Week 03 Learning Materials

Language, Meaning & Categorisation

Language comprises a large set of stable symbols. We can think of these symbols as being like words
in spoken language, or gestures/sings in sign language. Languages also comprise the rules or
organisational patterns for how to use the symbols. We can understand these rules or patterns as being
the grammatical system of a language.
In spoken language, we can identify a small set of onomatopoeic words, or words that sound like
some real world sound. For example, we say miao to represent the noise of a cat, quack to represent
the noise of a duck, or bang to represent the impact of one solid object on another. These
onomatopoeic words are iconic of their meanings – they represent their meanings.
Human languages have a comparatively small set of onomatopoeic words, or iconic symbols.
Alongside these words, there is a much larger, open ended set of words that are used by convention to
make meaning. Speakers of English use the word ‘cat’ to refer to the furry mammal that makes the
sound ‘miao’. Speakers of other languages use other words to refer to the same animal. Unlike our
onomatopoeic words, which sound like their meanings, conventional words are arbitrarily related to
the object or experience in reality that they represent.
The standard way to begin the study of any language as it is used by a community is to learn the
words that speakers use to name things around them. Learning the words of a language will tell us
what people think and talk about – it will tell us what is significant or salient enough in a community
to be given a name. Of course, learning the words of a language is only the start. We also need to
learn how people feel about the things around them, and how they interact with them. In communities
where cats are present, there will be a word that means cat, but cultural practices tell us about
propositional and procedural knowledge associated with cats, whether they are thought of as ‘pets’ or
‘pests’, and how human normally interact with cats.
In this section of the course, we will look at how cultures organise basic meanings through their
individual languages. We’ll see how categorisation, a fundamental human cognitive behaviour, is
expressed in language. And you’ll investigate the way that you classify the world around you. In this
week’s learning materials, you will be introduced to a number of technical terms. Those terms are
defined in very specific ways. An important academic skill you will develop this week is to apply
technical definitions to examples to test whether the example meets the definition or not.
As you work through tasks and activities, please do not scroll down past the activity until you
have finished!

Basic Level Categories

Prediction Task:
One useful level of categorisation is the ‘basic’ level. Which term in each set do you think is ‘basic’?
1. hatchback – car – vehicle
2. fruit – apple – Granny Smith
 3. living thing – creature – animal – cat – Manx cat
4. teaspoon – spoon – cutlery – implement – object

Characteristics of basic level categories

Croft and Cruse (2004, p. 83-84) discuss five criteria for basic level categories which we can use to
decide if a particular word counts as ‘basic’.
1. The first criterion states that there are characteristic patterns of behavioural interaction
with basic level categories. Humans use or interact with members of the basic level category
in patterned ways.
Visualise yourself eating an ‘apple’; now visualise yourself eating a ‘banana’.
Try the same thing but this time with ‘fruit’. Can you visualise yourself eating ‘fruit’? While we can
easily mime eating an apple or banana, we interact with members of the higher level category ‘fruit’
in a range of different ways. Some fruits are peeled, some are eaten whole, including seeds, some we
eat everything except the seeds. Some fruit we might eat with our hands, while others we eat using a
spoon or a fork.

eating an apple eating a banana eating fruit

Another good example is the ‘car’ – imagine yourself approaching a car – either as the driver or a
passenger. Visualise the way that you interact with a car, and where you might go in it.
Now replace the word ‘car’ with ‘vehicle’. We interact with vehicles in a wide variety of different
ways, on land and water and in the air. Cars, buses and trains get us from one place to another, we
might ride a bike for that purpose, or we might just ride a bike in a loop as exercise.
2. The second criterion states that a clear visual image can be formed for a basic level term.
Depending on where we have grown up, our visualisations of ‘tree’ could look quite different.
Now try to visualise/draw ‘animal’ versus ‘cat’
And visualise/draw ‘cutlery’ versus ‘spoon’
You probably had difficulty visualising ‘animal’ and ‘cutlery’ but you found ‘cat’ and ‘spoon’ to be
easier to visualise. This difference is related to the level of categorisation. While we can form clear
visual images for basic level categories, we can’t do the same for higher level categories like ‘animal’
and ‘cutlery’, because the members of the higher level categories can be very different in appearance.
3. The third criterion states that we use basic level terms for everyday reference; they are
neutral, and we are likely to use them with children. They will be the first words that children
learn.
What’s that? It's a .... consider Gala apple or Granny Smith versus simply apple.
If we were looking at a basket of assorted fruit, we would probably say apple in response to the
question What’s that?
But if we were in the apple section of a fruit and vegetable shop or in the supermarket, we might say
Gala apple, or Granny Smith to be more specific, and to differentiate between the different varieties
of apples.

It’s an apple It’s an apple They are granny smiths

Imagine you hear the sound, ‘Beep Beep’ accompanied by an engine noise. Someone says, ‘What was
that?’ You would be more likely to say ‘It’s a car’ than ‘It's a vehicle’ (higher category) or ‘It’s a
hatchback/Toyota’ (lower level category).
Likewise, if you hear the sound, ‘Woof woof’ and someone says, ‘What was that?’ You would be
more likely to say, ‘It’s a dog’ rather than ‘It’s an animal’ (higher category) or ‘It’s an Alsatian’
(lower level category).
4. The fourth criterion states that good categories can be created with basic level terms.
The members of basic level categories (i.e. all the things that are ‘apples’ or ‘dogs’) are distinct from
neighbouring categories (like ‘bananas’ or ‘cats’). The members of basic level categories all resemble
each other.
The categories are informative. Imagine dividing the category ‘animal’ into ‘male’ and ‘female’. This
would create a ‘female’ category that included a female mouse and a female elephant. This kind of
category might make sense if you are talking about the biology of mammals, but otherwise, the
category is pretty meaningless
 Members of the category ‘female’

The distinction between male and female rests on one feature of mammals, not on a range of features.
When a category is created using a single feature like ‘female’, category members are likely to show a
lot of other feature differences. This makes ‘female’ a rather uninformative category. Essentially, the
distinction between male and female as subcategories of ‘animal’ tells us less about the world than the
distinction between ‘mice’ and ‘elephants’
Another example would be to divide fruit by colour. This would create uninformative categories as
well, where the category members display many many differences. A category of ‘yellow fruit’ would
include lemons and bananas, which is pretty meaningless.
1. The final criterion states that the names of basic categories are morphologically simple.
‘Morphology’ refers to the meaningful parts of a word. So spoon is morphologically simple, because
we can’t divide it up into smaller meaningful parts. On the other hand, teaspoon is a compound made
up of two parts: tea+spoon, and tablespoon is a compound made up of table+spoon. Teaspoons and
tablespoons are subtypes of spoons. They are morphologically complex.

spoon teaspoon tablespoon

Superordinates
Higher level categories are called superordinate categories. Compared to basic level categories we
find superordinates like:
 - Animal (basic = cat, dog)
- Furniture (basic = chair, bed)
- Cutlery (basic = knife, fork, spoon)
Concept check:
make a note of at least five types of clothing that are basic level categories within the superordinate
category Clothes.

Superordinate Category Clothes

Basic Level Categories e.g. tee-shirt, dress, vest, jumper, jeans

Although superordinates form coherent abstract categories,

1. within-category resemblance can be quite low (think of mouse and elephant in the
superordinate category animal; also note these images of the superordinate category
furniture which include objects of all different shapes, sizes and functions. The superordinate
category is linked by the domestic purpose of these objects.
2. there are fewer defining characteristics of superordinate categories. In the animal category,
features like size, shape, and colour can’t be used to all of the defined members. And we find
different types of human interaction with different pieces of furniture. Some pieces of
furniture are used for sitting on, others for sleeping on, others for placing objects upon etc.

Subordinates
Lower level categories are called subordinate categories. If we think of ‘chair’ as a basic level
category, we can come up with different types of chair:
- arm chair, deck chair, office chair
1. Members of subordinate categories have a high mutual resemblance but they are not
particularly distinct from members of neighbouring categories (If chair is our basic category,
then subordinate dining chairs are all very similar, but they are also similar to other
subordinate chair categories, like office chairs and rocking chairs.)
2. The attributes of subordinate categories are almost identical to attributes of basic categories.
There might be one key point of difference, for example, rocking chairs have rockers, dining
chairs are used around a dining table, office chairs have wheels...
3. The members of subordinate categories are often morphologically complex (remember
teaspoon and tablespoon which are compounds). The extra morpheme tells us something
meaningful about the function of the ‘thing’.
Thinking of chairs, we have dining chairs, arm chairs, office chairs...
Below is a folk-taxonomy of Living Things. Notice how the categories become more general when
they are higher up superordinate categories, and more specific when they are lower down in the
taxonomy.

Hyponymy
In formal semantics, some relationships between higher level and lower level categories can be
understood as relationships of hyponymy. Before I give you a simple explanation of Hyponymy, try
the following task:
Prediction task: Hyponyms
Identify three pairs of Xs and Ys that can be used to complete the statements and phrases below.
X is hyponymous to Y if it is semantically acceptable to say that…
Xs are Ys.
Xs and other Ys.
Of all Ys, I prefer Xs.
Is it a Y? Yes, it’s an X.
There was a cool show of Ys; the Xs were particularly good.

Defining Hyponymy
The members of taxonomies that occur on the same level
are generally referred to as Hyponyms. In NZ English,
we might say kauri and pine are kinds of trees. We can
consider the relationship between the two words. For
example, while it is true to say that the kauri is a kind of
tree, it is not true to say that the tree is a kind of kauri.
Horse is a hyponym of animal, because It’s a horse
entails (or requires) that it’s an animal but it’s an animal
does necessarily not entail (or require) it’s a horse. It
could be any different kind of animal at all.
Categories on the same level are called co-hyponyms. So
horse and dog are co-hyponyms. In the taxonomy for
cooking techniques below, the different kinds of technique are co-hyponyms of the superordinate
category cook.
Activity 3: Understanding hyponymy
Decide if the following statements are true or false.
 Tennis is a hyponym of sport. true
Pea and vegetable are co-hyponyms. false
Plant is a superordinate of tree. true
Lamb is a hyponym of creature. true
Lemon and tomato are co-hyponyms. true
Poker is a hyponym of game. true
Poker is a hyponym of sport. true
Bread is a co-hyponym of butter. true
Disease is a superordinate of influenza. true
Swing and toy are co-hyponyms.

Hyponymy and Meronymy

Hyponymy is different to another type of hierarchical relationship – that of meronymy. Meronymy is
a part-whole relationship, for example, if the higher level category is ‘bicycle’ and the meronyms
could be ‘pedal’ or ‘wheel’ or ‘break’ or ‘handlebar’. The relationship between a pedal and a bicycle
is quite different to the relationship between a dog and the animal category.
So where hyponymy describes X as a kind of Y, meronymy describes X as a part of Y. Below is a
taxonomy of face, where the relationship between lower and higher categories is one of meronymy.
Notice that in meronymy, entailment does not work. It’s a lip does not entail. It's a mouth. It’s a
mouth does not entail It’s a lip. Instead, a lip is part of a mouth, and it is also part of a face.

The two examples below show the difference between kind of taxonomies (hyponymy) and part of
taxonomies (meronymy).
 green and red are co-hyponyms of the handlebar, pedal and chain are co-meronyms
superordinate colour of the basic level term bicycle

Activity 4: Creating a taxonomy

Create a hierarchical diagram to represent the larger category ‘tableware’. Include the following
items if possible. Your taxonomy may include different items (this is a very Western table!). Replace
or add different items as needed to reflect your own understanding.
bowl flatware ladle soup spoon

crockery fork mug spoon

cup glass plate teaspoon

cutlery glassware platter tumbler

dish knife saucer wineglass

(I used SmartArt in Microsoft Word to create the taxonomies in these learning material.)

Word Meaning & Meaning Relations

So far, we have seen the meaning relations of superordinate, subordinate, hyponymy, and meronymy.
These have been presented using taxonomies. The lexicons of languages are complex, and many
different types of meaning relations can be identified. Before we look at a few more meaning
relations, we’ll step back to consider word definitions.
The task of defining the meaning of words should be fairly straightforward – a simple matter of
matching up a word with the things that it refers to.

‘cat’ [kæt] =

However, aside from children’s picture dictionaries, the task of defining a word is generally
performed using other words, rather than by using visual images.
We already know that there is much more to the meaning of a word than the one-to-one pairing of a
symbol and thing (as illustrated by ‘cat’. We also have cultural understandings of ‘things’ based on
the way that we interact with them.

Prediction Task: Defining CAKE

Imagine you have to explain the word ‘cake’ to someone who has never seen/eaten cake before. How
would you define the word ‘cake’?

If we consider the English symbol (or word) CAKE, we know a lot of different types of information
about this object.
1. It is a type of food
2. It is typically made with flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and a rising agent
3. In terms of size and shape, imagine there is a cake in front of you. Is your cake round or
square? How big is your cake? How high is your cake?
4. When do you typically eat cake? Is it only on special occasions or do you (or someone in
your household) bake cakes regularly? What time of day is cake eaten? For what meal –
can you eat cake for breakfast? During which part of the meal – can you start dinner with
cake?
The word cake is used to talk about food, but also about other entities. We use cake to talk about soap.
Is this because of how we make soap, by mixing ingredients together? We also use cake as a verb, to
describe substances like mud which stick onto surfaces like boots e.g. The mud caked my shoes. Is this
because mud is like an uncooked cake mixture?

Another example is the symbol (or word) RUN.

1. Run is an action that involves rapid locomotion, typically on two legs, although four-legged
creatures can also run.
 2. By extension, we use the same word to describe the rapid locomotion of a vehicle with an
engine. This is very common in English: a google search of train + running produced 1 billion
hits; a google search of car + running produced 2.5 billion hits.
3. Again, by extension, run can also be used more generally for any kind of engine that is turned
on.
4. And we use ‘run’ as a noun to describe the action of running as in ‘go for a run’.
5. By extension, we describe holes in pantyhose, stockings and tights as ‘runs’ – ‘there is a run
in my stockings’.

Terminological Note: The linguistic term used for ‘word’ is ‘lexeme’ and the vocabulary of a
language we refer to as the ‘lexicon’.

Polysemy and Homonymy

In defining cake and run, you will have noted that words have related but different meanings. Such
cases are examples of the meaning relation polysemy, where the following two properties apply:
(i) a single word has two or more related meanings or senses
(ii) the different senses of the word are historically related
An example of polysemy in English is the word plain.
1. plain can mean ‘clear, evident, or easy’ as in plain English
 2. plain can mean ‘unpatterned or undecorated’ as in a plain white shirt
3. plain can mean ‘homely’ as in the uncomplimentary expression a plain Jane
In each case, there is a shared element of meaning, where an object (or person) is described as being
‘unadorned’ or ‘simple’ rather than ‘fancy’ or ‘complicated.
The different meanings of plain are linked to a single word through their shared etymology or word
history. The word plain in English was sourced from the word playn in French.
In thinking about historical word meanings, we need to distinguish between the recorded etymology
of a word, and a folk etymology. Folk etymology refers to the historical relationships that people
assume to exist between words. A good example of this is the word history which people objected to
during the height of the feminist movement, as they analysed it as containing the pronoun his
combined with story. However, history does not derive from these two words, but from Middle
English historia via Latin historia. So in this case, the folk etymology is false.
Another example is hamburger, analysed as ham + burger, with the meaningful element (or
morpheme) ‘burger’ productively combining with other food types, to give us cheese burger or
Hawaiian burger. Historically however, hamburger derives from the German city Hamburg,
meaning a person or thing of that city (i.e. a kind of food prepared in that city).
Consider the English word foot meaning:
1. ‘the lower extremity of the leg below the ankle, the terminal part of the leg, on which a
person stands or walks’
2. ‘the lowest part of an elevation (e.g. hill, mountain, ladder, staircase)’
3. ‘the end of a bed, grave, at which a person’s feet lie’
These meanings are all related to meaning 1., which refers to the body part. Meaning 2. and 3. are
extensions of the primary body part meaning.
Another sense of foot is ‘a unit of measure (12 inches)’ which was equated to the length of a man’s
foot, so again, we see the link between the primary meaning, and the extension of this meaning to
other meanings.
Not only that, the different meanings or senses have a shared Etymology or word history. The three
different meanings come from Old English ‘fōt’, which in turn is a Germanic word, referring to the
body part. So foot with its multiple senses is a good example of polysemy.
Now consider the word bat, with these two meanings:
· bat 1. ‘furry mammal with membranous wings’
· bat 2. ‘implement for striking balls in certain games’.
In this case we have meanings that appear unrelated, and if we have a look in a dictionary, we will
discover that there are different etymologies as well.
· bat 1. derives from Middle English bakke meaning ‘furry mammal with membranous
wings’
· bat 2. derives from Old English batt meaning ‘club, cudgel’
So, bat 1. and bat 2. do not fit the definition of Polysemy. They have different etymologies, and are
only accidentally the same in Modern English. We call lexemes like bat 1. and bat 2. Homonyms.
The meaning relation homonymy can be strictly defined in the following way:

(i) the two (or more) words will be unrelated in meaning

(ii) all their forms will be identical
(iii) the identical forms will be grammatically equivalent

Property (ii) requires that the different forms of the word be shared and property (iii) requires that the
forms be the same part of speech or word class.
Considering property (ii), if we think about bat 1. and bat 2., we can make these words into plurals. In
both cases, the plural form is bats.
Considering property (iii), if we put bat 1 or bat 2. into sentences, in many cases, either meaning is
possible.
· They grabbed the bats. This could be either the furry mammals, or the clubs.
· The bats hung from the branch. This is more likely referring to furry mammals, but clubs
could also hang from a branch.
· Look out for the bat! The interpretation of this command depends on context. A furry
mammal could fly at one’s head, and another person could throw a club at one’s head. In
either case, someone could plausibly say Look out for the bat!
Another example of homonymy is the lexeme bank. Bank 1. means ‘financial institution, from the
place of business of a money changer or money lender; bank 2. means ‘mound or slope, a raised shelf
or ridge of ground, the slope of such a ridge’ leading to the most common usage of ‘the sloping side
of a river’. This relates to condition (i) – there are two apparently unrelated meanings.
When we form the plural of these words, we can say ‘two banks’ meaning either ‘financial
institutions’ or ‘sloping mounds/sides of a river’. The different forms of both words are the same. This
relates to condition (ii).
Not only that, both words are nouns and can function, for example, as the subject of a sentence: The
bank fell down. This relates to condition (iii). So bank 1. and bank 2. are absolute homonyms.
However, consider the following items:
found 1. past tense of ‘find’; discover, by chance or effort
found 2. establish (an institution)
Are these homonyms? Condition (i) applies as they are unrelated in meaning.
Condition (ii) and (iii) do not apply as the forms of each differ. We can make up sentences to show
that different forms of the word are required for the same grammatical context.
 Correct form for the following sentence type: found 1. found 2.

‘I always find hospitals on Mondays’ find found

‘Yesterday, I found a hospital.’ found founded

‘I have already found the hospital’ found founded

‘I am finding a hospital right now’ finding founding

Condition (iii) kind of applies because found 1. and found 2. are both verbs that need a person doing
the action (subject) and a thing being affected by the action (object) which means both meanings are
possible in the following sentence:
They found hospitals and charitable institutions. (found 1. or found 2.)
[S] [V] [O]
However, found 1. and found 2. differ grammatically. We can test which meaning is intended by
adding a marker of past time OR by changing the subject from ‘they’ to ‘he’, which requires changes
to the verb form.
Test: Yesterday, they found hospitals and charitable institutions.
Lexical past tense item forces a choice of found 1. interpretation (discover)
Test: He founds hospitals and charitable institutions.
3sg subject-verb agreement forces a choice of found 2. (establish)
So found 1. and found 2. are only partial homonyms. They do not meet criteria (ii) or (iii).

To summarise, if two words are Homonyms:

(i) the two (or more) words will be unrelated in meaning
(ii) all their forms will be identical
(iii) the identical forms will be grammatically equivalent

On the other hand, if two words are Polysemous:

(i) they have the same form, and related meanings or senses
(ii) the different senses of the word are historically related (a shared etymology)

Concept Check: Polysemy & Homonymy

Identify two additional examples of polysemy and homonymy. Make notes on the ways that your
examples meet the criteria presented in this section. You’ll need to check word etymology in the
dictionary. You can choose words in another language for this task, but if you are using English, the
Online Oxford English Dictionary has reliable information about the history of words.

Polysemy Homonymy

Park (with a playground) - Park (a car)

Bat (baseball) - Bat (animal)

Categorisation & Features (Croft & Cruse, 2004, p. 74-87)

Thinking in more depth about the meaning of words, a systematic way of exploring the meaning of
words or lexemes is to look at the features that define an entity – like cat or cake. We can identify the
features that specify the essential properties of the entity, that contrast with the properties of other
differently named entities – like dog or biscuit.
The category ‘colt’ can be defined in terms of the features that belong to all horses. We use the feature
equine to describe horses. We can then add further features to narrow the members of the equine
category down to just colts.

Colt and Filly

Images from: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Standingarabianfoalone.jpg
 https://www.wallpaperflare.com/foal-filly-horse-fuchs-mare-pasture-thoroughbred-arabian-
wallpaper-adhhe

Features of ‘colt’:
‘colt’ [EQUINE] [YOUNG] [MALE].
We might also add other features e.g. [fast runner] or [pawing ground] or [swishing tail], which are
things that horses do, but these features describe other creatures too, like dogs, and cats. And not all
horses are equally fast; a slow horse is still a horse.
The listed features [EQUINE][MALE][YOUNG] define all and only colts. If we want to define
‘filly’, we can use the same features but consider points of contrast. So colts and fillies share the
properties of being horses [EQUINE], and being young [+YOUNG]. But where colts have the
property [+MALE], fillies have the property [-MALE]. Of course, the alternative works equally well
and we could describe colts as [-FEMALE] while fillies are [+FEMALE]. Notice that English
grammar preserves the historical perspectives of its English speakers in that the starting point or
default gender category is male. This perspective is supported by creation stories in Christianity.
(Some other slightly different examples of the cultural asymmetry between male/female come in the
title/occupational words like Prince, which is male, and modified to Princess, and actor, which was
historically male, and modified to Actress. These days actors of any gendered identity go by the
neutral term ‘actor’.)

‘colt’ [EQUINE] [+YOUNG] [+MALE]//[-FEMALE]

‘filly’ [EQUINE] [+YOUNG] [-MALE]//[+FEMALE]
The feature [±MALE] is one that we can call a ‘binary feature’ because it has just two values (positive
or negative) in biology. These values are linked to observable differences in genitalia at birth, and
more recently, to differences in chromosomes. An entity can be defined according to which of these
values is present and which is absent.
The feature [EQUINE] (identifying horsey creatures) is a ‘unitary feature’. The category [-EQUINE]
would include the rest of life (or at least life that respirates) as we know it. It is therefore not a
distinctive or meaningful or useful category. [EQUINE] stands in opposition to a range of terms
including [CANINE] (dogs) and [FELINE] (cats), [BOVINE] (cows), [SIMIAN] (monkeys),
[AVIAN] (birds)...

It is somewhat difficult to come up with a set of criteria that accommodate the range of objects that
fall in to the category of table.
- by appearance: a table has four legs and a flat surface
- by shape: a table is most likely rectangular, but it could be... square or oval or round or
even hexagonal
 - by function: we use the flat surface of a table for eating, and working on, and we often sit
on a chair by the table when we are working on it
- by material: tables used to be made of wood, but it is easy to imagine tables made of other
substances like glass or plastic
- by height: tables are generally waist height, which allows for work with our hands on its
flat surface
In trying to decide on the essential criteria to define ‘tables’, is very easy to think of examples that do
not satisfy the criteria but are nonetheless tables. Here are some examples from a furniture catalogue
under the section heading ‘tables’

The classical approach categorisation

One of the early ways that philosophers have tried to understand meaning, was to organise words into
categories according to their shared meanings. Classical categorization has been applied to
understandings of the natural world, where species are ‘sorted’ according to physical properties. This
kind of sorting, or classification, or taxonomy, was formulated by an 18th century biologist called Carl
Linnaeus. Below is an example of the taxonomy for the rose.
Roses are plants which have flowers (Angiosperms). Their seeds (like other Dicots) produce pairs of
leaves when they germinate, rather than just a single leaf (a monocot).
Roses themselves are distinguished by having ‘showy’ flowers (large, and often scented), prickles,
and serrated leaves. The flowers typically have five petals, which sit inside five sepals (the external
covering of the bud which you can see in the image).

DNA comparison [Phylogenetic research] is used today to create categories that were historically
based only on observable properties of the natural world. The DNA comparisons made by scientists
sometimes match the established ‘folk’ taxonomies, but on other occasions they produce new
understandings of how the physical world is organized, and about which plants and animals are more
closely related to each other, on the basis of shared DNA.
Your average human community through time, however, knows nothing about the details of
phylogenetics. We have been forced to rely on observation and experience.

Prototype Approach to categorisation (Croft & Cruse, 2004, p. 77 ff.)

This brings us to an alternative method of categorization – the Prototype Approach. The Prototype
Approach is an way of understanding categories that is based on family resemblances rather than on
essential (necessary and sufficient) criteria. The idea is that each category will have prototypical
members that are our best representatives of a category. So if we think of tables, a four-legged table
with a rectangular surface might be our ‘best’ example. But equally, we can accept three legged tables
with round tops as tables as well.
Prototype theory allows for category membership to be graded. At the edges of a category, the
boundaries will be fuzzy. Category members will decrease in their resemblance to the prototypical
member, and the boundary between one category and the next will not be absolute. There could well
be items which are on the border of two different categories, like our coffee tables/bedside tables with
artful designs.

Two legged table Round surface ‘Occasional’ side table

Peripheral example of TABLE

Cat Task:
If it takes you a while to decide whether an image is a ‘good’ example, that signals that an entity is a
more peripheral member of your CAT category. (Psychologists call the time it takes you to respond to
decision tests like Good Cat – Bad Cat ‘response latency’. We are not measuring response latency for
this task but measuring response time is a common technique in psychological research.)
When we think about cats, we likely imagine creatures with four legs, fur, a tail, whiskers, they are
domesticated, meat-eating, and say ‘miao’. However, we can also accept cats that have no tails as
being cats, and cats that don’t have fur, or cats with folded ears as belonging to the cat category,
although they may not be prototypical members for us.
Our prototypes will vary depending on our life experiences. The prototype of a cat in one part of the
world might be different from the prototype in another. If Scottish folded ear cats are the only cats
you have ever seen, and then one day you come across a pointy eared Siamese cat, you would find the
cat to be very surprising and it would be less prototypical than the cats that you are more familiar
with. If you’ve only ever seen Sphinx cats, then your first encounter with a furry or long-haired cat
will be astonishing.

Goodness-Of-Exemplar (GOE) Tests

One kind of test for category membership is the Goodness-of-Exemplar (GOE) test. In this test, we
consider how good a category member a particular entity is. This is a highly subjective test, but it
produces interesting results. The results can depend on the cultural background of participants, their
individual life experiences, and their most recent interactions with the categories in question. So
geographic location, season, and even time of day, can all affect responses.

Activity 6: GOE Test (VEGETABLES)

Rank these items from prototypical to marginal members of the VEGETABLE category. Use the table
below to note your response.
[lemon, leek, rhubarb, parsley, basil, eggplant, beetroot, celery, parsnip, broccoli, carrot, courgette,
pumpkin, potato, kumara (sweet potato), lettuce, tomato, cucumber, cabbage, carrot]

Best Good Average Poor Non-member

e.g. lemon

Properties of prototypical ‘best’ members

The items that we designate as our best members of a category are our personal prototypes.
Prototypical members have a number of related features. These include:
1. Frequency and order of mention
If we ask people to list members of a category, prototypical members are likely to be mentioned
more often and sooner than non-prototypical members.
To test this out, ask someone in your household to name three vegetables, and see if they identify
similar vegetables to the ones you have identified as Best/Good.
2. Order of learning
Children learn prototypical members before peripheral members. But this of course will be
informed by interaction. So if you eat a lot of broccoli in your household, then children in your
household will learn the word ‘broccoli’ before they learn other vegetables.
 3. Verification speed
When asked if a word is a member of a category, people identify prototypical members faster than
non-prototypical members. Think back to the Good Cat – Bad Cat exercise. Did you find it
easier/faster to accept the Tabby cat as a Good Cat than the cat with folded ears, or no tail?

Week 03 Workshop Answers

Language, Meaning & Categorisation I

Activity 1 & Activity 2: Basic Level Categories

Discuss your answers to the analysis of terms as Basic Level Categories.

There is room for some flexibility with some of these, depending on people’s familiarity with the
category. I’ve added the items in brackets to show what would be above and below basic.

Superordinate Basic Subordinate

beverage milk (light blue milk)

wine champagne

(creature) (bird) seagull

groceries sugar (icing sugar)

(flour) self-raising flour

(dessert) ice cream

(vehicle) bus (mini bus)

bulldozer ? Not sure if there are subordinates of bulldozer,

but it creates a clear visual image for me different
from other types of vehicles

(bicycle) mountain bike

(transportation canal
route)
road motorway a motorway is a kind of road; some might have
road and motorway both as basic, if motorway
has a different purpose to road.
 building police station These examples are difficult to analyse because
they are morphologically complex, yet there may
petrol station be a clear visual image and pattern of interaction.

town hall

supermarket delicatessen in Aotearoa, a deli is now a department in a

supermarket

park (sports park)

(flower) daisy for me, different types of flowers have different

visual images, so flower is superordinate; but
others may have flower has basic and daisy as
subordinate, along with other flowers like roses,
hydrangeas, lilies, daffodils etc.

(plant) grass

(nut) walnut morphologically complex but clear visual image;

some may want nut to be basic, and walnut to be
subordinate to nut – same comment as with
flower

(footwear) sandal at the same level: shoe, boot, slipper

underwear (boxer shorts) Does underwear include all undergarments

(knickers & bra, singlets) or just underpants? If
just underpants, then underwear could be basic,
and visual image determined by preferred style of
underpants.

(pen) biro biro is a brand of pen; there was a time when any
ball point pen could be called a biro, meaning it
was used as basic

(cutlery) (spoon) teaspoon

(furniture) (chair) armchair

Basic level terms are likely to be items like:

 - grass, sugar, wine, bus, road, milk’ – we can draw them, we interact with them in specific
ways, kids know these terms (maybe not wine?), they contrast with other similar items,
and they are morphologically simple.
- some morphologically complex items will be basic (e.g. petrol station, police station,
bulldozer, and even supermarket), because these items form a coherent category. One
way to consider this is whether it is possible to buy a child’s toy for these items. If yes, it
suggests recognisable physical features. Note that petrol stations and police stations are
not kinds of ‘stations’ (in the sense of bus/train/underground stations). Ice cream is also
basic for many people. It can be considered a ‘type of cream’ but because we can draw a
picture of ice cream, children learn this term early, whereas nowadays they may not
learn about ‘cream’ at all; we interact with ice cream in specific ways, and because it
clearly contrasts with cream as a liquid, we can argue for it to be a basic level term. For
me, a supermarket is a kind of shop, not a kind of market, since I don’t go to markets
often, but for some people it will be a kind of market.
- arguably, park, motorway and canal are basic, although for some, a motorway will be a
type of road

Items which are clearly lower level include:

- teaspoon (spoon is basic)
- armchair (chair is basic)
- mountain bike (bike is basic)
- self-raising flour (flour is basic)
- biro (pen is basic, biro is a brand of pen)

Items where personal experience may determine the level of the lexeme
- walnut (nut is basic for people who don’t eat walnuts very often; also people with nut
allergies likely have a basic category nut)
- daisy (could be a kind of flower OR could be basic in itself, with multiple subtypes of
daisy – this is more likely for keen gardeners, garden centre owners, and botanists)

Activity 3: Understanding hyponymy

Recall that hyponymy is a kind of subordinate relationship with entailment (It is tennis entails it is a
sport; It’s a sport does not entail it is tennis). We can get hyponymy between superordinate and basic,
and between basic and subordinate.

Decide if the following statements are true or false.

There may be variation in responses depending on how students are thinking about the levels above
and below. Encourage students to explain their answers if they are different from mine, or from each
other. You could prompt them to give other co-hyponyms, or to identify the superordinate category.
 Tennis is a hyponym of sport.
Pea and vegetable are co-hyponyms.
Plant is a superordinate of tree.
Lamb is a hyponym of creature.
Lemon and tomato are co-hyponyms.
Poker is a hyponym of game.
Poker is a hyponym of sport.
Bread is a co-hyponym of butter.
Disease is a superordinate of influenza.
Swing and toy are co-hyponyms.
True – tennis is a kind of sport
False – pea is a hyponym of vegetable
True if plant is a more general category and tree, fern,
moss, flax/grass are kinds of plants
False if they are co-hyponyms of ‘flora’
True – many layers down a lamb is kind of a creature
False if our superordinate category is vegetable
True in a scientific sense if our superordinate category
is fruit (technically, a tomato is a fruit)
True – poker is a kind of game
Questionable for me – sport has to involve some
physical activity for me
True if our superordinate category is food
True – influenza is a kind of disease, although there
could be in-between categories (e.g. virus)
For me, swing is play equipment, and toy is a co-
hyponym of play equipment – it is not at the same level
as swing (some students felt that these could be co-
hyponyms but if we think about interactions, we play
on a swing, but with a toy)

Activity 4: Creating a taxonomy

Create a hierarchical diagram to represent the larger category ‘tableware’. Include the following
items if possible. Your taxonomy may include different items (this is a very Western table!). Replace
or add different items as needed to reflect your own understanding.

bowl flatware ladle soup spoon

crockery fork mug spoon
cup glass plate teaspoon
cutlery glassware platter tumbler
dish knife saucer wineglass

Example
Activity 5: Good cat, bad cat?
Discuss your response to the Good Cat, Bad Cat activity.
NOTE that our experiences of cats will likely lead us to choose the tabby cat as our
‘best’ cat. Each of the other cats displays features that are non-prototypical (lack of
fur, lack of ears, lack of a pleasant expression, lack of the small and roundish body
shape, lack of a tail). Lions may not necessarily be in the ‘cat’ category at all because
of their size and the way we interact with them (in zoos or wildlife parks rather than
homes)

Good Cow, Bad Cow...

Fresian breed – from Yak (biologically a kind Research cow (makes Hereford breed – from
Northern Europe of cow) – from Tibet me very uncomfortable – Herefordshire in England
originally Unusual to see cows cows shouldn’t have originally
Common in NZ with saddles. holes in them! Bad Common in NZ
humans?)

Jersey breed – from the Scottish Highlands calf Scottish Highlands cow Wagyu breed – from
Isle of Jersey (in the (also known as a fluffy Rare in NZ Japan
English/French channel) cow on the internet) Relatively rare in NZ
Common in NZ but Rare in NZ although breed
cows don’t normally commercially since 1992
wear clothes!

Activity 6: GOE Test (VEGETABLES)

Compare results to your GOE Vegetable test, where you were asked to rank the items from
prototypical to marginal members of the VEGETABLE category.
[lemon, leek, rhubarb, parsley, basil, eggplant, beetroot, celery, parsnip, broccoli, carrot, courgette,
pumpkin, potato, kumara (sweet potato), lettuce, tomato, cucumber, cabbage, carrot]

Best Good Average Poor Non-member

e.g. lemon

What factors contributed to your selection of vegetables in each category?

Each student will likely have a slightly different arrangement of answers. Factors that contribute to
higher ranking of vegetables include:
- season (what is being used in household cooking at the moment, what is cheap or at least
readily available in the supermarket or vegetable shop?)
- geographic location (what grows or is imported regularly in the region?)
- preference (what do people enjoy/dislike eating?)
- whether herbs are included as vegetables (this might depend on the type of cooking; some
types of Persian and Indian food use herbs as the base of a stew; some people eat salads
with a lot of herbs)
- whether starchy vegetables are included as vegetables (potato, kumara – for some
students these may be in a category with rice and pasta and bread, for others these will
be vegetables)
- for some students, colour may affect placement, where green = vegetable