Aristotle grapples with the topic of meaning head-on in only one place – at the beginning of the De Interpretatione. As already noted, this text is, on the most charitable reading, compressed and elliptical.

Confronted with a summary statement of this sort, an interpreter must try to situate Aristotle's words in a broader context in order to understand their import. The Categories and the remainder of the De Interpretatione provide the context in which Aristotle's conception of significant terms will be explored in this chapter.

The problem of meaning as framed by Plato in the Cratylus will also be briefly discussed, because it sets the stage for Aristotle's account. Aristotle believes the relation between a phoneme and a meaning is conventional (16a20–29). The meaning is the intentional content of the psychological state for which the word stands. He holds, nevertheless, that the relevant mental states (meanings) are the same for all humans and are likenesses of extramental states of affairs. The crucial contrast here is between convention as the explanation of how sounds carry meaning and a natural relation, the same for all humans, rooted in the likeness between a meaning and a reality.