What Is a Life Form? Conceptual Issues in Ethnobiology

Abstract

A number of linguistic tests are proposed to reveal different aspects of conceptual organization as reflected in language. It is argued that important evidence on human conceptualization of the world can be derived from ways of referring (e.g., Look at that plant/animal!), grammatical congruity (e.g., three pigs vs. *three livestocks), morphological structure (e.g., blue spruce vs. tulip tree), collocations and metaphorical transfers (e.g., social butterfly, breed like rabbits), and lexical structure (e.g., Siamese/Siamese cat vs. dog/*spaniel dog). It is also argued that evidence of this kind supports the crucial role of hierarchical taxonomic organization in the domain of living kinds (in contrast to other conceptual domains) and helps clarify the crucial and yet controversial concept of life form proposed by Brent Berlin and his associates.