 The view that there are nonexistent or intentional objects, Meinongianism, is a highly controversial philosophical view (van Inwagen 2003; entries on  existence,  nonexistent objects,  fictional entities).  But it is a view that is often motivated or defended by appeal to natural language (Fine 1982; van Inwagen 1977; Kripke 2013; McGinn 2000; Parsons 1980; Priest 2005; Salmon 1987, 1998; Thomasson 1999), namely sentences with existence predicates or intentional verbs such as look for or think about: