Words as types and words as tokens

Words as types and words as tokens

            Before we explain about type and tokens , firstly we wanna give you an example to open your mind about type and tokens in general meaning . Example there is a flock that made of the same type of birds , each individual bird is a different tokens .     

            Type – token distinction is a distinction that separates a concept from the objects which are particular instances of the concept . For example , the particular bicycle in your garage is a token of the type of thing known as “The bicycle” . Whereas , the bicycle in your garage is in a particular place at a particular time , that is not true of “the bicycle” as used in the sentence: "The bicycle has become more popular recently". In logic, the distinction is used to clarify the meaning of symbols of formal languages.

            Types are often understood ontologically as being concepts. They do not exist anywhere in particular because they are not physical objects. Types may have many tokens. However, types are not directly producible as tokens are. You may, for instance, show someone the bicycle in your garage, but you cannot show someone "The bicycle". Tokens always exist at a particular place and time and may be shown to exist as a concrete physical object.

            Words come in both types and tokens—for example, there is only one word type 'the' but there are numerous tokens of it on this page—as do symphonies, bears, chess games, and many other types of things. In this book, Linda Wetzel examines the distinction between types and tokens and argues that types exist (as abstract objects, since they lack a unique spatiotemporal location).

            The relation between types and their tokens is obviously dependent on what a type is . A token is an “instance” of a type and that the token signifies the type.) Nonetheless, it has often been taken to be the relation of instantiation, or exemplification; a token is an instance of a type; it exemplifies the type .

            Example , in the sentence 'The cat sat on the mat', there are two tokens of the type 'the' and one token each of the types 'cat', 'sat', 'on', and 'mat'. The second example is in the sentence ‘Mary goes to Edinburgh next week , and she intends going to Washington next month’ If we take as a guide the English spelling convention of placing a space between each word , the answer seems clearly to be fourteen . But there is also a sense in which there are fewer than fourteen words in the sentence , because two of them (the words to and next) are repeated . In this sense in third word is the same as the eleventh , and the fifth word is the same as the thirteenth , so there are only twelve words in the sentence . The third and the eleventh word of the sentence are distinct tokens of a single type , and likewise the fifth and the thirteenth word .

           

            The type – token distinction is relevant to the notion ‘word’ in this way . Sentences (spoken or written) may be said to composed of words token but it is clearly not word-token that are listed in dictionaries . it would be absurdto suggest that each occurance of the word next . Words are listed in dictionaries entries are , at one level , types , not tokens – even thought , at another level , one may talk of distinct tokens of the same dictionary entry ,inasmuch as the entry for month in one copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary is different token from the entry for month in another copy .

            The last example that can explain more about type – token such as a tune . A tune I heard this morning may be ‘the same’ as one I heard yesterday (i.e. they may be instances of the same type) , but the two tokens that I have heard of it are distinct . However , the relationship between words as building-blocks and as meaningful units is not so simple as that , as we shall see . So , while it is important to be alert to type-token ambiguity when talking about words , recognizing this sort of ambiguity is by no means all there is to sorting out how characteristics and diverge .