1. Ethnobiological classification – Folk Taxonomy
Debates about utilitarianism vs. intellectualism
Eugene Hunn
Brent Berlin
Universality of ranks
Unnamed categories
Similarity between scientific and folk classification

2. Concepts and debates in ethnobiological classification
Discerning order vs. constructing order
Hierarchical classification universality
No more than 5 or 6 ranks (Berlin)
Cultural significance  depth of taxonomy
“Primacy of Generic Taxa”
Unnamed taxa – covert categories
Cultivating cultures have more names?

3. Ethnobiological categories
Unique beginner (≈ Kingdom, rarely named)
Life form (tree, herb, grass)
Intermediate (often covert category)
Folk generic
Folk specific
Folk varietal
Berlin, Breedlove & Raven (1973) General Principles of Classification and Nomenclature in Folk Biology

4. “Primacy of Generic Taxa”
~500 Genera typical (fewer if non-cultivators?)
basic building blocks of folk taxonomies
primary names may be simple or complex
simple names
non-decomposable, cannot be broken down
oak, robin, corn, louse, frog, pine, orchid, whale
productive complex primary names
tuliptree, pipevine, catfish, bluebird, bullfrog
unproductive complex primary names
beggars ticks, prairie dog, silverfish, buckeye, earwig

5. Comparison between folk and scientific classifications
underdifferentiation, one-to-correspondence, and overdifferentiation
terms give primacy to scientific classification
trend: more culturally important plant groups more overdifferentiated
(more differentiated)

6. Maluma and Takete, Experiment of Wolfgang Köhler 1929

7. Maluma and Takete, cont.
Source: Beau Sievers Masters Thesis, Dartmouth

8. Cultural significance or salience related to:
monotypic vs. polytypic folk genera
most folk subgeneric names
less culturally significant plants
semantically opaque vs. transparent labels
unanalyzable vs. descriptive
highly salient plants
Culturally significant plants (cultivated or protected)
↑ consistency
↑ cognates (see example comparing Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya)
↓ linguistic variation
(see handouts from Cotton text, pages )

13. Hunn 1982
read to focus on:
what he means by general purpose vs. special purpose classification
“empty taxonomic space”
residual categories
“just a grass” “just a flower”