  In the first part of the Perutilis logica, which sets out the terminology of the entire text, Albert returns to the Ockhamist conception of the sign and in so doing distances himself from the position defended by Buridan. After clearly including the term (an element of the proposition) in the genus of signs — by which he provides, in the tradition of Ockham, a semiotic approach to logico-linguistic analysis — he establishes signification through a referential relation to a singular thing, defining the relation of spoken to conceptual signs as a relation of subordination. He is also an Ockhamist in his conception of universals, which he regards as spoken or conceptual signs, and in his theory of supposition, which essentially restates the Ockhamist divisions of supposition, despite of some refinements as descensus copulatim, perhaps influenced by Heytesbury. In particular, he restores the notion of simple supposition — i.e., the reference of a term to the concept to which it is subordinated, when it signifies an extra-mental thing — which had been criticized and rejected by Buridan. Finally, Albert is close to the Venerabilis Inceptor in his theory of the categories, where he refuses to consider quantity as something absolutely real, reducing it instead to a disposition of substance and quality. Albert in fact contributed as much as Ockham to the spread of this conception of the relation between substance and quantity in natural philosophy in Paris and Italy.