ABSTRACT
The Porphyrian theory of imposition seems to have had Stoic roots. Stoics, in fact, had intensively investigated second-order language. But only tiny fragments of their theories and some of their examples have survived. Rogerus Bacon held that the signification of vocal signs is much richer than suggested by modistic theory. Bacon stressed that the relation of signification is composed of a relationship between the sign and the one to whom it is a sign, and a relationship between the sign and the thing signified. William of Ockham, that great friend of William of Baskerville's, embraced a particularist ontology, but even more firmly than Bacon, rejecting not only self-subsistent universals of all names and descriptions but also universals in the things. A contemporary of William of Ockham's, Jean Buridan developed a semantics very similar to the Englishman's, both in its general intentions and in its terminology.
