1
faculty member of Imam Khomeini Research and Education Institute
2
graduate student of Tehran University
3
Ph. D. student of Maaref University
Abstract
What is the true nature of meaning? What is its status? What are differences between meaning, concept, referent and fact? Is meaning mental or extra-mental or neither? These are fundamental questions on the nature and ontology of meaning.Meaning is identified with concept by some, confused with referent by others. Some scholars have not distinguished meaning from referent and fact. Still another group of scholars regard it as relation between word and fact. There are also those who deem meaning and its usages to be identical. Our main concern in this article is to distinguish meaning from three things, namely concept, referent and fact. Meaning is the same thing signified by concept, qualified by referent and materialized by fact. Word is also coined to somehow indicate the meaning.Meaning is main and thus of hierarchic priority to concept, referent and fact which are considered as subordinate to the meaning.
)