Peri ermēneías

...which those who do not hold, say in vain that they are able to syllogize syllogizesthai.

On the first chapter, or the first part. I come to the first chapter, concerning the establishment of the enunciation. Every enunciation and every speech consists of simple parts, namely nouns and verbs. But before we say what a noun is, what a verb is, and what speech and enunciation are, it must be known that neither words, nor voice, nor speech, as they are uttered or written, are primarily and per se called propositions and categories, but rather the mental concepts noēmata themselves, both simple ones and those woven together from simple ones.

Mental concepts themselves are primarily Categories and propositions. For mental concepts noēmata are primarily the likenesses homoiōmata of things placed outside the mind. Voices, however, and speeches which are uttered, and likewise those which are written, are likenesses of the mental concepts homoiōmata tōn noēmatōn; and they are likenesses homoiōmata of things placed outside the mind, not per se, but through mental concepts noēmata.

Another distinction between mental concepts and spoken and written words. They are also distinguished by another reason, namely that mental concepts ta noēmata are by nature phusei, just as are the things placed outside the mind. Therefore, the same mental concepts noēmata exist for all people, just as the same things exist; for they are not changed by human institutions. Words, however, and dialects dialektoi are not by nature phusei but by convention thesei. Therefore, they are not the same for all people, and they are changed by human institutions. And indeed, the mental concepts of the soul ta tēs psuchēs noēmata are said to be the same for all, because the same things present themselves to be conceived by the minds of all through the same species of mental concept noēmatos, just as the forms of sensible things are impressed in the senses of all; hence it also happens, on account of these perceptions, that the senses are said to be in a way all things.