Any 16-bit value may be stored in RAM.  The data type of value stored in RAM is inferred by its location and/or its use within a program.  The primary hardware supported data type is the 16-bit signed integer, which is represented in 2’s complement format.  Signed integers therefore have the range -32768 through 32767.  The lower 15 bits of a  value in RAM may also represent an address in ROM or RAM in the sense of a pointer.
