Based on A. P. D. Mourelatos's "Events, Processes, and States" (1978), an overview of the literature on „verb types‟ (or Aktionsarten) is provided in this paper;the basic conceptual, logical and grammatical tests for the identification of different verb types are also briefly reviewed.Such tests, it is argued, reveal variations in a verb’s grammatical and/or lexical aspect; accordingly, verb types should be viewed as regularities governing aspectual variation within and across sentences. Verb types are not associated with particular verbs, predicates or sentences; rather, a verb type (or a verb‟s Aktionsart) is the sum of ways in which a verb‟s aspect may vary. In other words, verb types describe the possibilities for a verb to appear in one or another of a series of interrelated constructions. Verb types are verbal possibilities or, to use B. L. Whorf‟s apt term, fashions of speaking which cut across typical grammatical classifications. It is further argued that verb types, as “mere” fashions of speaking, cannot provide a firm basis for any metaphysics of „situation types‟; i.e., the metaphysics of verb types cannot be founded on their linguistics.

The paper starts by setting the stage for two perennial pairs of problems about the receptacle: “metaphysics / physics” and “matter / space” (I.). Then it provides a close reading of 49a6-50a4 that reinforces the reconstructionist interpretation, but also deviates from Cherniss in some respect. When applying the proposals Plato makes in 49a6-50a4, it reveals a Plato in search of a feature-placing language or language without particulars (LWOP) (II. and III.): though not formulating it himself, Plato provides all necessary material for doing so. Having argued ex negativo and against the exclusivity-thesis regarding the first debate about the receptacle (in III.), the paper offers a new piece of evidence for the space interpretation of the receptacle—though not breaking new ground—because my LWOP thesis presupposes the interpretation of the receptacle as space and argues against the material-substrate reading (IV). Throughout the paper, I have consciously operated with a less Aristotle-centered framework than those most often applied, a procedure that does justice to Plato’s different ontology and semantics of the sensible phenomena. My Plato does not pave the way to Aristotle in this passage because he does not wish to do so.