# The meaning of prompts and the prompts of meaning: Semiotic reflections and modelling

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.14250 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.14250/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Sep 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11432/) (2023)
- [ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16789/) (2023)
- [Pre-trained Models for Natural Language Processing: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08271/) (2020)
- [Using cognitive psychology to understand GPT-3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14576/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper explores prompts and prompting in large language models (LLMs) as dynamic semiotic phenomena, drawing on Peirce's triadic model of signs, his nine sign types, and the Dynacom model of communication. The aim is to reconceptualize prompting not as a technical input mechanism but as a communicative and epistemic act involving an iterative process of sign formation, interpretation, and refinement. The theoretical foundation rests on Peirce's semiotics, particularly the interplay between representamen, object, and interpretant, and the typological richness of signs: qualisign, sinsign, legisign; icon, index, symbol; rheme, dicent, argument - alongside the interpretant triad captured in the Dynacom model. Analytically, the paper positions the LLM as a semiotic resource that generates interpretants in response to user prompts, thereby participating in meaning-making within shared universes of discourse. The findings suggest that prompting is a semiotic and communicative process that redefines how knowledge is organized, searched, interpreted, and co-constructed in digital environments. This perspective invites a reimagining of the theoretical and methodological foundations of knowledge organization and information seeking in the age of computational semiosis