 William held that sentences have two senses, a grammatical sense and a dialectical sense. Taken in the grammatical sense, the verb in sentences such as ‘Socrates is white’ marks an intransitive copulation of essence: the same thing is denoted by the subject and predicate. In the dialectical sense, the verb in ‘Socrates is white’ marks a predication of inherence: what is denoted by the predicate inheres in what is denoted by the subject. To the grammarian, ‘Socrates is white’ and ‘Socrates is whiteness’ have different senses and different truth conditions. ‘Socrates is white’ says that Socrates is a subject of whiteness.  ‘Socrates is whiteness’ says that Socrates is essentially whiteness. To the dialectician, however, the two sentences have the same sense, since they both say that whiteness inheres in Socrates. The dialectical sense is more general (generalior, largior, superior) because it does not distinguish between essential and accidental inherence. But the grammatical sense is more precise (determinatior). Taken in the dialectical sense, ‘Socrates is white’ and ‘Socrates is whiteness’ would both be true. So, while the dialectical sense has some use for dialecticians, sentences are true and false in the grammatical sense (Abelard LI Top: 271-273; GP 1974 Frag 9; de Rijk 1967 II.I: 183-85).