Berlin Brent 1992. Ethnobiological Classification. Principles of categorization of plants and animals in traditional societies. Princeton University Press.
Notes
Notes
(From cover notes) Berlin looks at the widespread regularities in the classification and naming of plants and animals among peoples of traditional, nonliterate societies - regularities that persist across local environments, cultures, societies, and languages. Berlin maintains that these patterns can be best explained by the similarity of human beings" largely unconscious appreciation of the natural affinities among groupings of plants and animals: people recognize and name a grouping of organisms quite independently of its actual or potential usefulness or symbolic significance in human society.
Part One focuses primarily on the structure of ethnobiological classification inferred from an analysis of descriptions of individual systems.
Part Two focuses on the underlying processes involved in the functioning and evolution of ethnobiological systems in general.
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Ethnobiological Classification. Principles of categorization of plants and animals in traditional societies
