Socrates' nonsense

Was Plato actually close to finding some principles of modern semiotics, like theory of predication or the so-called semiotic triangle? Umm, possibly, or then I just over-interpret his Cratylus dialogue.

But let's check this out just for the sake of argument. Plato's theory of forms or ideas is so well-known that the reader will find a good explanation of it anywhere, especially Wikipedia. Cratylus does not deal with this theory, rather it is a lengthy and often strange exploration into naming and language. Some of  Cratylus is pure genius, like the idea that natural languages can refer to objects by "imitation" in the same way as a deaf person would imitate the movement of an animal to refer to the animal. But Plato (Socrates in the dialogue) still does not blindly follow this principle, but sanely allows naming to be a matter of convention, too. Peirce much later spoke about iconic and indexical signs etc [I've only read commentaries]. Some of Cratylus is less interesting for a modern reader. Plato for instance talks about names given/used by gods compared to names given by humans.

Still, let's follow this idea. Some names correctly stand for a person and symbolize a concept (terminology here is not Plato's). Some do it incorrectly: "But if i can assign names as well as pictures to objects, the right assignment of them we can call truth, and the wrong assignment of them falsehood". Great! But in our modern view truth/falsehood are about statements. Correctly/incorrectly applying a name is something else. But Plato comes really close to the modern view in the following part: Socrates asks Cratylus what he would think if someone addressed him as "Athenian stranger, Hermogenes, son of Smicrion".."these words would have no application to you but only to our friend Hermogenes, or perhaps to nobody at all". Cratylus replies: In my opinion, Socrates, the speaker would only be speaking nonsense.