ABSTRACT
In G. Frege's work sense and denotation refer to propositions/descriptions regarding names, naming, and nomination. In connotation and denotation the relationship between language and things, between culture and environment, is reduplicated within language itself, between S1–S2/Name-Proposition and/or Subject-Predicate. The chapter argues that Frege has an implicit triadic theory of the signifier, language, and semantic relations. It also argues that Lacanian theory, known as a triad that eventually became quaternary in the late Lacan, is also triadic/quaternary when it comes to language. Because Lacan's theory of the signifier is commonly known as a binary model he borrowed from Saussurian linguistics in terms of the signifying relations between S1–S2. Thus, Lacanian theory is a triadic/quaternary theory of the signifier. Although Lacan often wants to stress the purely formal characteristic of the signifier as a mark or a letter, the signifier cannot be dissociated from the rules/laws of the symbolic order.
