With regard to the sign-phenomenon, the following Interpretation may be given: for primitive man, the sign coincides with that which is indicated. Not only can the sign represent this in the sense of serving as a substitute for what it indicates, but it can do so in such a way that the sign itself always is what it indicates. This remarkable coinciding does not mean, however, that the sign-Thing has already undergone a certain 'Objectification'—that it has been experienced as a mere Thing and misplaced into the same realm of Being of the present-at-hand as what it indicates. This 'coinciding' is not an identification of things which have hitherto been isolated from each other: it consists rather in the fact that the sign has not as yet become free from that of which it is a sign. Such a use of signs is still absorbed completely in Being-towards what is indicated, so that a sign as such cannot detach itself at all. This coinciding is based not on a prior Objectification but on the fact that such Objectification is completely lacking. This means, however, that signs are not discovered as equipment at all—that ultimately what is 'ready-to-hand' within-the-world just does not have the kind of Being that belongs to equipment. Perhaps· even readiness-to-hand and equipment have nothing to contribute [nichts auszurichten] as ontological clues in Interpreting the primitive world; and certainly the ontology of Thing hood does even less. But if an understanding of Being is constitutive for primitive Dasein and for the primitive world in general, then it is all the more urgent to work out the 'formal' idea of worldhood—or at least the idea of a phenomenon modifiable in such a way that all ontological assertions to the effect that in a given phenomenal context something is not yet such-and-such or no longer such-and-such, may acquire a positive phenomenal meaning in terms of what it is not.1
The foregoing Interpretation of the sign should merely provide phenomenal support for our characterization of references or assignments. The relation between sign and reference is threefold. 1. Indicating, as a way whereby the "towards-which" of a serviceability can become concrete, is founded upon the equipment-structure as such, upon the "in-order-to" (assignment). 2. The indicating which the sign does is an equipmental character of something ready-to-hand, and as such it belongs to a totality of equipment, to a context of assignments or references. 3. The sign is not only ready-to-hand with other equipment, but in its readiness-to-hand the environment becomes in each case explicitly accessible for circumspection.
1 '... aus dem, was es nicht ist.' The older editions write 'w a s' for 'was'.