A type is a sign considered as an infinitely regenerating unit or function;
A token, on the other hand, is an individual replication or example of a sign or more precisely a legisign (sign as a rule).
The type itself is legisign, an indefinitely recoverable form. There can be multiple tokens of a single type.
For example, the English definite article “the” appears countless times on this site and wherever English is used.
With the same meaning, the same word appears in different places. But the different examples are just as different. Each “the” is different.
Peirce marked this difference by calling the examples tokens of the type “the”.
When we say that the same word appears in countless places, we mean the type; when we say that there are 59,049 examples with it in the various volumes, we mean the token. Because types appear (as replicas) in tokens, peer sometimes uses a replica as a synonym for a token.
Joseph Ransdell believes that type and token are best distinguished as part of a triad – tone (sound), sign, type and that this triad is equivalent to the trichotomy qualisign, sinsign, and legisign.
