Referent and Non-Referent Language

Wittgenstein once implied that the meaning of a word lies in its usage. Plato once implied that the meaning of a word lies in the object it represented. Benjamin Lee Whorf once implied that language, thought and reality were three interconnected things. How can one reconcile these disparate arguments?
If the meaning of a word lies in its usage, it is non-referent, language as language. If the meaning of a word lies in an idea, it is thought referent, language as thought. If the meaning of a word lies in an object, it is reality referent, language as reality. The constraint upon both of the possible mental universes of idea and object is the usage of words. Language is a constant and a variable that both limits and adjusts to the relation of object to idea, symbol to canon, sign to significance. Like all currencies in all markets it exists per se, as word, and also in relation to the products, as object and idea, it values and orders.
What is the nature of non-referent language? It is the trial and error attempt to adjust the usage of words to object and idea and to other words as well. At this point, the secret of language may be somewhere in the mirror neuron circuitry and it may be this circuitry that is modified in non-referent linguistic operations.