33 On Signification
Monologion says, "While some of those things (e.g., colors) that are said to be accidents can come to or leave the thing participating in them only with some change in that thing, others (e.g., certain relations) can be present in or absent from that of which they are predicated without any change in that thing."?
Anselm is using the terms 'come to', 'leave', 'present in', and 'absent from' in place of 'predicated of?; likewise, logicians frequently use 'participate in' for 'to be a subject of".
33: On Signification Logicians use the term 'signify' in a number of ways. First, a sign is said to signify something when it supposits for or is capable of suppositing for that thing in such a way that the name can, with the verb 'to be' intervening, be predicated of a pronoun referring to that thing. Thus 'white' signifies Socrates, for 'He is white' is true where 'he' refers to Socrates. Likewise, 'rational' signifies man, for 'He is rational' is true where 'he' refers to man, and so on with many other concrete terns.
In another sense we say that a sign signifies something when it is capable of suppositing for that thing in a true past, present, or future proposition or in a true modal proposition. Thus 'white' not only signifies what is now white but also what can be white; for if we take the subject of the proposition 'What is white can run' for what can be, then it supposits for those things that can be white.
If we take 'signify' and the related term 'significatum' in the first sense, then it frequently happens that a word and the concept corresponding to it cease to signify some object which they previously signified as a result ofa change in that object. But when we use these terms in the second sense neither a word nor its concept ceases to signify an object merely as a consequence of some change in the external object.
In another sense we say that a thing is signified by a word or concept which is taken from the expression or concept signifying that thing in the first mode, or when the thing is that on the basis of which the word or concept is imposed.
Thus, since 'whiteness' signifies whiteness, we say that 'white' signifies whiteness.
'White', however, does not supposit for whiteness. In the same way 'rational', if it really is the difference of man, signifies man's intellective soul.