Folk Botanical Life‐Forms: Their Universality and Growth

TLDR

Folk botanical life‑form terms are added to languages in a regular sequence—starting with tree, then a small herbaceous class, followed by bush, vine, and grass—with vine preceding grass, and the size of these vocabularies correlates positively with societal complexity and plant diversity. The study proposes explanations for the regular encoding sequence of life‑form terms and their association with societal complexity and botanical diversity. Keywords: cognitive anthropology, ethnobotany, folk classification, language universale, language change.

Abstract

Folk botanical life‐form terms are added to languages in a highly regular manner. The first life‐form to be lexically encoded is always “tree”and the second, a small herbaceous plant class (GRERB). The addition of “bush,” “vine,” and “grass” follows with “vine” always preceding “grass.” An explanation of this encoding sequence is proposed which refers to certain general principles of naming‐behavior recently outlined by Witkowski and Brown (1977). In addition, size of folk botanical life‐form vocabularies is positively correlated with both societal complexity and botanical species diversity. An explanation of these associations is presented . [cognitive anthropology, ethnobotany, folk classification, language universale, language change]