Comments on the meaning of words
pp. 52-58
in: Jerzy Pelc (ed), Semiotics in Poland 1984–1969, Berlin, Springer, 1979Abstrakt
Handbooks of logic make a distinction between the denotation and connotation of names. Every name (in other words: every potential predicative term) designates every object and only such objects about which it (i.e. the name) may be predicated in a true statement. There are, however, polysémic names, where a given name designates certain objects with respect to a given meaning, and certain other objects with respect to another meaning. Now, the denotation of a name with respect to a given meaning is the totality of objects which it designates with respect to that meaning; while the meaning of a name — in other words, its sense — may be called its connotation. Hence polysémic names have more than one connotation each, even though whenever a given name is used as a predicative term only one of its connotations, as it were, manifests itself; this is so because in each case when a given name is used as a predicative term it is used in a specified meaning.