  Especially in his more elaborate second commentary on Peri Hermeneias, Boethius discusses at length the interrelations between the four elements of linguistic semeiosis mentioned by Aristotle, i.e., between external objects or things (res), mental concepts or representations (passiones, intellectus), spoken words (voces), and written words (scripta). These elements are arranged so that they build up what Boethius calls the “order of speaking” (ordo orandi) (Magee 1989, 64–92) which is characterized by the fact that among the elements mentioned the former in each case ontologically precedes the latter. Thus, without the existence of things there would be no concepts, without concepts no spoken words, and without spoken words no written ones. This, however, is not reversible in that sense that the use of written characters in any case demands the knowledge of the vocal expressions denoted by them, that there is always a concept behind a spoken word, and that every concept refers to a real thing as its object (Boethius In Periherm. ed. sec., 1880: 21, 28–30). In any case, the ordo orandi determines the direction of linguistic signification: written characters signify spoken words, whereas spoken words primarily signify mental concepts and, by means of the latter, secondaryly denote the things. Thus, scriptura left aside, the remaining three elements are structurally organized along the lines of the prominent ‘semiotic triangle’ according to which signs refer to things by means of concepts (Boethius In Periherm. ed. sec., 1880: 24, 33). In his further discussion of the ordo orandi Boethius divides, with reference to Porphyrius and the Aristotelians (peripatetici), three levels of speech: besides — or rather at the fundament of — written and spoken discourse there is a mental speech (oratio mentis) in which thinking is  performed.[12]  It is, just like the Augustinian mental word, not made up from words of any national languages but rather from transidiomatic or even non-linguistic mental concepts which are, as Aristotle has claimed, the same for all men.