the foundation of the modern linguistic, such in Ferdinand de Saussure’s best known work, “Course on General Linguistics”, semiotics has dealt explicitly with problems concerning language, for example with the issue of the origin, or even not less with the issue of the importance of conventions for the notion of a linguistic regularity; nevertheless is with the concept of ‘semantics’ – term subject of much debate, still racy – that semiotic paradigm binds with the philosophical thought about language. Indeed the theoretical discussion of the last fifteen years has made an important effort to understand and analyse the relation between cognitive models from which the language depends and the effects, widely unpredictable, that results from the practical use of language. The intent of this article is to give a briex excursus of the relevant steps of the semiotic argomentation on semantics, drawing a path from the greimasian project to the most recent theories. We would like to show how the questions are changed, through the Umberto Eco’s idea of an “encylopedic meaning”, coming up to new findings, as in the case of Patrizia Violi’s studies about the cognition of aknowledgement, or in the work of François Rastier and Claudio Paolucci, focused on the idea of a “morphological semantics”, around problems such as the “metaphorical meaning”. We hope to offer a statement of fact from the perspective of contemporary semiotics, perspective that considers both reality and cognition as central in questions about the human knowlegde.