In the philosophy of language, meaning "is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they intend, express, or signify". The types of meanings vary according to the types of the thing that is being represented. Namely:
- There are the things in the world, which might have meaning;
- There are things in the world that are also signs of other things in the world, and so, are always meaningful (i.e., natural signs of the physical world and ideas within the mind);
- There are things that are always necessarily meaningful, such as words, and other nonverbal symbols.
The major contemporary positions of meaning come under the following partial definitions of meaning:
- Psychological theories, involving notions of thought, intention, or understanding;
- Logical theories, involving notions such as intension, cognitive content, or sense, along with extension, reference, or denotation;
- Message, content, information, or communication;
- Truth conditions;
- Usage, and the instructions for usage; and
- Measurement, computation, or operation.