Que deviennent les noms propres ?

Whereas proper names have long been restricted to anthroponyms and place names, the category contains today a lot of types that consist in very heterogeneous units. Because of this heterogeneousness, it is difficult to establish defining criteria of proper names: each criterion can be applied to certain types of proper names but there are counterexamples for each of them, and none of them can succeed in defining proper names or distinguishing them from appellatives. In particular, the idea that proper names have no meaning cannot be held any more: the majority of linguists agree to consider that proper names have a lexical meaning, but there are deep theoretical differences between theories of descriptive meaning and theories of denominative meaning.