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Speculations on the growth of ethnobotanical nomenclature1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Brent Berlin
Brent Berlin
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

Assuming the ethnobiological classification evolves as a reflection of cultural development, data are presented which suggest an orderly and predictable temporal appearance of ethnobotanical nomenclatural categories. A general correspondence is seen to exist between the number of categories encoded at any point in time in a particular language's history and degree of sociocultural development. The principles of lexical marking are applied to ethnobiological nomenclature as a means of inferring relative age of the corresponding categories. (Ethnoscience, primitive classification, language universals, cultural evolution.)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , April 1972 , pp. 51 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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