Abstract

Semiotics, sometimes defined as the science of social and cultural exchange , is not so quite new, since its parts , i.e. syntax, semantics and pragmatics, fit the disciplines of the classical trivium. Nevertheless, its domain being so broad as to include abo anthropology, medicine, exegesis, meteorology etc., it seems preferable to consider semiotics as a general approach or way of looking at things rather than as a science apart. Now if logic is looked at from the standpoint of semiotics, several of its problems can be grouped together in a sensible way, like those of the wellformedness of formulas, those of the axiomatic systems and those of synbatic categories on the level of syntax, whereas the distinction between language and metalanguage, the interpretation of logical systems , the relation between meaning and reference, the opposition of sentence versus proposition and the theory of truth are semantical questions. The decision whether to admit truth-value gaps in the system is decided on the pragmatic level, the level where also reference is determined and where the whole of non-formal logic and the theory of speech acts are situated. The second half of this essay consists of a taxonomy of speech acts, based on Searle's, but expanded with a theory of relevant questions and applied to another kind of speech act, namely that of evaluation . Such a taxonomy can be a help for distinguishing alethic, deontic, erotetic etc. logics, and for clarifying praxiosemantics as well as systems in non-formal logic