[Lexicog] What is a bat? - natural and unnatural terms

[Ron Moe]

Patrick, the contrast between your 'natural' and 'unnatural' terms is
something I've thought about. The distinction has been drawn by others and
discussed in the literature. It relates to the discussion on bats and the
emic classification system of a language. Essentially any category can be
viewed from various theoretical viewpoints. For instance those who believe
in semantic components (I am one of them) will point to the component
'flying' in the definition of the categories 'bird' 'bat' and 'butterfly'.
We can also point to the components 'feathered' 'egg-laying' 'has a beak'
'has fur' 'suckles young' 'has two legs' 'has six legs' and so on. Each
category in each language may incorporate some of these components. Some
languages have a category 'flying animals' that include flying birds, bats,
butterflies, and grasshoppers. The critical component is whether or not it
flies. We would be wrong to call this the 'bird' category or equate it with
the English category 'bird'. It clearly is something different.

Those who believe in prototype theory (and I am one of them) will point to
the fact that most English speakers will agree that a penguin or an ostrich
is a bird, but not a prototypical bird. The component 'flying' is important,
but not critical. But we are messed up by the scientific 'unnatural'
classification. Kids have to be taught that penguins are birds. They don't
look or act enough like birds to be obviously birds. In fact if we don't
know the species, we don't refer to them as birds: "I saw an interesting
*bird at the zoo yesterday." So the 'natural' term for a penguin is
'penguin'.

But to get back to bats. The reason why there are stories about the bat not
knowing where he belongs is because we don't know where he belongs either.
He flies like a bird and has fur like an animal. If a prototypical bird is
like a robin and a prototypical animal is like a dog, then a bat is really
different than either prototype. We have a hard time classifying him by
semantic components and an equally hard time classifying him by similarity
to the prototype. If our super generic 'natural' categories are 'animal'
'bird' 'fish' and 'insect', then we will be hard pressed to find a place for
lots of things. In English we fall back on the 'unnatural' categories when
forced to classify the weird things. In 'natural' speech we might just
exclaim, "What a weird animal."

There are other weird things about plant and animal categories, such as the
fact that many terms, like 'animal', occur on different levels of the
heirarchy. 'Animal' contrasts with 'plant', but it also contrasts with
'bird' on a lower tier.

One of the questions I would like to answer is what is universal about
animal classification systems in the world's languages. Do all languages
distinguish 'bird-like/flying animals' from 'non-flying big animals that
walk on four legs'? If there is always a 'bird/flying animal' category, what
is the range of variation? Is there a fairly typical category, or are there
two: (1) bird, or (2) flying animal? Will a language have one or the other?

Ron Moe
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Patrick Hanks [mailto:hanks at bbaw.de]
  Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 7:23 AM
  To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
  Cc: Christiane Fellbaum
  Subject: [Lexicog] What is a bat? - natural and unnatural terms



  Here's a Saturday afternoon lexicographical digression.

  Fritz's thought-provoking question and the equally thought-provoking
replies from Thapelo and others prompts me to mention some work I'm just
starting on natural-kind terms in English and other European languages. I'd
welcome comments and feedback.

  Terms denoting classes of flora and fauna can, I think, usefully be
divided into "natural" and "unnatural" terms, though of course, as always,
the boundaries are not clear-cut. Natural terms are central to the language,
have fuzzy definition boundaries, and are often exploited to make new
meanings, metaphors, and other creative lexical uses.  Unnatural terms have
stipulative definitions with sharp boundaries. They are usually of quite
recent origin (sometimes as a specialization of a pre-existing natural
term).

  Some examples:

  Mammal is an example of an unnatural term.  It was coined in 1826 as a
derivative of the 18th-century New Latin term Mammalia 'having mammae'
(milk-secreting breasts) -- a direct result of natural scientists'
dissatisfaction with the fuzzy boundaries of natural terms such as animal
and beast.   As zoology advanced, scientists seized on the common feature of
breast-feeding  to create a term for all only those animals that breast-feed
their young. The term has done wonderful service in the sciences since then,
receiving only an occasional jolt from discoveries such as the platypus, an
egg-laying mammal -- a remarkable boundary case.  But let no one think that
mammal is a natural word of English. It isn't. It is a term of art. "I was
walking through the woods the other day when I saw a mammal" would not be a
natural sentence of English. "Mammal" is not normally exploited in metaphors
and similes.
  I am delighted to hear that Setswana does not have a term for 'mammal'.
Setswana would seem to be a more natural language than English.

  Modern English animal, on the other hand,  is an example of a natural
term. Its central membership is clear, but its boundaries in ordinary usage
are much vaguer.

      -- Is a lizard an animal?  My intuition (!) is that many English
speakers would say yes.
      -- Is a bird an animal? My intuition is that many English speakers
would say no,
              probably after some hesitation. (Birds are, of course, members
of the
              animal kingdom, but that's different: Animal kingdom is itself
an unnatural
              term.)
      -- Is a fish an animal?  Not in ordinary everyday English.
      -- Is a spider an animal?
      -- What about insects? (and are butterflies insects?)
      Etc.

  Paradoxically enough, in the 14th-16th centuries animal was brought into
English as a learned term, a Latinate, unnatural alternative to the then
current term, beast.  A 16th-century classification, in Gilles Du Wes's 1532
"Introductorie  for to lerne to rede, to pronounce and to speke French
trewly", classifies the animal kingdom into "beestes, byrdes, fyshes,
reptyll". Insects were, apparently, beneath notice.

  Modern English words like horse, dog, fox, cat, mouse, rat, snake are
natural terms.  They may or may not pick out sets of creatures coextensive
with equivalent scientific unnatural terms (equine, canine, feline, rodent),
but they are also widely used in similes, metaphors, and other
exploitations.  This alone is a good reason for categorizing them as natural
terms.

  There is a fascinating interplay between natural and unnatural terms, also
between natural and unnatural meanings of the same terms.  One example:

  Reptile (in modern English) has become an 'unnatural' term in its central
uses.  Originally a natural term denoting anything that creeps (including
earthworms, for example), also an adjective meaning creepy-crawly, it was
specialized in the 19th century by zoologists to denote all and only members
of the zoological class Reptilia, even those that don't creep or crawl (e.g.
flying lizards). But meanwhile, it also developed a conventional figurative
meaning -- "a person of a low, mean, grovelling, or repulsive character"
(OED) -- very natural!

  Natural and unnatural terms generally coexist peacefully, and sometimes
interact semantically, in most if not all European languages, but they
fulfil different functions. Unnatural terms are necessary for scientific
precision, and since English is the international language of science, it
necessarily has a large vocabulary of unnatural terms. Natural terms are
necessary for saying new things and for creative and imaginative speaking
and writing and to anbale people to use language at a normal speed in
everyday discourse without agonizing unduly over precision.

  * * *

  I use the term "unnatural" not only because it contrasts neatly with
"natural", but also because its rather negative connotations are a salutary
reminder of how the supremacy of scientism and logicism have distorted our
understanding of the variability and vagueness that are essential features
of natural languages. I have nothing against scientific research -- of
course not! -- but I question the assumption, often made in Europe and
America, that the artificial terminology that is necessary for precision in
the natural sciences represents an "improved" form of natural language.  To
think this is to underestimate the creativity of lexical semantics: existing
words, especially natural terms, are constantly used in new ways.


  Patrick Hanks


    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Thapelo Otlogetswe
    To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
    Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 10:15 AM
    Subject: Re: [Lexicog] What is a bat?


    Never thought seriously about a bat name in Setswana until now - we call
it mmamathwane [a feminine name, because of the mma- prefix meaning 'mother
of' or just 'mother']. Why the feminine name I cannot say. It would appear
'mathwane' is onomatopoeic to the sound the bats produce and it is possibly
derived from the verb 'go thwanya' - describing a cracking kind of sound. I
imagine many people in Botswana would see a bat as a bird mainly because it
flies - it would be a bird that suckles its young [for those who know it
does!]. We do not have a word for 'mammals' in the language & therefore such
a classification may only be an academic one not salient to the mother
tongue speakers.


    Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling at sil.org> wrote:
      In Noah J. Jabobs' amusing "Naming Day in Eden" (The MacMillan Company
      Collier-MacMillan Ltd., London 1958), p. 16, I found the following
      interesting quote on how the bat is named in different languages:

      "...how did Adam name the bat? Which characteristic impressed him at
      the moment of naming? Did its blindness move him to call it
      'murciélago'(Spanish), its baldness 'chauve-souris'(French), its
      shyness 'pipistrello'(Italian), its leathery skin 'Läderlapp'(Swedish)
      or 'böregér'(Hungarian from 'bör,' leather; 'egér,' mouse), its
      preference for the night 'nukteris'(Greek), its resemblance to the
      mouse 'Fledermaus'(German) or 'letutsaya mysh'(Russian), the sound of
      its flapping wings 'watwat'(Arabic), its winglike hands 'chiroptera'
      (Greek 'chir,' hand, plus 'pteron,' wing), its resemblance to a
lily(!)
      'liliac'(Rumanian), its reputed love of bacon 'bat' (Old English
      'backe,' bacon)? The Chinese have conferred a number of laudatory
      names on this mouse-like mammal, such as 'embracing wings, heavenly
      rat, fairy rat, night swallow,' and use it as a symbol of happiness
      and long life because its name 'fu' in Chinese happens to be a
      homonym which means both 'bat'and 'prosperity.'"

      I have found African stories about the bat being sad because it does
      not know where it belongs.
      How do you name the bat in your language? And where would you put it
      in a domain dictionary?

      Fritz Goerling
      ---





    Thapelo Otlogetswe
    Information Technology Research Institute
    University of Brighton
    Lewes Road, Brighton
    BN2 4GJ, England
    Tel: (+44) 1273 642912 (office)
          (+44) 1273 642908 (fax)
    http://www.itri.brighton.ac.uk/~Thapelo.Otlogetswe/


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