The standard relational analysis of attitude verbs assumes that they denote a relation between an experiencer and an abstract object. The fact that these objects have only a shadowy linguistic manifestation has led to a rejection of this kind of analysis.I show here that the relational view can be preserved if one complicates substancially the lexical constraints which control the construction of semantic interpretation and separates in particular the lexical objects selected by the verbs from the ontlogical objects of attitude, which lead a more secret life, apart from the lexicon, inside rich interpretation structures, a fact which accounts for their well-known resistance to ordinary linguistics tests
