In addition to the two well-known components of a sign, in the Meaning Û Text Theory yet another, a third component of a sign, is considered essential: a record about its ability or inability to combine with other specific signs. This additional component is called syntactics of the linguistic sign. For example, the ending morph ‑ar for Spanish infinitives has the same signified as -er and -ir. However, only one of them can be used in the wordform hablar, due to the syntactics of these three endings, as well as to the syntactics of the stem habl-. We can imagine a linguistic sign as it is shown on Figure IV.15.
Thus, syntactics of linguistic signs helps to choose one correct sign from a set of synonymous signs, to be used in a specific context. For example, we choose the ending -ar for the stem habl- since it does accept just it. Beyond that, syntactics of linguistic signs helps us to disambiguate the signs, i.e., to decide which of the homonymous signs is used in a specific context.
For the extralinguistic example given above, the classroom is the context, in which we interpret the raising of one’s hand as the intention to say something rather than to call a taxi.
Similarly, the presence of the Spanish stem salt- is sufficient to interpret the -as ending as present tense, second person, singular in saltas, rather than feminine, plural as in the presence of the stem roj‑: rojas.