ABSTRACT
The last chapter presented signs as entities unto themselves, yet signs do not occur singly; they occur in groups. Technically, semioticians term a group or set of signs a codeo As used here, code is synonyrnous with system, pattern, network, and grid (aH of which are also used to designate groups of signs). 1 Placement of signs into appropriate groupings stresses that meaning arises not solely, not even primarily, ¡rom the relationship o¡signifier to signift:ed but¡rom relations between signs. Probably it always will be easiest to investigate signs singly, narrowing the field, ignoring aH signs but the one of current interest; it is certainly always more adequate to place each sign in its proper context, that being the larger set of signs in which it is embedded.
