Proper names are names of particular persons, individually or as a group; institutions of all kinds; and places. They may consist of one word or many; those consisting of two or more words, such as 'Polly Perkins', 'Ayers Rock' or 'Cathay Pacific Airlines', obviously have their own internal structure; but we shall treat all such instances simply as Thing, since it is beyond our scope here to go into the functional analysis of noun compounds. Personal pronouns and proper names are alike in that, for both, the reference is typically unique. With pronouns, the referent is defined interpersonally, by the speech situation. With proper names it is defined experentially: there exists only one, at least in the relevant body of experience. In both cases, this means that typically there is no further specification; pronouns and proper names usually occur without any other elements of the nominal group. Sometimes they need further defining, like 'you in the back row', 'Henry the Eighth' (this was how surnames started, as Qualifiers of personal names); and they may carry attitudinal Epithets, like 'poor Tom' – cf. 'pretty little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green', which has both.
- Halliday (1985), Pag. 168