UC Santa Barbara

The theories of biological folk taxonomies have been discussed in the anthropological literature since the 1960’s with several researchers such as Brent Berlin and Eugene Hunn devoting many articles and even books to the subject. Despite many examinations of the naming systems present in languages all over the Americas, there have been few, if any, works about the linguistic principles behind the two major theories of naming. This paper frames the linguistic bases for the two theories using data drawn from a corpus of Anishinaabemowin plant names and describes the linguistic basis for both Berlin’s theory of a morphological (in the biological sense) basis for a hierarchical system of naming and Hunn’s theory of use-based names. This paper will demonstrate that the theories of folk taxonomies can be greatly improved if theories of morphological (in the linguistic sense) preference are considered along with theories based in biological morphology or cultural usage.