From the Tree to the Labyrinth (37 page)

In that case, the tree-like structure would have given way to a system of interconnected nodes, which, as
Chapter 1
suggested, Thomas may have caught a glimpse of but could not admit. Independently, however, of these considerations, what is clear is that the contradictions of Thomas’s solution stem from the fact that he is playing a double (and irreconcilable) game. One is grammatical, and it required that the
voces
(lettered or not) be distinguished according to their articulatory possibilities—and this is what Priscian, as a good grammarian, did. The other was semantic, and it required that the difference be posited between meaningful and nonmeaningful
voces.
The two taxonomies could not coexist. Thomas appears convincing when he speaks of one issue rather than the other, but he reveals all his uncertainty when he attempts (albeit motivated simply by a desire for taxonomical clarity) to put the two discourses together into a single system.

At this point, we could leave Thomas to his fate, gratified by the fact that once again our pursuit of the barking dog has succeeded in revealing the weaknesses or contradictions of a system. At most, we could point out that Thomas does not use
articulata
in the same sense as Priscian (that is, “endowed with meaning”), but in the same sense as Ammonius, and that consequently
blitris
is an example of a
vox non significativa
that nonetheless has a phonetic articulation and at the same time can be transcribed alphabetically. But it is precisely this observation that leads us to wonder why Priscian (and the grammarians who follow him) attributed to
articulata
a connection with meaning. Nota bene, it is not that they try to meld a taxonomy of articulations with one of signification, but that they take practically for granted that there is a connection, which they do not however explore, between articulation and meaning. In the first instance we could argue that they assumed that one articulates only to express something—and this was the hypothesis that was made in
Latratus canis
1989.

In fact, when we go back to Ammonius’s commentary, we see that he makes explicit and implicit reference to Plato’s
Cratylus,
suggesting that there is a close link between
articulatio
and
significatio.
In Plato’s dialogue, Socrates expounds the notion according to which whoever invented the first names created them in imitation of things, endeavoring to reproduce, through the coordination of letters and syllables, their nature. In other words, there would be a relationship of an iconic type between the phonological structure of the
signans
and the ontological structure of the
signatum.
A theory very close to this is found among the Stoics.
³⁹
So it becomes comprehensible why Priscian, heir to a grammatical tradition with its roots in Stoicism, goes so far as to identify the
articulatio
of the
vox
with its
significatio,
followed in this by all medieval grammarians,
⁴⁰
while, in the logical-philosophical tradition (untouched by the grammatical tradition), the
articulatio
has nothing to do with the meaning, but concerns the
litteratio,
and hence the possibility of the written translation of the sound.
⁴¹

However that may be, it is obvious that among the grammarians the barking of the dog was on track for an unhappy ending. All the grammarian is interested in are the sounds articulated by humans, observant, precisely, of a
grammar,
in order to express meanings. The sounds made by animals are of no interest. Accordingly, in the texts of the grammarians the barking of the dog is destined to occupy an increasingly marginal position. For, if the first hypothesis (the influence of the
Cratylus
) were to be valid, then, given that the meaningfulness of the name is the consequence of an original relationship of iconicity, hence the
articulatio,
the
voces
of the animals, by common consent neither articulate or articulable, would not represent a subject of great interest. Animals are not aware that
nomina sunt consequentia rerum,
and they are not capable of imitating the nature of things.
⁴²

Clearly, at this point, we may skip the tradition of the grammarians. What interests us instead is the tradition of the philosophers, who continue to grant the dog and his bark a position of honor in the classification of signs. This is also because the philosophers, in addition to the classifications they elaborate, following the lead of the
De interpretatione,
are constantly induced to make supplementary observations. Take Thomas, who, in
Sententia libri Politicorum
(I, I/b), comes back once more to the difference between human and animal
voces.
Since, he affirms, nature never does anything gratuitously but always has a definite purpose, it is obvious that, although various animals possess a “voice,” only humans possess a
locutio
and, though there may be animals capable of repeating human words, we cannot say that they talk, because they do not understand what they are saying, but utter the words they have learned out of mere habit. Animal “voices” serve to express sadness or delight and other passions (and once again the barking of the dog is cited and the roar of the lion: “et haec sibi invicem significant per aliquas naturales voces, sicut leo per rugitum et canis per latratum”), while humans, instead of these
voces,
use interjections. But only human
locutio
is able to signify things useful and harmful, just and unjust, good and evil.
⁴³

Here Thomas takes a step forward. He recognizes that, just as humans have ways of signifying to each other, alternately and intentionally, sadness and delight, the same is true of animals, and he thus touches on a problem that will be treated at greater length by Roger Bacon, who will distinguish between the moan that the sick man utters inadvertently and the interjection that he utters intentionally, following a certain linguistic convention, to signify the same pain, in however conceptually imperfect a manner.
⁴⁴

But, in this way, within the same Thomist system, the
latratus canis
changes position, as if, halfway between the
voces significativae naturaliter
(among which we find the
gemitus
) and the
voces ad placitum
(where we find spoken language), we were to locate an intermediate zone, in which humans produce (paralinguistically, we would say today) interjections, while dogs bark. In fact, in this revised classification, the real difference between human and canine language lies not in the opposition intentional/unintentional (vaguely touched upon, but basically eluded), and not only in that between natural and
ad placitum,
but in the opposition between the interjection and the ability of human language to express abstractions by means of which humans set up
domum et civitatem
(“ergo homo est naturale animal domesticum et civile”)—an affirmation that Thomas takes up from Aristotle’s
Politics
1253 at 9–30, where Aristotle opposes human language, capable of producing concepts and abstractions, to the inarticulate sounds of animals, expressive merely of pleasure or pain.

Not unmindful of Augustine’s provocation, enter at this point Roger Bacon. The classification of signs outlined in Bacon’s
De signis
strikes us in many ways as syncretistic and as yet unresolved. The eccentricities of this classification find their explanation in a project whose results will be seen in later semiotics, especially in Ockham. Briefly, up until Bacon, thanks to the Aristotelian vulgate, words signify the passions of the soul (concepts, universal species), species bear an iconic relationship to things, and words, through the mediation of species, serve to name things
(nominantur singularia, sed universalia significantur, “they name individual things while they signify universals”).
With the
De signis,
on the other hand, words begin to signify directly individual things, of which the
species intelligibiles
are the mental counterpart. But the link between words and species becomes secondary and is reduced to a purely symptomatic relationship. Bacon has grasped the difference between
symbola
and
semeia
in
De interpretatione
16a but, on the basis of a philologically correct reading, he elaborates a philosophically unfaithful reading. In other words, he erases the fact that for Aristotle words
may
be symptoms of the passions of the mind, but
in the first instance
they
signify
them directly, and he concludes that words are symptoms of the species that are formed in the mind.
⁴⁵
We have endeavored to reconstruct Bacon’s classification in
Figure 4.8
.

In commenting on this figure, let us say at once that that the “natural signs” ought to correspond to those of Augustine, which are produced without any intention, but it is unclear on what grounds Bacon distinguishes between those of the first and those of the third type. It would appear that, whereas in the third type we have a clear relationship of cause and effect, in those of the first type we have simply a relationship of concomitance among events (in the case of those classified as necessary the concomitance is certain, while for the probable ones it is uncertain). But it remains obscure why the ground being wet as a probable sign of a previous rain shower is not classified among the
vestigia.
Still more embarrassing is the curious collocation of the
imagines
(intentionally produced by man) among the natural signs. Bacon explains this with the fact that what is made intentionally is the object (the statue), while the resemblance between the statue and the real person is due to a certain homology between the form of the
signans
and that of the
signatum.
⁴⁶
What interests us more is the classification of the signs produced by an intention of the soul, where Bacon perceives an intention even in the case of sounds emitted instinctively, without any intervention on the part of reason or even will, as an immediate movement of the sensitive soul (such as the moaning of the sick and animal noises).

Figure 4.8

Now, the signs ordered by the soul, but without rational deliberation or election of the will, are said to function
naturaliter.
They have, however, nothing to do with the natural signs. The latter were called natural with reference to nature as substance; the former are called natural because they are set in motion by a movement of nature. Be that as it may, the distinction is clear: the
signa naturalia
do not appear as the consequence of an intention, on the part of either humans or animals, while the moaning of the sick and the barking of the dog have their origin in a movement of the sensitive soul that tends to express what the animal (human or no) is feeling. And so in this classification the barking of the dog, without being placed alongside Holy Scripture and separated from the mourning of the dove, as it was in Augustine, is not a mere symptom either.

Furthermore, it is worth pointing out that the crow of the rooster appears twice in this classification. There is a cockcrow that is a sign of what time of day it is and a cockcrow that is instead a
linguistic act,
even if we do not happen to understand its purport.

When Bacon compares these two cases he uses a different terminology. When the cockcrow appears among the signs
ordinata ab anima,
it is referred to as “cantus galli,” while when it appears as a symptom it is referred to as “gallum cantare”: “cantus galli nichil proprie nobis significat tamquam vox significativa, sed gallum cantare significant nobis horas.” The natural sign is not the cockcrow itself, but the fact that the cock crows (the Stoics would have called it an incorporeal). Now, in the
De signis,
whom the cock is crowing to (whether to other cocks or to humans) is not specified, but the same theme is picked up again in the
Sumulae Dialectices.
⁴⁷

Here Bacon is quite clear: a significant
vox
is the one by which any animal can communicate with another animal of the same species, in other words there are
voces significativae naturaliter
that all members of a species understand, and others (the ones that are
ad placitum
) that are understood only by subgroups of the same human species, as is the case with articulate languages. That animals understand each other can be seen from their behavior, as when, for example, the mother hen warns her chicks of the threat of the hawk. So the rooster speaks with different words according to the circumstances and is understood by the other members of his species, just as the ass is understood by the ass and the lion by the lion. All humans need is a little training, and they too will be able to understand the language of the beasts. As will be further clarified by Pseudo-Marsilius of Inghen:
⁴⁸
the dog certainly barks in order to signify something, and it is irrelevant whether everyone understands what he means, it is enough that those who understand the characteristics and habits of dogs understand.