Return to Aristotle, On Interpretation
1. Speech, however, is voice significant according to compact, of which a certain part is significant considered separately.
2. “Significant”, I say, as a word, but not as affirmation or negation. But I say, as for instance, the Greek word anthropos is spoken to signify something, but not that it is, or is not. It will be, however, affirmation or negation, if something is added to it.
3. But one syllable of the word anthropos is not spoken to signify anything by itself. For neither in the word mus (a mouse) is the sound us spoken to signify anything, but it is only an articulate sound. In double words, however, a part is indeed spoken to signify something, but not by itself, as we have before observed.
4. But all speech is, indeed, significant, not as an instrument (organon), but as we have said, according to human compact.
5. Not all speech, however, is enunciative, but that in which truth or falsehood is inherent; but truth and falsehood are not inherent in all kinds of speech. Thus, for instance, a prayer, is, indeed, speech, but is neither true nor false.
6. The consideration, therefore, of other kinds of speech must be omitted; because they belong to rhetoric or poetry. But enunciative speech belongs to the present study.
Return to Aristotle, On Interpretation
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