Sign vehicle is a component of the sign, through which the sign function is completed or at least its creation is started.
As in general it is considered that signs convey messages, that component of them that is most directly responsible for the message transmission is appropriate to be called a sign vehicle (i.e., a term is used which actually means a vehicle or a transmission element).
Since the term sign can also be considered to include its object (as, for example, in Charles S. Peirce‘s triadic definition), it is possible to confuse what the sign itself means, as we usually consider the sign for different and even separate from its objects.
Does the sign mean, as according to Peirce‘s definition, the whole constellation of sign-object-interpreter or only one unit of this complex?
To clarify this point, sometimes a sign is used to mean the whole model, and a sign vehicle to identify one of the relationships.
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