The first thing to understand is that words point to things. If I talk about "the moon", then I am using words to point to the big ball orbiting around the Earth.
On the other hand, if I mention "the apple", it's not clear which apple I'm talking about. However, if we were talking face to face and I was holding an apple, the context would make it obvious that I was referring to the apple in my hand. This shows that words are always within a context. Even "the moon" is in a context; here on Earth, when I talk about "the moon", I almost always mean Earth's moon, but if I was on Pluto, it would be ambiguous.
So words are pointers, and exist within a context. What is a context? I think the most general answer is that a context is some machine which can follow the pointer, along with the information it uses to follow it.
So if I'm having a conversation, the context of the words is me plus everything I know about the situation which affects how I interpret them. And in the case of a computer program guiding a missile towards a specific location, where the pointer is the coordinates of the missile's target, then the context is the missile's targeting program itself.
With that being explained, we can say that a word/pointer refers to something real when the thing it refers to actually exists. For example, "the moon" refers to something real, because it actually exists, you can often see it just by going outside. But if I was on a planet that had no moon, then "the moon" does not refer to something real.
However, most people say something shorter, and say "the moon is real", instead of saying "the words 'the moon' refer to something real". However, it's important to remember that the two statements are equivalent.
One very common way to point to things using words is to describe the thing. For example, suppose I talk about "the apple". Then you have no idea which apple I'm talking about. But then I could describe it a little more, and say "the apple in my fridge". That narrows it down a lot! Except that there are three apples in my fridge, so I still haven't been specific enough. Continuing, I could say "the apple in my fridge that weighs the most", or "the apple that's furthest back in my fridge", or many other descriptions to narrow it down to just one apple.
It's interesting to observe that the more common the thing I'm trying to point to is, the more specific I have to be. If I wanted to point to a specific grain of sand on a beach, it would take a lot of information to point to that grain of sand uniquely using just words.
When someone's words aren't specific enough to pick out anything uniquely, then it doesn't really make sense to say that the words refer to something that exists, nor to say that they refer to something which doesn't exist. For example, if I say "the apple is real" without having any specific apple in mind, then it's a meaningless phrase. For simplicity, we can ignore such sentences, and assume that words always point to something unique, or would point to something unique if the thing existed.
Words point to things, usually by describing the thing enough that it can be uniquely identified. A word refers to something real when the thing it refers to exists, and otherwise it does not refer to something real.
Date: 2021-01-12
Author: Galene