[Lingtyp] query: "animal"

Mon Oct 15 12:49:54 UTC 2018

Dear All,

to be honest, I don't believe that languages function with clear categories for concepts like "animal". More probably, there is something like a prototypical "core" for "animalness" (or many of them, if there are many categories corresponding to "animal"), surrounded by grey zones and depending on contexts, styles, subcultures, etc.

My own anecdotal experience (which first caught my attention years ago, when working on a translation job): in Estonian, "loomad ja linnud" (‘animals and birds’, implying that ‘birds’ are a category distinct from ‘animals’) seems to be a pretty frequent expression (more than 60,000 Google hits). As a native speaker of Finnish, I find the Finnish equivalent expression, "eläimet ja linnut", less natural or not as idiomatic and acceptable as the Estonian one; it does occur but clearly less frequently than in Estonian (13,700 Google hits), and according to my intuition, the Finnish ‘bird’ is a borderline case – birds might be "animals" or "not-animals", depending on context and use. I'm also pretty sure that many other Finnish speakers might see this differently.

Therefore, I have great doubts concerning the use of questionnaires for gathering data. Or, at least, the questionnaire should be very carefully planned, to accommodate vagueness and fuzzy or overlapping categories.

Best
Johanna

PS. Note also that terms for animals in many languages are greatly affected by taboos. And that the term ‘animal’ in itself is often a derivative (Finnish eläin = "living thing", Estonian loom = "creature", Hungarian állat = "standing thing") or a result of semantic extension or specification (cf. German "Tier" and its Scandinavian cognates with English "deer", or the fact that Hungarian "állat" a few centuries ago had a more general meaning, something like "entity" or "being") and that these developments might be connected to cultural changes.
--
Univ.Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso
Universität Wien, Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (EVSL)
Abteilung Finno-Ugristik
Campus AAKH Spitalgasse 2-4 Hof 7
A-1090 Wien
johanna.laakso at univie.ac.at • http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/
Project ELDIA: http://www.eldia-project.org/ 

> Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com> kirjoitti 15.10.2018 kello 13.55:
> 
> Dear everyone, 
> 
> Queries like one David posed are often improved via more systematic data collection using a form. I suggested Google Forms because it's one of the most user friendly and familiar interfaces out there where David could set up a questionnaire and collect data on people's usage of words in their respective language, and also get systematic data on exactly what language they speaks.
> 
> I'm not going to set this up for anyone else or compile the information in this thread, I'm merely suggesting that it a Google Form may be a productive way of going about this. 
> 
> Med vänliga hälsningar,
> Hedvig Skirgård
> 
> PhD Candidate
> The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity
> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
> School of Culture, History and Language
> College of Asia and the Pacific
> The Australian National University
> Website <https://sites.google.com/site/hedvigskirgard/>
> 
> 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).
> 
> 
> 
> Den mån 15 okt. 2018 kl 22:50 skrev Assibi Apatewon Amidu <assibi.amidu at ntnu.no <mailto:assibi.amidu at ntnu.no>>:
> Dear Hedvig,
> 
> 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.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Assibi
> 
> On 15. okt. 2018, at 13:21, Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com <mailto:hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>>
>  wrote:
> 
>> May I suggest a google form to be spread around facebook and twitter etc?
>> 
>> Med vänliga hälsningar,
>> Hedvig Skirgård
>> 
>> PhD Candidate
>> The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity
>> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
>> School of Culture, History and Language
>> College of Asia and the Pacific
>> The Australian National University
>> Website <https://sites.google.com/site/hedvigskirgard/>
>> 
>> 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).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Den mån 15 okt. 2018 kl 21:31 skrev Assibi Apatewon Amidu <assibi.amidu at ntnu.no <mailto:assibi.amidu at ntnu.no>>:
>> Dear David and all,
>> 
>> 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:
>> 
>> 1. Mtu/Watu 'being/s' (Classes 1/2 M/WA) includes human and other animates. They are superordniate terms which subsume (2-3).
>> 2. Mnyama/Wanyama 'animal/s, ±live' (Classes 1/2 M/WA) , (historically undifferentiated as nyama/nyama of classes 9/10, N/N up to ends of the 19th century) which subsume (3), hence hypernym to (3).
>> 3. Mdudu/Wadudu 'insect/s, crawler/s, parasite/s, and others, ±live' (Classes 1/2 M/WA).
>> 
>> 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 wadudu, or better still with the augmentative dudu/madudu, 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
>> 
>> Amidu, A. A. (2007). Semantic Assignement Rules in Kiswahili Bantu Classes. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. 
>> 
>> Best wishes,
>> 
>> Assibi
>> 
>> On 14. okt. 2018, at 08:11, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>>
>>  wrote:
>> 
>>> Randy,
>>> 
>>> So which of the items in (1-8) are covered by Chinese dòngwù (動物), ‘moving thing’?
>>> 
>>> David
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 14/10/2018 03:59, Randy LaPolla wrote:
>>>> Hi David,
>>>> 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. 
>>>> The word in Chinese that we translate as ‘animal’ is dòngwù (動物), ‘moving thing’. 
>>>> 
>>>> Randy
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>> 
>>>> On 14 Oct 2018, at 12:33 AM, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I am interested in exploring, cross-linguistically, the semantic range of words that correspond more or less to the English word "animal".
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> Here are examples of the things that English "animal" refers to:
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 1. dog, kangaroo, lizard, frog ...
>>>>> 
>>>>> 2. eagle, sparrow, chicken, bat ...
>>>>> 
>>>>> 3. bee, scorpion, spider, centipede ...
>>>>> 
>>>>> 4. crab, shrimp ...
>>>>> 
>>>>> 5. worm, leech ...
>>>>> 
>>>>> 6. starfish, jellyfish, squid, octopus ...
>>>>> 
>>>>> 7. oyster, clam ...
>>>>> 
>>>>> 8. sponge (?) ...
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> I am looking for examples of languages in which the basic word closest to English "animal" is nevertheless different in its coverage.  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).   (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.)
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> Some words of background:  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).  We are calling this category "higher animals".  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.  A challenge that we face is that, in the (few) languages that we are familiar with, there is no simple word for higher animals.  But we are hoping that other languages might have such a word.  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.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> I look forward to your responses.  Thanks,
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> David
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> David Gil
>>>>> 
>>>>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>>>>> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
>>>>> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>>>>> 
>>>>> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
>>>>> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
>>>>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>>>>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp>
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> David Gil
>>> 
>>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>>> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
>>> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>>> 
>>> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
>>> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
>>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp>
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20181015/6ecdea56/attachment.htm>