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

[Peter Kirk]

On 15/08/2004 08:35, Ron Moe wrote:

> ...
>
> 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?
>
Maybe you have to ask first whether these distinctions universally
correspond to experience. In New Zealand, prior to modern colonisation,
there were almost no 'non-flying big animals that walk on four legs',
but there were many flightless birds, as well as flying ones (and, as
elsewhere, birds which are almost flightless but do flap their wings and
occasionally take off - so this binary division is not a good one). In
Australia the situation was rather similar - there were large animals
but most of them hop on two legs. So one might expect the lexical
categories in such places to be rather different.


--
Peter Kirk
peter at qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/




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