  To counter the second objection (about non-equivalent translations) Sellars suggests we introduce a new sort of quotation device, dot quotation, that would permit translation of the quoted word. Then, e.g.  “The word •red• is a color predicate” translates as “Le mot •rouge• est un prédicat de coleur”. The justification is that ‘red’ and ‘rouge’ are functionally equivalent—they play the same linguistic role. As mentioned above, this means that they have the same causes (of perceptual stimuli, e.g.) and effects (conduct, e.g.) and function similarly in inferential transitions. Again, whether Sellars can unpack the notion of “same linguistic role” without appealing to any universals remains an open question. Less open is the question of how successful such an approach is to dealing with talk of words, e.g., “The word ‘red’ consists of three letters”. If we apply Sellars' analysis systematically, this becomes “”The word ‘red’” consists of a three-lettered predicate” which is just false; if instead we reckon that “the word ‘red’” is already a distributive singular term and apply his analysis to it, getting “The word •red• is a three-lettered predicate”, this then translates incorrectly as “Le mot •rouge• est un prédicat trois-en lettres”. If we stick instead with regular quotation, which resists translation, then we cannot appeal to “same linguistic role” to say what class of things “the word ‘red’” distributes over. In any event, Sellars's account also faces the difficulty noted above with Goodman's account: it is only plausible on a realist semantics, because if ‘predicate’ meant ‘predicate token’ there would not even be enough predicates for every word in the dictionary, much less every sentence in the language. (For other problems with Sellars's account, see Loux 1978: 81-85.)