[Lexicog] circular definitions

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Mike Maxwell wrote:
> That's because for many native English speakers, a male whale is _not_ a
> bull, nor is a female whale a cow.  Likewise, for Herman Melville, a whale
> (of whatever gender) was a warm-blooded, air breathing fish with a
> horizontal tail.  But a whale is not a fish for me.

The male/female of a bulky creature?  There's sort of a continuum for
bull/cow, boar/sow, ram/ewe, dog/bitch, ---/-ess, and similar terms or
patterns, in terms of their extensions from the unmarked cases.  The
relevant factors have less to do with the unnatural and superimposed
Linnaean classification, and more to do with traditional schemes.




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