Keelefilosoofia raamat
"things" or abstract items such as qualities. Quine (1960) gives the examples
of "sake," "behalf," and "dint." One sometimes does something for someone
else's sake or on that person's behalf, but not as if a sake or a behalf were a
kind of object the beneficiary led around on a leash. Or one achieves some-
thing by dint of hard work; but a dint is not a thing or kind of thing. (I have
never been sure what a "whit" or a "cahoot" is.) Despite being nouns, words
like these surely do not have their meanings by referring to particular kinds
of objects. They seem to have meaning only by dint of occurring in longer
constructions. By themselves they barely can be said to mean anything at all,
though they are words, and meaningful words at that.
Fourth, many parts of speech other than nouns do not even seem to
refer to things of any sort or in any way at all: "very," "of," "and," "the," "a,"
annaabi.ee 
