Referential Theory of meaning

Translator's Philosophy of language (philosophical linguistics) can be categorized in two main titles: philosophical semantics and philosophical pragmatics. the former contains tow theories: theory of meaning (consisting of nature of meaning, significance, synonymous, analyticity, entailment) and theory of reference (consisting of naming, truth, denotation, extension, values of variables) latter contains tow theories: theory of speech - acts and theory of conversation. William G. Lycan accepts nearly mentioned subjects above, he holds that contemporary philosophy of language centers on the theory of meaning but also includes the theory of reference, the theory of truth, philosophical pragmatics, and the philosophy of linguistics. The main question addressed by the theory of meaning is: what it is for a string of marks (or noises) to be meaningful, and how it is possible for human beings to produce and to understand utterances? Philosophers have offered a number of competing hypotheses as answer of this question: the referential view, ideational or mentalist theories, "use" theories, functionism, inferential role theories, verificationism, the truth – conditional theory, the eliminiativist view. Referential Theory of meaning answers that words and expressions have their meanings by standing for things in the world. Though commonsensical and at first attractive, this Theory of meaning is fairly easily shown to be inadequate.