ONT Re: Tone, Token, Type
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| A common mode of estimating the amount of matter in a MS. or printed book
| is to count the number of words. There will ordinarily be about twenty
| 'the's on a page, and of course they count as twenty words. In another
| sense of the word "word", however, there is but one word "the" in the
| English language; and it is impossible that this word should lie
| visibly on a page or be heard in any voice, for the reason that
| it is not a Single thing or Single event. It does not exist;
| it only determines things that do exist. Such a definitely
| significant Form, I propose to term a 'Type'. A Single event
| which happens once and whose identity is limited to that one
| happening or a Single object or thing which is in some single
| place at any one instant of time, such event or thing being
| significant only as occurring just when and where it does,
| such as this or that word on a single line of a single page
| of a single copy of a book, I will venture to call a 'Token'.
| An indefinite significant character such as a tone of voice
| can neither be called a Type nor a Token. I propose to call
| such a Sign a 'Tone'. In order that a Type may be used, it has
| to be embodied in a Token which shall be a sign of the Type, and
| thereby of the object the Type signifies. I propose to call such
| a Token of a Type an 'Instance' of the Type. Thus, there may be
| twenty Instances of the type "the" on a page. (Peirce, CP 4.537).
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