 Having established that every mode of signifying corresponds, through a mode of understanding, to a thing’s mode of being, Brito goes on to introduce a distinction between active and passive modes of signifying, as well as between active and passive modes of  understanding.[5]  The passive mode of understanding and the passive mode of signifying are the mode of being as understood and the mode of being as indicated by the part of speech, respectively. Therefore, although the passive mode of signifying, the passive mode of understanding, and the mode of being are features of the same thing, they are notionally different.