  Abelard criticizes William for "doing such abuse to language" that he allowed ‘rational’ and ‘rational animal’ to signify the same thing (Abelard D 541.24). Again, another anonymous source confirms that William thought that a definition and the term defined, that is ‘rational mortal animal’ and ‘man’, signify the same thing (Green-Pedersen 1974, frag. 6). Both are consistent with William's theories of universals and may reflect William's commitment to words signifying presently existing things. William may well have thought that ‘rational’ and ‘rational animal’ have the same signification because each thing signified by ‘rational’ is signified by ‘rational animal’, and conversely. Such a view would involve a fairly simplistic theory of meaning, but this alone does not mean it was not William's view.