Signifier

Fully qualified class name: DDICDIModels::DesignPatterns::SignificationPattern::Signifier | Class is abstract.

Definition

Concept whose extension includes perceivable objects.

Examples

A perceivable object in the extension of a signifier is a token. For instance, the object 5 is a token of “the numeral five”, a signifier.

Explanatory notes

A signifier has the potential to refer to an object. In this case, the referring signifier is a label. If that object is a concept, then the referring signifier is a designation. A label is a representation of an object by a signifier which denotes it. For instance, the token http://www.bls.gov is a label for the web site maintained for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The label is also an identifier, since it is intended to dereference the BLS web site. It is a locator, since the HTTP service is associated with it. Finally, “Dan Gillman” is a name for a co-author of this paper, since the token is linguistic.

Diagram

Attributes

Name	Inherited from	Description	Data Type	Multiplicity	Default value
content	- own class -	Perceivable object in the extension of the signifier. The content of this value expressed as a string.	String	0..1
whiteSpace	- own class -	The usual setting “collapse” states that leading and trailing white space will be removed and multiple adjacent white spaces will be treated as a single white space. When setting to “replace” all occurrences of #x9 (tab), #xA (line feed) and #xD (carriage return) are replaced with #x20 (space) but leading and trailing spaces will be retained. If the existence of any of these white spaces is critical to the understanding of the content, change the value of this attribute to “preserve”.	WhiteSpaceRule	0..1

Associations

Direction	Association	Description	Multiplicity of Signifier	Package of Other Class	Other Class	Multiplicity of other class	Aggregation Kind	Inherited from
to	Sign uses Signifier		1..1	- own package -	Sign	0..*	none	- own class -
from	Signifier represents Signified		1..*	- own package -	Signified	0..*	none	- own class -