Metaphor for Categories

[Janet Wilson]

To the Funknet list,
Last semester I read quite a bit from G. Lakoff's book, Women, Fire, &
Dangerous Things. I've been interested for quite some time in prototype
categories.  Lakoff says that classical categories (a la Aristotle) are like
containers:  a thing is either IN a category or it is NOT IN a category, and
there is no in-between.  Real-life categories (esp. linguistic categories)
are not like that:  there are shades of gray, prototypical members,
peripheral members, etc.

I think there is a good metaphor for prototype categories--they are more
like piles than like containers.  Two reasons (there are more, but these are
at the forefront of my thinking) for liking the metaphor of "piles" are:

1.    When a container is empty, there is still something there.  When a
pile is empty, there is nothing.

2.    A container imposes its shape (form) on the contents.  A pile, on the
other hand, gets its shape from the contents.

If one of the tenets of functional grammar is that form follows function,
then we should prefer the "piles" model.  We should expect that the
(semantic) content of the category will have an impact on the shape of the
category.  If a category can be empty and have some form even when it
contains nothing, what then determines the shape?

I cannot remember ever hearing this particular metaphorical model mentioned
before in association with prototype categories, but, to my mind, it's an
excellent "fit."  If it has come up somewhere in the literature and I've
missed it, I would appreciate being pointed towards it.  I'd also like to
know what the rest of you think of this model.

Thanks,
Janet Wilson
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