Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T13:32:25.064Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Speculations on the growth of ethnobotanical nomenclature1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Brent Berlin
Brent Berlin
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Assuming the ethnobiological classification evolves as a reflection of cultural development, data are presented which suggest an orderly and predictable temporal appearance of ethnobotanical nomenclatural categories. A general correspondence is seen to exist between the number of categories encoded at any point in time in a particular language's history and degree of sociocultural development. The principles of lexical marking are applied to ethnobiological nomenclature as a means of inferring relative age of the corresponding categories. (Ethnoscience, primitive classification, language universals, cultural evolution.)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , April 1972 , pp. 51 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Almstedt, R. L. (1968). Diegun tree: an ecological approach to a linguistic problem IJAL 34. 9–15.Google Scholar
Anderson, E. N. (1967). The ethnoichthyology of the Hong Kong boat people. (Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation in anthropology.) BerkeleyUniversity of California.Google Scholar
Austerlitz, R. (1959) Gilyak religious terminology in the light of linguistic analysis. From the Transactions of the Asiatic Socoety of Japan. (Third series, vol. VII.) Tokyo.Google Scholar
Bartlett, H. H. (1940). History of the gereric concept in botany. Bull. Torrey Botanical Club 67. 349–62.Google Scholar
Berlin, B. (1969). Universal nomenclatural primciples im folk science. Paper presented at the 1968 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Berlin, B., Breedlove, D. E. & Raven, P. H. (1966) Folk taxonomies and biologial classification. Science. 273–5.Google Scholar
Reprinted in Tyler, S. (ed.) (1968). Conitive anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Berlin, B., Breedlove, D.E. & Raven, P.H. (1968). Covert categories and folk tamonomies AmA 70. 290–9.Google Scholar
Berlin, B., Breedlove, D.E. & Raven, P.H. (in press), Principles of Tzeltal plant classification. New York: Seminar Press.Google Scholar
Berlin, B., Breedlove, D.E. & Raven, P.H. (n.d.). Universal principles of nomenclature and classification in folk science.Google Scholar
Bright, W & Bright, J. (1965). Semantic structures in Northwestern Califonia and the Sapit-Whorf hypothesis. In Hammel, E. A. (ed.), Formal semantic analysis. (AmA 67 (5) pt 2.) Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association.Google Scholar
Brown, W. (1958). How Shall a thing be called? Psychological Rev. 65. 14–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buck, C. D. (1949) A dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal Indo-European languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bulmer, R. (1967). Why is the cassowary not abird? A problem of zoological taxonomy among the Karam of the New Guinea Highlands. Man 2. 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bulmer, R. (1968). Worms that croak and other mysteries of Karam natural science. Mankind 6. 621–39.Google Scholar
Bulmer, R. (1970). Which came first, the chicken or the egghead? In pouillon, J. et Maranda, P. (eds), Échanges et communications Mélanges offerts à Claude Lévi-Strauss ´ l' occasion de son 60eme anniversaire. The Hague: Mouton and Co.Google Scholar
Bulmer, R. & Tyler, R. (1968). Karem classification of frogs. Jnl Polynesian Soc. 77. 333–85.Google Scholar
Conklin, H. C. (1954) The relation of Hanunóo culture to the plant world. (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation in anthropology.) New Haven: Yale University.Google Scholar
Conklin, H. C. (1962). Lexicographic treatment of folk taxonomies. In Householder, F. W. and Saporta, S. (ets), Problems in lexicography. (Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistics, Publicaation 21: (and) IJAL 28 (2) Pt 4.) Bloomington: Indians University.Google Scholar
Demory, B. (1971). The word for ‘tree’ in the Hokan language family. In Informant. Long Beach: California State College, Department of Anthropology.Google Scholar
Dennler, J. G. (1939). Los nombres indígenas en Guaraní de los mamíferso de la Argentins y países limítrofes y su importancia pars Ia systematica. Physis 16. 225–44.Google Scholar
Dentan, R. K. (1968). The Semai: a nonviolent people of Malaya. In Spindler, G. and Spindler, L. (eds), Case studies in cultural anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Diamond, J. M. (1966). Classification system of primitive people. Science 151. 1102–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fowler, C. S. & Leland, J. (1966). Some Northern Paiute native categories. Ethnology 6. 381–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frake, C. O. (1962). The ethnographic study of cognitive systems, In Gladwin, T. and Sturtevant, W. C. (eds), Anthropology and human behavior. Washington, D.C.: Anthropological Society of Washington.Google Scholar
French, D. (1960). Types of native taxonomic process. Paper presented at the Fifty-ninth Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Friedrich, P. (1970). Proto-Indo-European trees. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gatschet, A. S. (1890). The Kiamath Indians of Southwestern Oregon. (Contributions to North American Ethnology, vol. II.) Washington, D.C.: Department of Interior, U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region.Google Scholar
Gatschet, A. S. (1899). ‘Real’, ‘true’, or ‘genuine’ in Indian languages. In AmA I. 155–61. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. H. (1966). Language universals. In Sebeok, T. A. (ed.), Current trends in linguistics, vol. 3, theoretical foundations. The Hague: Mouton and Co. 61–112.Google Scholar
Greene, E. L. (1909). Landmarks of botanical history. (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 54.) Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1960). More on lexicostatistics. CAnthr I. 338–45.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1966). The savage mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. (1935). Coral gardens and their magic, vol. II. New York: American Book Company.Google Scholar
Mathews, W. (1886). Navajo names for plants. Amer. Naturalist 20. 767–77.Google Scholar
Merriam, C. H. (n.d.). Field checklists, Pacific Coast Region. U.S. Department of Agriculture biological survey. (Notes in the library of the Archaeological Research Facility, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.)Google Scholar
Trancoso, F. del Paso y (1886). La botanica entre los Nahuas. Anales del Museo Nacional de México. III. Mexico.Google Scholar
Roys, R. L. (1931,). The ethno-botany of the Maya. (Middle American Research Series, no. 2.) New Orleans: Tulane University, Department of Middle American Research.Google Scholar
Stahel, G. (1944). Notes on the Arawak Indian names of plants in Surinam. Jnl N.Y. Botanical Garden 45. 268–79.Google Scholar
Strathern, M. (1969). Why is the Pueraria a sweet potato? Ethnology 8. 189–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trager, G. (1939). ‘Cottonwood’ = ‘tree’: a Southwestern linguistic trait. IJAL 9. 117–18.Google Scholar
Ullmann, S. (1963). Semantic universals. In Greenberg, J. H. (ed.), Universals of language (2nd edition). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 217–62.Google Scholar
Werner, H. (1954). Change of meaning: a study of semantic processes through the experimental method. Jnl General Psychology 50. 181–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wyman, L. C. & Harris, S. K. (1941). Navajo Indian medical ethnobotany. (Bulletin 366, Anthropological series 3.5.) Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.Google Scholar