4 On Categorematic and Syncategorematic Terms
4: On Categorematic and Syncategorematic Terms Both spoken and mental terms are subject to yet another division, for some terms are categorematic while others are syncategorematic. Categorematic terms have a definite and determinate signification. Thus, the term 'man' signifies all men; the term 'animal', all animals; and the term 'whiteness', all whitenesses.
Examples of syncategorematic terms are 'every', 'no', 'some', 'all', 'except', 'so much', and 'insofar as'. None of these expressions has a definite and determinate signification, nor does any of them signify anything distinct from what is signified by categorematic terms. The number system provides a parallel here. 'Zero', taken by itself,does not signify anything, but when combined with some other numeral it makes that numeral signify something new. Likewise, a syncategorematic term does not, properly speaking, signify anything; however, when it is combined with a categorematic expression it makes that categorematic expression signify something or supposit for something in a determinate manner, or it performs some other function with regard to the relevant categorematic term. Thus, the syncategorematic term 'every' does not, by itself, signify any definite thing; but when it is combined with the term 'man', it makes that term stand or supposit confusedly and distributively for all men; when it is combined with the word 'stone', it makes that term stand for all stones; and when it is combined with the term 'whiteness', it makes the expression stand for all whitenesses. Other syncategorematic terms are like 'every'; for although, as I shall show later, the precise function of syncategorematic terms varies, the same general account holds for all.
Someone may object that since the term 'every' is significant, it must signify something. The correct response is that we call the term significant not because it signifies something, but because as I have indicated it can make a term signify something or stand or supposit for something. To use the language of Boethius, 'every' does not signify anything in a determinate or definite way;' the same holds true not only in the case of syncategorematic terms, but also in the case of conjunctions and prepositions.
However, the case is different with some adverbs, for they signify determinately the very things that categorematic names signify, although they signify them in a different mode of signification.