alsonominal

Alsonominal is a neologism used in theoretical linguistics to describe a word form that can function simultaneously as a proper name and as a common nominal within the same discourse. The term is not widely attested in established literature and is primarily discussed in exploratory or speculative work on word-class flexibility and referential indexing. The idea is to capture cases where a single linguistic form carries dual referential functions, serving as a name for a referent while also bearing a nominal function that would normally mark type or category.

Etymology and scope: The coinage combines a prefix suggesting dual status with the word nominal, signaling that the form operates on two nominal levels. Alsonominals are typically discussed as a theoretical construct rather than a settled category with a large empirical basis. They are considered distinct from ordinary homonymy or polysemy in that the dual function is attributed to a single token rather than to different senses of a word.

Characteristics: Core features typically cited include a dual referential function (name and noun), context-dependent interpretation, and a potential need for discourse cues (such as capitalization, articles, or syntactic position) to disambiguate meaning. Some analyses emphasize that alsonominal status may be more plausible in languages or genres with flexible capitalization, morphology, or naming practices.

Relation to related concepts: Alsonominality intersects with discussions of proper names, noun phrases, polysemy, and allonymy. It is distinct from straightforward homonymy, since the dual role is proposed as an integrated property of the token rather than a simple mapping of multiple unrelated senses.

See also: homonym, polysemy, autonym, allonym, xenonym. Note: alsonominal remains a theoretical proposal and is not a widely adopted category in mainstream linguistics.