ABSTRACT
A profound and fundamental paradigm shift has taken place in the understanding of language; the full implications of such have yet to be fully understood. The signifier is united with the signified to form a sign. The signifier can never fully secure an absolute condition of conceptual identity for its signified. As is the case for raining/not raining, so it is for all linguistic expression of conceptual meaning. The interrelationship of the grouping of elements is arbitrary. There is only a contingent relationship to its signified meaning in English. There are three elemental units - signifier, signified and referent. Meaning is involved in a strange teleology of communicative intent which has no ultimate consummation, no absolute idea; because a word can never be the thing itself. The words the man uses may be inadequate, the shared knowledge of his listeners may be insufficient, for their ideas to ultimately connect very closely to the reality of tigers.
