Modality ostenze

The essay argues for broader understanding of “ostension”, introduced into semiotics by Ivo Osolsobě and Umberto Eco, in a gamut going from the “ostensive” (biosemiotic) language, through “ostensive definition” and showing of an “object” or a “thing” as a part of human communication, to symbolic transformation of something/somebody into a sign of something else. This broader concept permits, then, a subtler view of (theatrical) communication, semiotics, semiosis, and the very phenomenon of processes covered by “ostension”.