Threshold of proper noun: a semantic approach

This article summarizes the proper name in its triple feature, as an identifier for an ordinary individual (as opposed to designating a category), as a referrer to the named individual and as an unconventional individual categorizer through its derivative uses. This continuum is structured by internal thresholds: the transition to the reference and the transition to derivative uses, before a possible external threshold of the antonomasia. This article rehabilitates the denominational sense of the proper name (Kleiber 1981).