Explanation
The classical formula res et verba initially appears to separate two sides: what is spoken about and the words in which it appears. Historically, res may mean a thing, object, subject matter, thought or concept; the profile must not collapse these levels. Closer examination introduces perception, sign, reference, context and use. The movement therefore asks not only whether an expression represents a thing correctly. It also traces which features a name foregrounds, which alternatives it obscures and whether the object was already determinate independently of that linguistic articulation. Language neither merely mirrors the world nor creates every object. The profile does not settle the controversy; it makes its changing premises examinable.
Movement of thought
1. An object and its designation are first separated analytically. 2. The expression is examined for selection, conceptual scope and connotation. 3. Alternative designations alter which properties of the object become salient. 4. Analysis distinguishes reference, conceptual articulation and pragmatic use. 5. It finally asks what in the thing resists these formulations.
Scientific use case
An interdisciplinary environmental study can use a res–verba protocol to record its central designations, operational definitions and excluded cases. This reveals whether disciplines dispute the same object or produce different objects of inquiry through different linguistic articulations.
Example
The same urban area is called a “brownfield” on a planning map, a “ruderal habitat” in an ecological report and an “open space” at a neighbourhood meeting. The expressions refer to the same site but make different properties, responsibilities and possible actions relevant.
Counterexample
The fact that different words open different perspectives does not prove that language wholly creates its object. Conversely, successful shared reference does not prove that all designations are neutral or equivalent. Both shortcuts miss the problem.
Distinction
Dyadic and triadic sign models provide systematisations; Semiosis emphasises process and Semantic field relations among meanings. The res–verba profile poses the historical and epistemological cross-question. Proposed links are not yet canonical.
Effect on thought and perception
The res–verba problem interrupts the illusion that a designation must be either a passive mirror or an unconstrained invention.
Resonance
No rigid line joins thing and word. Every designation sets particular features resonating, while the thing may also resist its designation.
Provenance
HWRh, Bd. 7, Artikel Res-verba-Problem, Sp. 1199–1306; independent source, terminology and relation review dated 14 September 2026
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Words and things (res–verba)“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-HWRH-0003. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-HWRH-0003The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
In BookIII of the Essay, Locke treats words as voluntarily assigned signs of ideas. Their immediate signification is the speaker’s ideas, not an unmediated relation to external things. The inspected English transcription supplies a particular intervention in the relation of words and things. It does not attest the German umbrella label Res-verba-Problem or substitute for an original Latin rhetorical passage.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
An idea may mediate between word and thing; specify that mediation instead of presupposing direct representation.
References for the historical section
- HC-C-LOCKE-III · BookIII chapterII §§1–2; savedtext208–257