The goal of the paper is to examine how the direct empirical grasping of individual things is linked with conceptual thought in William of Ockham's theory of human cognition. In Ockham's vocabulary， this comes down to discussing how what he calls ″intuitive acts″ is related with the inner language of thought （″oratio mentalis″） that he postulates.The central idea is that intuitive acts of cognition are treated as signs by Ockham and various passages of his works are scrutinized in order to bring out what the semantics is supposed to be for such special signs， a topic which has not yet been systematically studied in the relevant literature.Three points in particular are thus highlighted: （1） Ockham's causal approach to what intuitions signify; （2） the connection between intuitive acts and other kinds of singular mental terms; and （3） Ockham's commitment to the existence of semantically structured （or ″connotative″） intuitive acts of cognition.On the whole， this provides both for a new understanding of Ockham's mental language and for intriguing philosophical suggestions about the empirical grounding of propositional thought．