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Covert Categories Aa.1968.70.2.02a00050
Covert Categories Aa.1968.70.2.02a00050
BRENT BERLIN
DENNIS E. BREEDLOVE
University of California, Berkeley
PETER H. RAVEN
Stanford University
Much of the recent work i n ethnoscience has been concerned with the nature of folk taxonomies, a n often
stated definition of which r e p i r e s that &folk taxa be monolexemically labeled. This paper offers evi-
dence that unlabeled categories may also be of crucial taxonomic significance, and we feel that it is in-
appropriate to treat such categories apart from the named taxonomic entities of the system. More im-
portanUy, evidence presented indicates that by recognizing unnamed taxa one may gain an understand-
ing of the structure of a particular semantic domain that is actually obscured if one focuses solely on
lexically labeled units.
*.(i = 1,2..
3 .
,r) indicatesa taxon in direct cdrust with to?.
FIGURE1. Schematic representation of the Tzeltal plant taxon le? (trees) and its included members
indicating the paucity of midlevel named taxa.
cent of all Tzeltal plant names are included. I n and Eikinib do not in themselves indicate their
addition to and coordinate with these major inclusion in hihte?, although these plants are
plant classes are a series of taxa that are for the consistently considered as kinds of hihte? by
most part botanically unusual when judged Tzeltal speakers.
by the morphological criteria that define The remaining three major classes, wumal,
the four major classes: te? (trees), ?ak' (vines), ?uk, and ?ak' show a similar paucity of non-
?ak (grasses), and wumal (herbs). These minor specific taxa.
classes are considered to be separate, un-
affiliated groups, and include, for example, I 'et
certain epiphytes, cacti, agaves, and bamboos.
Within these coordinate major and minor hi&* (oak)
plant classes are grouped all of the Tzeltal
specijc taxa, i.e., those taxa which include no
other members. There are, however, very few
midlevel plant categories in the taxonomy that
are lexemically labeled. We have selected the
major plant class te?, as described by one of
our 50 informants, to illustrate this general
lack of midrange named taxa.
It will be noted in Figure 1 that the taxon
te? immediately includes no less than 166 mem- ----
-
bers ( X I , XZ, . , ZISS; y ~ ,ya, - -
, ~ z s ) . Ex-
actly 138 of the taxa in this contrast set, or 83 Botanical ranges of each spxific taxon:
percent, are specific taxa. The remaining 28 Zibinib: Qiicrcus OcalnwrngnSiS Trel ,Qucrcus mexicam Ilumb.
& Bonpl , & Quacur supotifoli0 Liebm.
terms of the contrast set are nonspecific, each sakyok: Quncus cundiC0n.s Nee. Qiicrciis CrassiJolia Humb. &
immediately including from two to seven spe- Bonpl. in part.
cific taxa. A t no point does one find subhierar- k ' m d hikle?: Quercus srgooinrsis Liebm., Quncus Polymmpha
chies that exceed more than two levels in Schlecht. & Cham.
cu?put hiklo?: Qusrcw)Juncularis Neb, Quncus rugosa N d ,
depth. The total number of specific taxa in & Qunnrs crasrijolio Humb. & Bonpl. in part.
this class, for this informant, is 194. Cis hihlc?: Qucrcus cmrugda Hook.
An example of a midlevel, nonspecific taxon
is hihte? (oak), as seen in Figure 2. Figure 2. An example of the named midlevel taxon
The linguistic structure of the names sakyok hihte? (oak) and its included members.
292 American Anthropologist [70, 1968
&’
A&R\
?ac’amle?
XI m
?akolc?cs Pahoh
xl ?dEd
Yl ?&tat
24 €’if ?ararCndc?
XY 9ckmonef
3
/I \
%am
XI 7ih#’allc9
21 XI - . .,
?iSimtc~, xU8 3,
/I\
x119 2140 ’ * ’ Z1U $146 2146 XI41
E Portion of the contrast set immediately included in the taxon le?. Horizontal
F I G ~ 3.
ordering of the coordinate taxa is arbitrarily alphabetical.
7)
-
boht
-
GU
t’um
c’ol
mayil
t’um
(C) fruit shape: c1
c2
disk-shaped
elongated
8, -
cu c’ol
t’um
may2
mayil
(D) vine-leaf color: d~ blackish [relatively dark]
dn whitish [relatively white]
9)
10) C’OZ E’um -
may2
(E) flesh color of fruit: el white
cs yellow
Underlined terms w e n judged “most different” in each triad.
BERLIN, BREEDLOVE, & RAVEN] Folk Taxonomies 295
A
A
mayil, c’ol, E’um
\ (dz)
6’01, E’um
bohE
(large gourd)
C1c (CZ)
(bottle gourd)
L! LA
mayil
(pumpkin)
FIGURE4. Tzeltal folk key constructed for set of five conceptually related “vines.”
matrix in Table 5 for comparison with the equally similar to E’um and c’ol, sharing three
findings made by the triad and key methods of out of seven features with E’um and four out
evaluation. As might be expected, these three of seven features with c’ol. Finally, as our other
sets of data correspond closely. Thus bohE and data would suggest, t’um and 6’01 share five out
cu are similar in that they share five out of six of seven features, showing them to be con-
possible features, but bohE shares only one ceptually very similar.
feature with mayil, E’um, and 201, and cu From the botanical point of view, the Tzel-
shares only two with mayil and none (other tal treatment given this set is quite under-
than the uniting value of the set) with E’um or standable. First, the subset of five Tzeltal
c’oZ. The squash mayil is approximately names, although not included in a named
Dimensions ValULs
Lagenaria Cucurbita
FIGURE5. Taxonomic structure that indicates FIGURE6. Taxonomic structure that indicates both
labeled taxa only for a subset of “vines.” labeled and unlabeled taxa for a subset of “vines.”
BERLIN, BREEDLOVE, & RAVEN] Folk Taxonomies 297
There is a widely held view that the “con- position. Thus, conceptually, each of our mul-
cept of the genus is as old as folk-science it- timembered “named” contrast sets are in actu-
sell” (Davis & Heywood 1963:103). It seems ality subdivided into several more cognitively
clear that this and other midlevel categories in amenable contrast sets, many of which are in-
taxonomic hierarchies have grown up syn- cluded in unnamed taxa. By recognizing un-
thetically, by the grouping of kinds of plants labeled taxa, our data show clearly that no
and animals. Specifically, the labeling of ini- contrast set exceeds 64 items, while most con-
tially unnamed categories that prove t o tain considerably fewer taxa than ten.
have cultural validity and predictiveness I n conclusion, we would like to urge the test-
about the included forms would appear to ing of superficially shallow taxonomic hierar-
have been a principal route to the verbaliza- chies for the presence of unlabeled midlevel
tion of more and more complex hierarchies. We taxa. We believe that our evidence shows that
have already considered a probable later step such taxa cannot be ignored as insignificant. I n
in this process in the example of hihtel. I n the the present paper we have outlined several
development and rationalization of formal procedures by which the investigation of such
Linnaean taxonomy, genus, family, order and hierarchies can be carried out, but doubtless
many other midlevel categories have been de- many others can and eventually will be de-
fined and named a s a means of reflecting in- vised. A recognition of the existence and a n
creasing amounts of information about the evaluation of the taxonomic status of such un-
organisims being classified. It is extremely in- labeled categories will usually be found to lead
structive to examine the structure of a folk t o a more psychologically revealing and cul-
taxonomy such as that of the Tzeltal, in which turally meaningful description of the under-
these midlevel categories are present in an in- lying conceptual structure of a particular do-
cipient, unlabeled form. I n fact, these findings main, a structure that may otherwise remain
help us to better understand the development obscure.*
and structure of our own “general-purpose”
taxonomy. NOTES
Our data can also be interpreted as having 1This research has been financed by the National
some bearing on the somewhat neglected hy- Science Foundation under the following grants:
NSF GS 383, “Comparative ethnobotany of two
pothesis of Miller (1956) and Wallace (1961) Tzeltal speaking communities,” A. Kimball Romney
concerning the capacity of Homo sapiens to and Peter H. Raven, Co-principal investigators;
store and process information. Wallace’s hy- NSF GS 1183, “Studies in Tzeltal botanical eth-
pothesis states that “irrespecfive of race, cul- nograpby,” Brent Berlin and Peter H. Raven, Co-
rincipa investigators.This support is gratefully ac-
ture, or evolutionary level, culturally institu-
tionalized folk taxonomies will lzot contain more
E nowledged. The work is being carried out primarily
in the Tzeltal-speaking municipio of Tenejapa,
than 26 entities and consequently will not require Chiapas, Mexico, although new research is being
more than six orthogonally related binary dimen- undertaken in several additional Tzeltal dialects. A
general statement of the physical characteristics of
sionsjor the definitions of all of the terms” (Wal- the area is given in Berlin, Breedlove, and Raven
lace 1961:462). The maximum number of en- (1966). Relevant bibliographic material on linguis-
tities that can be contained in a space of six tic, ethnographic, or botanical work completed or
binary dimensions is sixty-four and presum- now in progrese in highland Chiapas may be ob-
tained by writing the authors.
ably no folk taxonomy should contain more ZThere is some evidence that the noun+noun
than this number of folk taxa. compounds tepak’ (Ic’ [tree]+%ak’ [vine]) and tan-
However, i t is clear that Wallace is not re- balam (tan [snaRc]~b&m [tiger])function as lexical
items indicating lants” and “animals” respec-
ferring to the folk taxonomy in toto, but to any
particular contrast set contained within i t
tE
tively. A re ort to is effect is given in Metzger and
Williams 6966). We have been able to verify
(Colby 1966:lS). (See Wallace’s [1961:462] this finding for two Tzeltal informants. However,
definition of a taxonomy as “a group of sym- long periods of elicitation with many additional in-
bols . . . which denote mutually exclusive but formants lead us to question the widespread appli-
cability of these forms with the general meanings
jointly exhaustive subsets of referents within a “plants” and “animals.” The vast majority of our
set denoted by a cover symbol [immediately informants indicate that tepaak’ more appropriately
including taxon?].”) designates “forest” or “woods” while tadalum re-
Should this interpretation be correct, i.e., a fers only to a small subset of large four-legged mam-
mals.
maximum number of 64 items in a n y particular a An interest in unlabeled categories is not new to
contrast set, our data concerning unnamed ethnoscience,although the taxonomic signiliurnceof
categories would tend to support Wallace’s such categoriesha8 not been systematicallyexplored.
298 American Anthropologist [70,1968
D’Andrade (n.d.) in one of the first papers on Tzeltal 6 I t is assumed, of course, that the informant can
botanical ethnogra hy searched for unnamed cate- read and write his native language with relative
gories in another fialect of Tzeltal. His intuitions ease. Much of the most productive work in ethno-
were stated as follows: science de ends, in fact, on the use of literate in-
Are then auh-gmupings in the taxonomic system at a lower
formants b e Metzger and Williams 1963a, 1963b,
1966; Berlin in press; Berlin, Kay, Metzger and
level of contrast than the lowest set of general terms, hut at a Williams n.d., and many other unpublished manu-
higher level of contrast than the most specific terms? . . .Is it
really true that no further subdivisions are consistently made
scripts of the work in progress in Chiapas growing
since there are no [labels] for these subdivisions. . . . It would
out of the Chicago, Harvard, and Stanford projects
Mem likely that these large groups of plants arc to some ex-
in that area over the last ten years). Clearly, con-
siderable effort on the part of the ethnographer is re-
tent subdivided, or at least cross-indexed, to make for a more
efficient mapping [D’Andrade n.d.:l].
quired in develo ing a practical phonemic orthogra-
phy, training inirmants to use it, and making cer-
D’Andrade’s conclusions were tentative, and recog- tain that many quasi-experimental tasks are under-
nized as such, but there were clear indications that stood. We feel the results far outweigh the loss of re-
midlevel categories could be isolated. These cate- search time. The use of skilled informants has drawn
gories appeared to be determined primarily in terms criticism from certain areas of cultural anthropology.
of sets of certain morphological features of individual There are those who look askance at the reliance on
plant taxa. highly trained native assistants for fear that their
Whiting (1939) presents some tentative evidence training somehow effects the validity of the results.
for unnamed categories of plants in Hopi. French We are aware of these problems and do not take
(1956) describes Wasco folk botany as lacking mid- them lightly. However, without such training an in-
level categories of plants but states that “implicit formant will be unable to make available to the in-
categories” may be present. Bulmer and Tyler’s (in vestigator many of his native intuitions about his own
press) work on frogs and Acheson’s (n.d.) materials culture, intuitions that are perhaps forever outside
on birds are recent examples dealing with ethnozoo- the grasp of even the most perceptive ethnographer.
logical unlabeled taxa. Black (1968) argues for A. Rimball Romney is currently developing a
the presence of an unlabeled taxon in her recent computer program that will allow significantly large
work on Ojibwa. Goodenough (1956) explicitly iden- numbers of items to be grouped into smaller con-
tifies unnamed categories of a paradigmatic nature in ceptual subsets. After the research reported here was
his treatment of Trukese kinship and later (1965) completed, we learned of a field procedure de-
presents evidence for unlabeled classes with taxo- veloped by William Geoghegan that allows one to
nomic significance for American English kinship utilize the triads mentioned on very large numbers
terms. After this paper had been drafted, Paul Kay of items without the aid of mechanical processing.
brought to our attention a personal communication ’ It so happens that the Tzeltal forms in this set
from William Geoghegan that is analogous to correspond fairly closely to recognized botanical
Keesing’s (1966:23) remarks and identical to the species, with the obvious exception of Lagenaria
point a t issue in this pa er. Geoghegan, taking issue siceraria, which is overdifferentiated. Such one-to-
with a point develop2 in Kay (1966:22), notes: one correspondence is rather rarely the case (Berlin,
“Why must every node in a taxonomy correspond Breedlove, and Raven 1966). The English and Latin
to a lexeme? Analytically this may be so, due to the glosses for the Tzeltal names are approximations
way in which analysis proceeds. But cognitively only and apply specifically to the forms of these
(my bias again) there is no reason to suppose this, exceedingly variable species most familiar to Tzeltal
and it probably isn’t true in fact.” speakers.
Finally, several recent papers have shown that im- I n Berlin, Breedlove, and Raven (1966) we re-
portant domains such as color (Conklin 1955) and ported that Lagmaria siceraria corresponded to the
categories of eating (Landar 1964; Berlin 1967) need Tzeltal taxa k’alk’ad bohE, sepsep boht, cu, and
not be labeled linguistically by a single mono- E’ahk’o7. This data represented a normalization for
lexemic head-term. all informants consulted. The illustrative data uti-
The discovery of semantic features, or “char- lized for the present a er were derived from an in-
acters,” that are utilized by native speakers in mak- formant who lacks suicLsses of boht (the shape vari-
ing judgments of similarity is one of the major goals etals k’alk’al bohE and sepsep boht not being recog-
of ethnoscientific research. We do not believe, how- nized) and does not grou t’ahk’o? as a member of
ever that a prior knowledge of these features is a the set of conceptually reited gourds and squashes.
prerequisite to the recognition of semantically re- We speculate that its exclusion from the set is due to
lated sets of items. Informants, in the field and in the fact that the individuals of L q m a r i a siceraria
quasi-experimental situations, continually volun- that are called t’ahk’o? are “genetic throwbacks”
teered the fact that items “A, B, and C go together,” that are not easily recognizable as gourds.
or “are compamons.’) Consequently we feel that as * W e greatly a preciate the criticisms of H. C.
an operational procedure it is desirable a t the outset Conklin, George &wgill, Marshall Durbin, William
to request that informants make judgments in terms Geoghegan, Richard W. Holm, Terrence Kaufman,
of overall similarity without specifying some set of Paul Kay, A. Kimball Romney, David Schneider,
specific features. Berlin (in press) and Berlin and and William Sturtevant. Kay has been especially
Romney (1964) offer discussions of these rocedures helpful in the preparation of the final draft.
in reference to other kinds of linguistic &a. Rom-
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