  The predicative context is commonly suggested to be the historical origin of the term ‘transcendens’ in the meaning of ‘transcendental’. (See Jacobi 2003; Valente 2007; Aertsen 2012, 42sqq.) Various 12th century logical texts recognize the distinctive semantical nature of transcategorical terms, which they refer to, among others, as ‘transcendent names’ (nomina transcendentia). Three instances: (i.) Whereas a Vienna Priscian-commentary partially edited by De Rijk (dated ca. 1150) identifies a certain class of names “that are so universal that they run through all categories”, such as ‘being’, ‘thing’, ‘one’, ‘something’, the Ars Meliduna (between 1154/1180) distinguishes transgeneric terms from universals proper. “No name that belongs to every thing, such as ‘thing’, ‘something’, ‘being’, and ‘one’, signifies a universal”. Since universals are bound up to genera, transgeneric terms do not signify a universal. The categories, as the highest genera, determine what a thing is, the transgeneric names signify that it is. (ii.) In the debate on “infinite names” (nomina infinita), which refers to the possibility of ‘making a term infinite’ (infinitatio) by term-negation, a distinction is made in the Introductiones Montane minores (ca. 1130) and the  Tractatus Anagnini (ca. 1200), between finite terms and terms that “contain all things”, e.g. ‘thing’ and ‘something’. Since these terms are not finite, they cannot be made infinite: “Terms that contain all things cannot be made infinite, hence this is senseless: ‘a non-something is’, ‘a non-thing is’.” (iii.) In the discussion on the equivocity of names in the Dialectica Monacensis (between 1150–1200), a specific type of equivocation is identified, in which something is signified primarily, everything else secondarily, and this type of equivocation is connected with the nomina transcendentia, i.e. names like ‘thing’, ‘being’, ‘one’, ‘universal’, ‘possible’, ‘contingent’, ‘the same’ and ‘diverse’ as such. (See Jacobi 2003.)