@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ For **nominal multi-word expressions**, we use a primary distinction concerning
-**(2)** versus **instantiable concept names**, working as the name of a concept, which can be used to refer to instances of this concept (e.g. *neural network*).
In this latter case, knowing the defining characteristics of the concept enables one to use it for future instances, without requiring to learn any new naming convention. This contrasts with entity names: in order to use the name *Anna Duval* for a new person, one needs to learn a new naming convention linking the name to this new person, and the characteristics of the person plays almost no role (to be precise, with such an example the name tells us the person should be a woman). Note that
- an entity name may well be ambiguous (e.g. several people bearing the same name), the key differentiating trait between (1) and (2) concerns whether or not there must be a naming convention at the level of each entity (Kleiber, 2007)
- an entity name may well be ambiguous (e.g. several people bearing the same name), the key differentiating trait between (1) and (2) concerns whether or not there must be <spanstyle="color:blue">an individual</span> naming convention at the level of each entity (Kleiber, 2007)
- for concept names of course there is also a naming convention (why use the noun *table* for a table), but it is defined at the level of the class of entities, not at the level of each entity.
This distinction between entity name and instantiable concept name is reminiscent of the proper noun versus common noun distinction, but this latter distinction is not so easy to define precisely. Of course, lexical items that are exclusively used for directly naming entities (e.g. the first and last names for people) are easily to classified as proper nouns (sometimes called **pure proper nouns**). This is why Erhmann (2008) roughly defines proper nouns as the "désignation d’une entité précise par le biais d’une description dont le sens joue un rôle mineur par rapport à la dénomination, opérant directement, du référent" (the designation of a precise entity via a description whose meaning plays a minor role with respect to the denomination of the referent, which operates directly").
