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

[Ron Moe]

Most (but not all) categories are defined from a human perspective. For
instance I believe the difference between 'river' 'stream' and 'brook' in my
dialect is not the size of the river, but how a person would cross it. A
person would swim across a river or look for a place to ford it. A person
would wade across a stream. A person would jump across a brook.

In the case of animals many of our terms have to do with how we interact
with animals: tame/domesticated, wild, game, edible, livestock, draft,
dangerous. There are other distinctions, such as where the animal lives: sea
creature, burrowing rodent, arboreal. Another is what the animal eats:
carnivore. These distinctions intersect: a rat is an inedible, omnivorous,
burrowing rodent. This complexity nicely illustrates the multidimensional,
non-hierarchical, overlapping, fuzzy-boundary nature of domains.

Ron Moe

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Brewster [mailto:C.Brewster at dcs.shef.ac.uk]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 8:07 AM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] What is a bat? - natural and unnatural terms



There is a story I remember that a rodent in Venezuela or somewhere in
that part of the world spends all its time in the water to the extent
that the locals have recategorized as fish for fasting purposes (they
are Catholics). I am not sure whether the church agree or not.

Can someone confirm this?

This seems to imply that all categories are a matter of perpspective and
purpose even when it comes to classifying an animal a fish or not.

Christopher Brewster


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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Kirk [mailto:peterkirk at qaya.org]
> Sent: 16 August 2004 13:28
> To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Lexicog] What is a bat? - natural and unnatural terms
>
>
> On 16/08/2004 13:20, Mike Maxwell wrote:
>
> >Thapelo Otlogetswe wrote:
> > > Penguin is a strange fellow because not only can't he
> fly, he also
> > > swims - a quality which is not very birdy!
> >
> >I think what is odd about a penguin is mostly that he can't
> fly.  Lots
> >of flying birds also swim, including ducks and geese, and
> some flying
> >birds travel substantial distances underwater, like loons and some
> >seabirds.  I may be wrong, but I would guess such birds are
> considered
> >almost as birdy as perching birds.
> >
> >
> >
> But can all water birds, apart from penguins, actually fly? Certainly
> some fly very poorly and rarely. And then there are plenty of birds
> which don't fly at all, not only strange ones like ostriches
> but common
> ones like chickens. I wonder, does any language consider a
> chicken not
> to be a bird?
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter at qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
>
>
>
>
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