When is a mark or sound a token of a word? There is no once-and-for-all answer: word tokening is iteratively socially constructed, so the conditions for tokening a word can shift across socio-technical regimes. I first argue that word-tokening’s messy boundaries have a distinctive temporal structure I call initiated: initiation is relatively demanding, maintenance more permissive, exit difficult. Word-token kinds are initiated proxy kinds: anchored as stable, low-cost proxies that play a functio…
Read moreWhen is a mark or sound a token of a word? There is no once-and-for-all answer: word tokening is iteratively socially constructed, so the conditions for tokening a word can shift across socio-technical regimes. I first argue that word-tokening’s messy boundaries have a distinctive temporal structure I call initiated: initiation is relatively demanding, maintenance more permissive, exit difficult. Word-token kinds are initiated proxy kinds: anchored as stable, low-cost proxies that play a functional role, as is common for social kinds. I then historicize the picture. Tokening conditions shift as pressures accumulate through large-scale changes to roles, constraints, and costs within a regime; I consider historical and current regimes, and the implications of AI-generated text. But they change conservatively—sedimented and path-dependent rather than anchored from scratch. The aim is a pragmatic but stable theory of word-tokening, and a broader model of how social kinds are built over time.
