peirce’S ten claSSeS of SiGnS: modelinG bioSemiotic proceSSeS and SyStemS

Few semioticians have approached Peirce’s extended typologies of signs (10 and 66 classes of signs), developed from 1903, which still seems obscure, structurally intricate and hard to apply to empirical phenomena. To make things worse, there remains a tendency to think that the extended typologies are extravagant and unproductive conceptual tools. My argument here suggests something different. Such classifications should be considered as an important advancement with respect to the task of empirically modeling the morphological variety of signs, and they constitute one of the most important topics of Peirce’s mature semiotics.1 My main assumption here is simple: the morphological space of semiotic events and processes in which biosemiotic systems are embedded always include intermediary and mixed classes of signs (e.g., proto-symbols).