Most words are "lexical words", i.e. nouns signifying "things", the majority of which are

Most words are "lexical words", i.e. nouns signifying "things", the

majority of which are abstract concepts rather than physical objects in the

world; only "proper nouns" have specific and unique referents in the everyday

Line world. The communicative function of a fully-functioning language requires the

(5) scope of reference beyond the particularity of the individual instance. While

each leaf, cloud or smile is different from all others, effective communication

requires general categories or "universals". Anyone who has attempted to

communicate with people who do not share their language will be familiar with

the limitations of simply pointing to things, given that the vast majority of

(10) lexical words in a language exist on a high level of abstraction and refer to

classes of things such as "buildings" or to concepts like "construction".

We lose any one-to-one correspondence of word and thing the moment we

group instances into classes. Other than lexical words, language consists of

"function words" or grammatical words, such as "only" and "under" which do

(15) not refer to objects in the world at all, and many more kinds of signs other than

simple nouns. The notion of words as labels for concepts assumes that ideas

exist independently of words and that ideas are established in advance before the

introduction of linguistic structure. Clearly, language is not limited to naming

things existing in the physical world, but includes non-existent objects and ideas

(20) well.

The nomenclaturist stance, in viewing words as labels for pre-existing

ideas and objects, attempts unsuccessfully to reduce language to the purely

referential function of naming things. Things do not exist independently of the

sign systems which we use; "reality" is created by the media which seem simply

(25) to represent it. Language does not simply name pre-existing categories;

categories do not exist in "the world" .e.g. "where are the boundaries of a

cloud; when does a smile begin". Such an emphasis on reality as invariably

perceptually seamless may be an exaggeration; our referential categories do

seem to bear some relationship to certain features which seem to be inherently

(30) salient. Within a language, many words may refer to "the same thing" but

reflect different evaluations of it. For example, "one person's 'hovel' is

another person's 'home'"

Meanwhile, the signified of a word is subject to historical change. In this

sense, "reality" or "the world" is created by the language we use: this

(35) argument insists on the primacy of the signifier. Even if we do not adopt the

radical stance that "the real world" is a product of our sign systems, we must

still acknowledge the lack of signifiers for many things in the empirical world

and that there is no parallel correlation between most words and objects in the

known world at all. Thus, all words are "abstractions", and there is no direct

(40) correspondence between words and "things" in the world.

The author of the passage is primarily concerned with

A．refuting a belief held by one school of linguistics

B．reviewing an interesting feature of language

C．illustrating the confusion that can result from the improper use of language

D．suggesting a way in which languages can be made more nearly perfect

E．surveying new interesting areas of research in the field of linguistics