ABSTRACT
A widespread idea about meaning is that words and more complex linguistic expressions have their meanings by standing for things in the world. Though commonsensical and at first attractive, this Referential Theory of meaning is fairly easily shown to be inadequate. For one thing, comparatively few words do actually stand for things in the world. For another, if all words were like proper names, serving just to pick out individual things, we would not be able to form grammatical sentences in the first place.
