The question 'whether an utterance (word/term/name) loses its signification with the destruction of things (i.e. things signified)' is raised as a question about the truth-value of assertions with an empty term as a subject, namely as a sub-problem of the sophism 'Whether "omnis homo de necessitate est animal" is true when no man exists (=OHNEA)'. In this paper, I shall introduce the discussions as they are present in Roger Bacon's "De signis" IV.2, Peter John Olivi's "Quaestiones logicales", q. 2–3, Boethius of Dacia's OHNEA, and Anonymus Alani's OHNEA. These texts present us with four different ways of relating the question about signification to OHNEA, and therefore with four different positions regarding the relation between signification and empty reference. I shall use Anonymus Alani as the guiding thread of my analysis, inserting other positions where it is relevant.
Empty Reference; Medieval Logic; Medieval Semantics; Sophismata