Sentence:  One hebephrenic women confided to me , `` I live in a world of words '' , as if , to her , words <WSD>were</WSD> fully concrete objects ; Burnham , in his excellent article ( 1955 ) concerning schizophrenic communication , includes mention of similar clinical material . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)