ABSTRACT
Teaching names for properties and actions can be expected to pose difficulties not posed by names for objects and agents. The word “apple,” for example, applies to the whole apple, even as “Mary” and names of other agents apply to whole individuals. In the case of properties and actions, however, the arrangement is less convenient. It is not possible to divide the world into pieces that correspond to either a property or an action. In talking about the world we give the impression of such pieces, for example, “a red patch,” “a square,” “an act of giving,” “a good jump,” but one has only to attempt to teach the words “red,” “square,” “give,” or “jump,” to discover that in fact there are no such pieces.
