|
|
A fairly neutral approach to classification is the paradigmatic approach. It works independently of referent, definitions, etymology and observation, simply by testing which words can substitute for each other in the same context. For instance, the context "she sat down on a ...." will help to classify chair, sofa, stool, arm chair, bench as a similar type of thing ("sitting furniture"). And it may well be much easier to explain what a chair is by noting its purpose (to sit on) rather than define it precisely (how many legs? if any?). Nevertheless, each culture will have an idea about "the typical sitting tool", whether it's a chair or a tatami mat, and other sittables will be described by how they differ from a "normal" chair. Why? There is experimental psychological evidence that people structure their semantic landscape by lumping together concepts around so-called semantic prototypes. If you ask somebody to name a tool, it will be hammer in a very high percentage of cases, a musical instrument will be a violin, a number will be 7 ... but it's not telepathy, nor black magic. No, it's just semantic efficiency, because it is easier to distinguish than to define. Children start with prototypes like "dog" and "apple", then find out what animals and fruit means by learning, from usage, whether concept X is closer to "dog" or to "apple". Which is why for many children cats are dogs for a while (cute and furry), and tomatoes are apples (round and red).
|
