A symbol, for instance a word, is a "general rule" which signifies only through the different instances of its application, namely the pronounced or written - thinglike - "replicas".
- Jakobson (2004), a pag.25

Signs (or "representamina" in Peirce nomenclature) offer three basic varieties of semiosis, three distinct "representative qualities" based on different relationships between the signans and signatum. This difference enables him to discern three cardinal types of signs. [...] 3) The "symbol" acts chiefly by imputed, learned contiguity between signans and signatum. This connection "consists in its being a rule" and does not depend on the presence or absence of any similarity or physical contiguity.
- Jakobson (2004), a pag.15-16