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EDIT: I found this in the SEP article on identity and individuality in quantum physics:

However, Barcan Marcus has offered an alternative perspective, insisting on ‘No identity without entity.’ (Marcus 1993) and arguing that although ‘… all terms may “refer” to objects… not all objects are things, where a thing is at least that about which it is appropriate to assert the identity relation.’ (ibid., p. 25) Object-reference then becomes a wider notion than thing-reference.

Barcan Marcus is a prominent figure in the modern history of modal logic, for what that's worth (as something philosophers have said on this topic).

For "thing" to be used in a maximally general way requires that "thing" have a functional meaning like "whatever is referred to by a noun, no matter if it's abstract or concrete, spatial or nonspatial, causal or noncausal, etc." Then it inherits its generality from the generality of "noun referent," and yet that phrase makes reference(!) to a more specific type of word and a more specific type of semantic operation.

Or we might try out, "Things are answers to what-questions," like, "What is the sky?" or, "What is 1 + 1?" Then "thing" is as general as "what," which is quite general, but is it more general than, "Why?" or, "Which?" or, "Whether...?" Moreover, wh-terms are like variables, so have we come to the variable/constant distinction as equally general compared to "thing," or is "thing" supposed to still be more general?^K

A "trick" option would be to take the phrase "that which is most generalized" as that which is most generalized. One might object, "But that phrase doesn't directly refer to anything!" But if we can work with "thing" despite its ghostly qualities, why not "that which is most generalized"? Or what if we thought up the term "pre-thing"? As if to say, "X is a pre-thing if X will become a thing at time Y," or "if X is more basic than what it will become at time Y." By contriving words like "pre-thing," "ur-thing," "quasi-thing," "meta-thing," and so on, we either undermine the generality of "thing," or we show that the question of maximal generality is itself a mirage.^I

^KKant, for example, uses all three of these phrases: "things as they appear to us," "things in themselves," and "things in general" (we might also cite "things as objects of thought"). Until "thing" is modified by "in general," it is not as general as possible, in this connection.

^IIs the generality-particularity ordering a single order, branching off from a single fixed point like "thing" or "object" or "this" or "it" or "existent" or "being" or whatever? Or is it possible that A might be more general than B, but there is also some C such that C is neither more nor less general than A, and is not as general either, but it is commensurate (in the G/P ordering) with some D, etc.? So that there is nothing that is just "as general as can be in general," but generality is relative to which G/P ordering one is considering?

For "thing" to be used in a maximally general way requires that "thing" have a functional meaning like "whatever is referred to by a noun, no matter if it's abstract or concrete, spatial or nonspatial, causal or noncausal, etc." Then it inherits its generality from the generality of "noun referent," and yet that phrase makes reference(!) to a more specific type of word and a more specific type of semantic operation.^E

Or we might try out, "Things are answers to what-questions," like, "What is the sky?" or, "What is 1 + 1?" Then "thing" is as general as "what," which is quite general, but is it more general than, "Why?" or, "Which?" or, "Whether...?" Moreover, wh-terms are like variables, so have we come to the variable/constant distinction as equally general compared to "thing," or is "thing" supposed to still be more general?^K

A "trick" option would be to take the phrase "that which is most generalized" as that which is most generalized. One might object, "But that phrase doesn't directly refer to anything!" But if we can work with "thing" despite its ghostly qualities, why not "that which is most generalized"? Or what if we thought up the term "pre-thing"? As if to say, "X is a pre-thing if X will become a thing at time Y," or "if X is more basic than what it will become at time Y." By contriving words like "pre-thing," "ur-thing," "quasi-thing," "meta-thing," and so on, we either undermine the generality of "thing," or we show that the question of maximal generality is itself a mirage.^I

^ESuppose X is the most general category, whatever that would be. Then X satisfies the description "the most general category," which is a less generalized description than "a general category." In other words, "the most generalized category" seems possibly self-contradictory (akin to "the first number not nameable in eight words").

^KKant, for example, uses all three of these phrases: "things as they appear to us," "things in themselves," and "things in general" (we might also cite "things as objects of thought"). Until "thing" is modified by "in general," it is not as general as possible, in this connection.

^IIs the generality-particularity ordering a single order, branching off from a single fixed point like "thing" or "object" or "this" or "it" or "existent" or "being" or whatever? Or is it possible that A might be more general than B, but there is also some C such that C is neither more nor less general than A, and is not as general either, but it is commensurate (in the G/P ordering) with some D, etc.? So that there is nothing that is just "as general as can be in general," but generality is relative to which G/P ordering one is considering?

For "thing" to be used in a maximally general way requires that "thing" have a functional meaning like "whatever is referred to by a noun, no matter if it's abstract or concrete, spatial or nonspatial, causal or noncausal, etc." Then it inherits its generality from the generality of "noun referent," and yet that phrase makes reference(!) to a more specific type of word and a more specific type of semantic operation.

Or we might try out, "Things are answers to what-questions," like, "What is the sky?" or, "What is 1 + 1?" Then "thing" is as general as "what," which is quite general, but is it more general than, "Why?" or, "Which?" or, "Whether...?" Moreover, wh-terms are like variables, so have we come to the variable/constant distinction as equally general compared to "thing," or is "thing" supposed to still be more general?

A "trick" option would be to take the phrase "that which is most generalized" as that which is most generalized. One might object, "But that phrase doesn't directly refer to anything!" But if we can work with "thing" despite its ghostly qualities, why not "that which is most generalized"? Or what if we thought up the term "pre-thing"? As if to say, "X is a pre-thing if X will become a thing at time Y," or "if X is more basic than what it will become at time Y." By contriving words like "pre-thing," "ur-thing," "quasi-thing," "meta-thing," and so on, we either undermine the generality of "thing," or we show that the question of maximal generality is itself a mirage.

For "thing" to be used in a maximally general way requires that "thing" have a functional meaning like "whatever is referred to by a noun, no matter if it's abstract or concrete, spatial or nonspatial, causal or noncausal, etc." Then it inherits its generality from the generality of "noun referent," and yet that phrase makes reference(!) to a more specific type of word and a more specific type of semantic operation.

Or we might try out, "Things are answers to what-questions," like, "What is the sky?" or, "What is 1 + 1?" Then "thing" is as general as "what," which is quite general, but is it more general than, "Why?" or, "Which?" or, "Whether...?" Moreover, wh-terms are like variables, so have we come to the variable/constant distinction as equally general compared to "thing," or is "thing" supposed to still be more general?^K

A "trick" option would be to take the phrase "that which is most generalized" as that which is most generalized. One might object, "But that phrase doesn't directly refer to anything!" But if we can work with "thing" despite its ghostly qualities, why not "that which is most generalized"? Or what if we thought up the term "pre-thing"? As if to say, "X is a pre-thing if X will become a thing at time Y," or "if X is more basic than what it will become at time Y." By contriving words like "pre-thing," "ur-thing," "quasi-thing," "meta-thing," and so on, we either undermine the generality of "thing," or we show that the question of maximal generality is itself a mirage.^I

^KKant, for example, uses all three of these phrases: "things as they appear to us," "things in themselves," and "things in general" (we might also cite "things as objects of thought"). Until "thing" is modified by "in general," it is not as general as possible, in this connection.

^IIs the generality-particularity ordering a single order, branching off from a single fixed point like "thing" or "object" or "this" or "it" or "existent" or "being" or whatever? Or is it possible that A might be more general than B, but there is also some C such that C is neither more nor less general than A, and is not as general either, but it is commensurate (in the G/P ordering) with some D, etc.? So that there is nothing that is just "as general as can be in general," but generality is relative to which G/P ordering one is considering?