The paper introduces a decompositional approach to verbal semantics that is object-oriented in nature and based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML), the de-facto standard formalism for object-oriented software design and analysis. In addition to laying out the very rich semantic structure of verbal meaning and its object-oriented modeling, the paper focuses on the advantages a semantic representation along the lines of the UML provides, in particular looking at the multi-layered architecture of UML and its implications for verbal meaning. Other semantic phenomena and problems (such as metaphors, questions of classifications of verbal meaning, or selectional restrictions) will be touched on and discussed in the light of an object-oriented, UML-based approach to verbal meaning.