On The Refeence Of Verbs

The problem of reference has become one of the central problems in contemporary philosophy of language, and it is involved directly with metaphysics. This theory refers not only to the meaning of language, but also to the existence of objects and the relation between language and objects.Among the different kinds of meaning theories which try to give a satisfactory answer to the question “what is meaning?”,there is a referential theory of meaning and its main content is that the meaning of a language expression is what it refers to in the outside world. This referential theory of linguistic meaning really makes the problem of language and reality simplified. However, it would explain the meanings of all language expressions with the things that can be associated conventionally by us in the world, so it is an attractive and fantastic view.However, it still has objections and one of objections of the referential theory of meaning is that there are some kinds of words, such as verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs and adjectives, do not seem to refer to any substance or objects in the world. I agree with the idea that these word classes do not refer to any objects, but I think it is reckless to get the conclusion that they do not have reference. Based on this view point and the association with ZenoVendler’s classification of eventuality, the thesis put forward that verbs’ reference are eventualities, and they can be divided into four types: processes, states, achievements and accomplishments.The main idea in this thesis is that not only nouns have reference, but also verbs, and in order to prove this view point, this thesis discusses it from three perspectives: firstly, depending on other things can not be seen as a criterion of whether having reference or not. We know there are a lot of things exist by depending on other things, but their according words also have reference.The second is from the definitions of the reference, these definitions show that not only objects but also the state of affairs(action, state, relationship, or attribute) can also be used as the referents.The third is demonstrated from the perspective of epistemology: the world is made up of substance which has the feature of motion, so the substance and motion can not be divided with each other. The nouns in language reflect objects in the world, and the other word classes reflect motion in the world. Both the nouns and other word classes reflect a relationship between world and reality, so nouns and verbs should all have reference.Then the thesis has mainly make an analysis of the following issues: the differences among the different kinds of eventualities which are states, processes, accomplishments and achievements; the standard of the classification: Static-Dynamic, Telic-Atelic, and Durative-Punctual; the diagnostic tests for the eventuality; the referring characters and internal difference of verbs, and some event nominals are also introduced in the final part.To sum up, based on the referential theory and ZenoVendler’s classification of eventuality, the thesis makes an discussion on the reference of verbs, and at the same time put forward that verbs’ reference are eventualities.