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Dear Hedvig,
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<div>I am not myself into google, twitter, facebook, etc. beyond pressing 'like' buttons. If you wish to put the information on these platforms, too, please, do so, as long it does not distract from David's exploration.</div>
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<div>Best regards,</div>
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<div>Assibi</div>
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<div>On 15. okt. 2018, at 13:21, Hedvig Skirgård <<a href="mailto:hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com">hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com</a>></div>
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<div dir="ltr">May I suggest a google form to be spread around facebook and twitter etc?<br clear="all">
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; "><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Med vänliga hälsningar</b><b>,</b><br>
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; "><b><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Hedvig Skirgård</font></b></div>
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; "><font size="1"><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; ">PhD Candidate</span><br>
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<div style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; ">
<span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1">The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity</font></span></div>
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<font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1">School of Culture, History and Language<br>
College of Asia and the Pacific</font></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; "><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">The Australian National University</font></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; "><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#666666" size="1"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/hedvigskirgard/" target="_blank">Website</a><br>
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; "><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">P.S. If you have multiple email addresses, I kindly ask you to just use one with corresponding with me. Email threads and invites to get confusing otherwise. I will only
email you from my gmail, even if other email addresses re-direct emails to them to my gmail (ANU etc).</font></div>
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<div dir="ltr">Den mån 15 okt. 2018 kl 21:31 skrev Assibi Apatewon Amidu <<a href="mailto:assibi.amidu@ntnu.no">assibi.amidu@ntnu.no</a>>:<br>
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<div style="word-wrap:break-word">Dear David and all,
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<div>Your exploration is very educative. I cannot claim to be able to answer your questions, but here is a take from Kiswahili. In Kiswahili, the categorization is as follows:</div>
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<div>1. <i>Mtu/Watu</i> 'being/s' (Classes 1/2 M/WA) includes human and other animates. They are superordniate terms which subsume (2-3).</div>
<div>2. <i>Mnyama/Wanyama</i> 'animal/s, ±live' (Classes 1/2 M/WA) , (historically undifferentiated as<i> nyama/nyama</i> of classes 9/10, N/N up to ends of the 19th century) which subsume (3), hence hypernym to (3).</div>
<div>3. <i>Mdudu/Wadudu</i> 'insect/s, crawler/s, parasite/s, and others, ±live' (Classes 1/2 M/WA).</div>
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<div>This gives us three generic terms for referring to humans, animal, insects and other species all the way to microbes. (2-3) are co-hyponyms of (1). These are not sharp mutually exclusive categories. Thus, centipede, scorpion, etc. are also types of (3),
and human, and other animals, e.g. hippo, can be described as <i>wadudu</i>, or better still with the augmentative
<i>dudu/madudu</i>, depending on the communication intention of the speaker, e,g, how monstrous they perceive the entity. Returning to your list of words, they would fall under (1-2), but specifically under (2) in everyday usage. For a quick, not too detailed,
discussion, kindly look at chapter 2 of</div>
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<div>Amidu, A. A. (2007). <i>Semantic Assignement Rules in Kiswahili Bantu Classes</i>. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. </div>
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<div>Best wishes,</div>
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<div>Assibi</div>
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<div>On 14. okt. 2018, at 08:11, David Gil <<a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>></div>
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<p>Randy,</p>
<p>So which of the items in (1-8) are covered by Chinese <i>dòngwù</i> (動物), ‘moving thing’?</p>
<p>David<br>
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<div class="m_6965022154629685558moz-cite-prefix">On 14/10/2018 03:59, Randy LaPolla wrote:<br>
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<div>The categories as you have them (1-8) reflect certain cultural conceptions, and so won’t be the same for other cultures. For example, in Chinese bats were traditionally seen as flying mice, and lizards were seen as four-legged snakes. </div>
<div>The word in Chinese that we translate as ‘animal’ is <i>dòngwù</i> (動物), ‘moving thing’. </div>
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<div>Randy<br>
<div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPhone</div>
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On 14 Oct 2018, at 12:33 AM, David Gil <<a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>> wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Dear all,</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I am interested in exploring, cross-linguistically, the semantic range of words that correspond more or less to the English word "animal".</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Here are examples of the things that English "animal" refers to:</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">1. dog, kangaroo, lizard, frog ...<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">2. eagle, sparrow, chicken, bat ...<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">3. bee, scorpion, spider, centipede ...<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">4. crab, shrimp ...<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">5. worm, leech ...<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">6. starfish, jellyfish, squid, octopus ...<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">7. oyster, clam ...<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">8. sponge (?) ...<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I am looking for examples of languages in which the basic word closest to English "animal" is nevertheless different in its coverage.<span>
</span>In particular, I would like to find instances — if such exist — of languages in which there is a basic word that covers the examples in 1-4 (or maybe 1-5) to the exclusion of those in 5-8 (or maybe 6-8).<span>
</span><span> </span>(Note that the question concerns every-day words that reflect our naive folk biological knowledge, not with scientific terms in those few languages that have such terminology.)</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Some words of background:<span> </span>A colleague and I working in experimental cognitive science have found (non-linguistic) empirical evidence for the psychological reality of an ontological category that consists
roughly of animals of the kind exemplified in 1-4 (and possibly also 5).<span> </span>
We are calling this category "higher animals".<span> </span>The characteristic prototypical features of higher animals include a single axis of symmetry, the existence of head, torso and limbs, a face in the front of the head that includes sensory organs such
as eyes, and a mouth for eating, and the ability to move forward in the direction that the head is facing.
<span> </span>A challenge that we face is that, in the (few) languages that we are familiar with, there is no simple word for higher animals.<span>
</span>But we are hoping that other languages might have such a word.<span> </span>
in addition, we would also welcome grammatical evidence for the category of higher animals, for example in the form of grammatical rules that are sensitive to the animacy hierarchy by making reference to a cut-off point between higher and other animals.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I look forward to your responses.<span> </span>
Thanks,</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">David</span></p>
<pre class="m_6965022154629685558moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a class="m_6965022154629685558moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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<pre class="m_6965022154629685558moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a class="m_6965022154629685558moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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