The ILEX sign concept

The notion of sign used in the ILEX project is summarised as follows:

1. Construction:
   1. Context: Distribution of a sign in larger signs.
   2. Parts: Smaller signs as constituents of a sign related by some operation of composition.

   In the ILEX model, sign construction is stratified in terms of well-defined types of sign with different structural properties: Phonemes, Morphemes, Words (Simplexes, Derivations, Compounds), Phrases, Sentences, Texts. The basic category (in the sense of Rosch) is the Word. Larger units are projections of the properties of words, while smaller units are defined in terms of words.

2. Interpretation
   1. Surface:
      1. Phonetic: Mapping from a sign into a phonetic model.
      2. Orthographic: Mapping from a sign into a graphic model.
   2. Semantic: Mapping from a sign into a model of the world.

   Interpretation in the ILEX model is in two stages, first to a relational model of acoustic events or other aspects of the world, and second, from this model to a coordinate model of absolutely positioned events in our experience of real time and space. In phonetic interpretation, the first function corresponds to what is traditionally known as phonology, and the second to what is traditionally known as phonetics, in which correlates of phonological features are defined. In semantics, the first function maps signs to logical form, the second to deictic coordinates.

   This distinction will not concern us further in the context of morphology.

For further information, see the HyprLex node.