The Problem of Universals

Rosalind, Abelard and other so-called nominalists were inclined to think that different sentences with verbs and different tenses could all refer to one and the same event. For instance, if I utter the name Groucho, that sound I am making is a thing, just like Groucho himself is a thing. It would seem though that Abelard first explicitly formulated nominalism only as a critical response to those who started espousing realism about universals.