 It is tempting to connect this lean ontology to that of William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347). The interests, approach and arguments of the two thinkers, however, differ considerably. Unlike Valla, Ockham does not want to get rid of the system of categories. As long as one realizes, Ockham says, that categories do not describe things in the world but categorize terms by which we signify real substances or real inhering qualities in different ways, the categories can be maintained and the specific features of, for example, relational or quantitative terms can be explored. Thus, Ockham’s rejection of a realist interpretation of the categories is accompanied by a wish to defend the categories as distinct groups of terms. Valla, on the other hand, sees the categories as summing up the real aspects of things: hence, there are only substances, qualities, and actions, and his reductive program consists in showing that we have a vast and rich vocabulary in Latin that we can use for referring to these things. His questions about words and classes of words are not unlike those of Priscian (fl. 500–530) and other grammarians. (Priscian, for instance, had stated that a noun signifies substance plus quality, and pronouns substance without quality.)