An ideal language is approached in another way when stimuli and responses have similar dimensions. This is not an essential requirement, since a point-to-point correspondence could exist between different dimensional systems, but to the extent that responses resemble stimuli, responses related to similar stimuli will themselves be similar. Models have this property. We report a state of affairs most completely by reconstructing it—by building an exact duplicate. Such behavior is verbal according to our definition, since a model is built and used because of its effect upon “listeners.” It is not quite so impracticable as it may seem, because the model need not always be constructed. The salesman’s sample case is part of a verbal repertoire. Pictures are incomplete or superficial models, which correspond to the “thing being talked about” in many more details than phonetic responses. Both the sample case and the illustrated catalogue satisfy the requirement that similar things be expressed by similar means.
Pointing to an object is a variation on model-building. A man may say, I never go out without carrying my … and finish by displaying an automatic drawn from his belt. The act of display is verbal according to our definition and is equivalent to the verbal response automatic, though much more complete as a description. When we point to the cake we wish to buy in a pastry shop instead of describing it, we are also acting verbally. We use the cake in making the response; its correspondence with the “thing described” is, of course, perfect. Whether a cake can be the name of itself, or a gun refer to itself, depends upon how we define “name” and “refer.” (Whether we are to include pointing to objects as a system of tacts will depend upon how much of the verbal field we want the term to cover. It raises no important linguistic problem because, as in the case of model-building in general, the repertoire is easily described.)
Skinner on iconicity, from Verbal Behavior
