Abstract

This article investigates the ontological mechanism through which words come to have their instances across various physical media. I argue that form-theoretic accounts that reduce words to specific orthographic or phonological structures, as well as intention-based models that lack sufficient normative constraints, fail to provide an adequate account of word instantiation. I further argue that even sophisticated versions of type realism that treat words as norm types, entities capable of admitting both properly and improperly formed tokens, fail to adequately explain the specific relation between a word and its forms. To address this, I propose an association-based account where the relationship between words and instances is mediated by associated orthographic and phonological norm types. This relation of association explains how words stand in normative relations to diverse forms without being essential to the word’s identity. I conclude that the problem of instantiation is a structural challenge that any adequate ontology of words must address.