  It wouldn't do to ignore what the coiner of the type-token distinction had to say about types. Unfortunately it cannot be adequately unpacked without an in-depth explication of Peirce's semiotics, which cannot be embarked upon here. (See the entries on  Charles Sanders Peirce and  Peirce's theory of signs.)  Peirce said types “do not exist”, yet they are “definitely Significant Forms” that “determine things that do exist” (4.423). A type, or “legisign” as he also calls it, “has a definite identity, though usually admitting a great variety of appearances. Thus, &amp; and and the sound are all one word” (8.334). Elsewhere he tells us that a type is “a general law that is a sign. This law is usually established by men. Every conventional sign is a legisign. It is not a single object, but a general type which…shall be significant. …[E]very Legisign requires Sinsigns” (2.246). Sinsigns are tokens. (It should be mentioned that for Peirce there is actually a trichotomy among types, tokens and tones, or qualisigns, which are “the mere quality of appearance” (8.334).) Thus types have a definite identity as signs, are general laws established by men, but they do not exist. Perhaps all Peirce meant by saying they do not exist was that they are “not individual things” (6.334), that they are, instead what he calls “generals”—not to be confused with universals. What he might have meant by a “general law” is uncertain. Stebbing (1935, p.15) suggests “a rule in accordance with which tokens … could be so used as to have meaning attached to them”. Greenlee (1973, p. 137) suggests that for Peirce a type is "a habit controlling a specific way of responding interpretatively." Perhaps, then, types are of a psychological nature. Obviously two people can have the same habit, so habits also come in types and tokens. Presumably, types are then habit types. This account may be plausible for words, but it is not plausible for sentences, because there are sentences that have no tokens because if Φ,Ψ are sentences, then so is (Φ &amp; Ψ) and it is clear that for Peirce "every [type] requires [tokens]" (2.246). And it is much less plausible for non-linguistic types, like types of beetles, some of which have yet to be discovered.