[Ads-l] Antedating of "Semiotic" (Noun)

[Laurence Horn]

Nice find, Fred.  But these antedates-- 

> On Dec 17, 2022, at 7:40 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> semiotic, n. (OED c1897)
> 
> 1820 Quarterly Christian Spectator Jan. 9 (Google Books)  That branch of the sciences which relates to the signs of Ideas has been called Semiotic.
> 

> On Dec 17, 2022, at 7:48 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> semiotics (OED, 2., 1880)
> 
> 1835 Georg Friedrich Seiler Biblical Hermeneutics 24 (Google Books)
> 
> That branch of science which is occupied with the Doctrine of Signs is called the Knowledge of Signs (Semiotics). It consists partly of the Art of Signification, which teaches rules according to which an object is to be distinctly pointed out by appropriate signs; partly of the general art of Interpretation, or Hermeneutics, which teaches the rules by which the Signification of the Signs of our Thoughts is to be discovered.
> 
> 
--bring up what I think must be a complicated issue for lexicographers of what counts when a term is adopted into English as a translation or transliteration from another language. “Semiotics” as used in the 20th century and beyond is generally associated with the work of C. S. Peirce, whence the 1897 date; this led to related work in the 1930s by Morris and Carnap, citing Peirce, that rendered the notion of semiotic(s) as the science (or doctrine) of signs considerably more widespread in the scientific community.  But note the juxtaposition of the following two cites, one bracketed and one not, from the OED entry for “semiotic” (3B). I’m not sure why the 1820 or 1835 cites above would count as antedating Peirce if Locke’s 1690 doesn’t, unless the use of Latin rather than Greek letters is crucial.   

[1690    J. Locke Ess. Humane Understanding <>  iv. xx. 361   The third Branch may be called σημιωτικὴ, or else Doctrine of Signs, the most usual whereof being Words, it is aptly enough termed also λογικὴ, Logick.]
c1897    C. S. Peirce Coll. Papers <> (1932) II.  ii. ii. 134   Logic, in its general sense, is..only another name for semiotic (οημειωτική), the quasi-necessary, or formal, doctrine of signs.

LH
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