Sprachtypol. Univ. Forsch.

(STUF) 60 (2007) 1, 81–91

David W. Fleck (Melbourne)

Field linguistics meets biology: how to obtain scientific designations

for plant and animal names

Abstract

This paper proposes methodology and provides practical tips for associating plant and animal names
of little-known languages with scientific designations, especially for the purpose of producing accurate
dictionary entries.The focus is on how a linguist can accomplish this task with or without the assistance of
biologists, while avoiding the unsound practice of relying solely on vernacular names in the contact
language. The points presented here are illustrated with examples from Matses, a language in the Panoan
family spoken by an indigenous society living in western Amazonia, with whom the author has con-
ducted extensive zoological, ethnobiological and linguistic field research.

1. Introduction

As suggested by Dixon (this volume), complete documentation of a language involves

producing a grammar, a text collection and a dictionary. As a linguist works on the gram-
mar of a language, they typically compile a vocabulary list, which at some point they may
begin to convert into a dictionary. This involves going through the different semantic fields
to approximate a comprehensive lexicon, and also entails trying to learn more about the
semantic range of each term to provide more accurate definitions. Biological terminology
is an important component of any language. This is especially true for hunting cultures in
Amazonia, where, if a complete inventory of biological nomenclature is documented, it will
compose a substantial percentage of a dictionary’s entries. For example, for a Matses
dictionary (Fleck forthcoming), of 2337 noun entries, 837 are animal names and 547 are
plant names.
The most useful type of definition for a plant or animal is its scientific designation. For
most species, definite identification can only be arrived at through collection of museum
or herbarium specimens. Ideally, then, a linguist compiling the biological lexicon for a
research language will collaborate with one or more biologists, preferably in the field.
Unfortunately, this is not always possible, but there are other methods for obtaining rela-
tively reliable scientific designations for most of the named local taxa (a “taxon” is a taxo-
nomic category or group, such as a species, genus, family, class, etc.). As will be explained
below, using solely vernacular names in the national language to arrive at the scientific
designation (e.g., by looking these up in dictionaries) will result in a significant error rate,
especially for culturally and ecologically less salient plants and animals. The present paper
proposes methodology and provides practical tips for eliciting plant and animal terms in
the research language and for assigning reliable tentative scientific designations for these
terms using field guides, audio media, and other resources.

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2. The Matses

The suggestions provided in the present paper stem principally from my own research
experience, primarily among the Matses, and the points presented here will be illustrated
with examples from the Matses language.1 The Matses are an Amerindian society who
speak a language in the Panoan family and live along the Javari River and its tributaries in
Loreto, Peru and Amazonas, Brazil.There are about 2400 Matses, almost all of whom speak
Matses as their first language, 70–80 % being still essentially monolingual. Prior to 1969,
when they established first peaceful relations with the national societies, the Matses
avoided navigable rivers and maintained hostile relations with neighboring indigenous
groups and non-tribal Peruvians and Brazilians. Acculturation of the Matses to the natio-
nal culture is proceeding rapidly, but because of their recent isolation, older individuals
(> 35 years of age) still possess undiminished traditional knowledge. Most Matses still meet
all their nutritional needs through traditional subsistence activities including hunting,
fishing, trapping, swidden horticulture and collection of wild foods. See Fleck (2003) for a
description of the Matses language and a synopsis of Matses ethnography.

3. Resources for identification and elicitation

Resources for obtaining scientific designations for plant and animal names in the re-
search language are discussed in the subsections of the present section, starting with the
most reliable.

3.1. Biologists and museum and herbarium specimens

The best possible scenario for obtaining scientific designations for plant and animal
names in the research language is to work with one or more biologists in the field. Many
botanists and zoologists are interested in the interactions of indigenous peoples and the
plants or animals that they specialize in, and may be willing to participate in a language
documentation project. The involvement might be in the form of a collaborative project,
involving a biological inventory of the area in addition to linguistic description of the
language. Or it might be in the form of more casual assistance, where the biologist might
visit the research site and help the linguist with elicitation of plant and/or animal names
and identification of terms already collected. Field biologists are specialized, so that, for
example, an ornithologist will probably not be able to provide positive identifications for

1
This research includes 27 months of ethnobiological fieldwork among the Matses for an M. S. degree
in zoology (Fleck 1997) and as part of a later collaborative research project with Robert S. Voss of
the American Museum of Natural History. M. S thesis research was funded by a National Science
Foundation Minority Graduate Fellowship awarded to Fleck, and subsequent research was funded
by a grant from American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Conservation and Biodiversity
(1998–1999) and a National Geographic research grant (2003; grant number 7068-01) awarded to
Voss. Linguistic field research includes 36 months among the Matses and related groups conducting
doctoral (Fleck 2003) and postdoctoral research. Previously, I had worked for 9 months at a locality
in the vicinity of Matses territory conducting zoological research for an Honor’s thesis in zoology
(Fleck 1993).

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Sprachtypol. Univ. Forsch. (STUF) 60 (2007) 1 83

plants, fish, etc., and may not be interested in collecting specimens that are not in their field
of expertise. Therefore, even if a linguist obtains the field collaboration of a biologist, other
collaborators or other methods will be required for other taxa. Biologists may not be able
to accompany the linguist into the field, but they may be willing to review the linguists’
results and/or provide tentative identifications of photographed animals. One might, for
example, work with a botanist in the field, and consult various zoologists at local or foreign
institutions.
Collection and preservation of specimens requires training and, in many parts of the
world including Amazonia, involves complex bureaucratic processes for acquisition of
collecting and export permits, without which collection of biological specimens is a crimi-
nal offence. If the appropriate permits are obtained and a biologist is in the field with the
linguist, they might train the linguist to continue collecting specimens after they have left
the field, but otherwise it is not advisable for linguists to take on this task. Experts in the
local fauna can identify many species with a fair degree of certainty from good, close-up
photographs.

3.2. Zoological gardens and arboreta

If there is an arboretum at a nearby or otherwise accessible locality, one can travel there
with one or more speakers and ask them to name the trees. Note that trees are more easily
identified during the fruiting season. Similarly, one may have the opportunity to take
speakers to a zoological garden that houses local species. Because animals in zoos and trees
in arboreta are usually professionally identified, and because the stimuli are living
organisms, identifications acquired in this way are usually quite reliable, especially for
animals. With respect to arboreta, it should be kept in mind that frequently not all the
species of trees at the arboretum will have lexicalized names in the research language,
and trees may be misidentified by language consultants, especially if they have no fruits.

3.3. Field guides

Second to identifications by biologists (of specimens, photographs, or live organisms in

the field or at a zoo/arboretum), the next most reliable way to associate plant and animal
names with scientific identifications is to use field guides. Note that any identification that
does not involve observation of the organism itself must be considered only a tentative
identification, and this should be stated explicitly in the dictionary. This tentative identi-
fication can nevertheless be considered a fairly reliable identification for many species if
sound methodology is followed, if a professional-quality field guide (and audio stimuli)
is available, and if consistent responses result from multiple replications of elicitation
sessions.
A good field guide will be comprehensive, that is, it will treat all the species in the re-
search area, and will have range maps and basic natural history information (the impor-
tance of these features will become evident below). Unfortunately, for certain regions of
the world, good field guides may not be available, especially for some taxa. Field guides of
birds are the most common and usually of the highest quality. For fish, insects, and other
invertebrates, comprehensive field guides are seldom available. Comprehensive botanical

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84 David W. Fleck, Field linguistics meets biology

field guides seldom have color photographs, and I have found that non-botanists do not
easily identify the line drawings of leaves, flowers and fruits in these field guides. I have
found palms and cultivated plants to be more readily recognized from line drawings. Other
books containing good color photographs of the local fauna may be useful, especially as
complements to field guides.

3.4. Recordings of vocalizations

Many small birds and most frogs are more easily recognized by locals from their calls
than from their appearance. This is reflected in the high occurrence of onomatopoetic
names for these taxa. For example, after eliciting frog names using photographs in a field
guide (Bartlett & Bartlett 2003), I found that several frog names that I had in an earlier
vocabulary list did not come up.When I asked my best Matses biological consultant to look
through the field guide for one of these, he said that he was not sure because the frog was
active only at night, lived high up in the trees, and the Matses do not eat it, so he never
bothered to try to follow this treefrog’s call to find it. During a later field season, I played a
CD of frog calls (Cocroft et al. 2001) to this same man, and he recognized the missing
reefrog easily: it was a species that was illustrated in the field guide, but neither he nor
other consultants had recognized its photograph. A similar situation occurred with the
Screaming Piha (Lipaugus vociferans) of Amazonia, a seldom seen, small, gray bird that
makes loud, far-reaching, distinctive wolf-whistle-like calls.
CDs of recorded bird and frog vocalizations can be purchased easily (one can start with
the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology or the American Birding Association websites for
lists of titles), customized CDs can be ordered (from the Macaulay Library of the Cornell
Laboratory of Ornithology), or ornithologists and herpetologists may be willing to share
their personal recordings. Some insects, such as crickets, katydids, and cicadas can be more
readily identified from their calls, but recordings of insects are less easily acquired. Record-
ings of mammal vocalizations are sometimes available, but these are typically not as
important for identification, though they can add a degree of confirmation when eliciting
mammal names using field guides, and they can make the elicitation session livelier.

3.5. Vernacular names in the contact language

Table 1 illustrates two reasons why vernacular names can result in errors.2 The first
reason is that common names not only vary from country to county and region to region,
but often a term referring to one species (or higher taxon) in one area will have a different
referent at another locality.The second reason is one that linguists tend to be less conscious
of: as will be described in section 7, neither indigenous classification systems nor classi-
fication systems of the local varieties of national languages exhibit one-to-one cor-
respondence with Western biological taxonomy. The terminology/classification in the
contact language also does not represent an “intermediate system” between Western

2
Orthography for Matses is phonemic: a, e, ë (È), i, o, u, p, t, k (= glottal stop syllable-finally), b, d (= flap
intervocalically), m, n, s, sh (S), şh (ş), ts, ch (tS), çh (tş), w, j. Note: all Matses examples are simplified
entries from Fleck (in preparation).

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taxonomy and system of the research language: it simply represents a third, different
system. So, for example, even if one side-stepped the pitfall of looking up pericote and
defining the Matses term cheka as ‘Mus musculus,’ as can be seen in Table 1 the Loreto
Spanish definition of pericote would include all local opossums except Didelphis marsupia-
lis, while the Matses term cheka does not cover this same range of species.

Table 1

Latin English Matses Spanish

Loreto Lima Standard
Didelphis common mapiokos zorro muca zarigüeya
marsupialis opossum
Monodelphis short-tailed yama pericote (none there) zarigüeya
spp. opossums
Caluromys, (all others cheka pericote (none there) zarigüeya
Marmosa, etc. opossums)

Pseudalopex South (none there) (none there) zorro zorro

spp. American
foxes
Mus muscu- house mouse (none there) ratón pericote ratón
lus

Nevertheless, vernacular names in the contact language do not need to be completely

ignored. They can provide clues to the scientific identification of a vocabulary item and
they can be used to elicit biological vocabulary, as long as one keeps in mind that they are
often unreliable and/or imprecise and gives priority to information attained using other
methods. If the vernacular name in the contact language is the only means used to arrive at
a scientific designation, the Latin name in the dictionary should be accompanied by a
question mark or some other qualification to distinguish it from reliable identifications. It
is also informative, particularly for other researchers working the same general area, to
include the vernacular name (specifying the dialect) in a dictionary definition in addition
to the scientific designation. My definition for the Matses term cheka (1) seems complex,
but this type of definition is straight-forwardly discovered using the interview techniques
described in section 6:
(1) cheka n. general term for all opossums except for the common opossum and the
short-tailed opossums. Lat. Caluromys lanatus, Gracilinanus emiliae, Hyladelphys
kalinowskii, Marmosa spp., Marmosops spp., Metachirus nudicaudatus, Micoureus
spp., Philander mcilhennyi. L.Sp. pericote.

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4. Preparation for the field

Preparation for the field, for the purpose of working on biological nomenclature, in-
cludes acquiring field guides and other identification resources and establishing contacts
with biologists. Even if one will not be asking biologists to go to the research site, it is ad-
visable to secure their cooperation for identifying photographs and/or commenting on the
resulting data before leaving for the field. An essential task is compiling an “expected
species checklist” (§ 4.1). And, applicable only if the researcher or another person has
already conducted research on the language, it is also a good idea to assemble a list of
known biological terminology in the research language before going into the field (§ 4.2).

4.1. Expected species checklists

One should compile a list of all the species likely to occur in the research area to avoid
eliciting biological terminology using drawings, photographs or recorded vocalizations of
species that exist beyond speakers’ territory. But the most important purpose of the expected
species checklist is the accurate matching of the listed species to the plant and animal terms
in the research language, as will be described below in section 6.
By looking at all the range maps in a good field guide, one can compile a list of species
that are likely to exist in the research area. For areas that are not well known biologically,
one should include, qualified with some mark, species whose ranges come close to, but
do not overlap with the research area. Inferior field guides will contain only vague range
descriptions, or no range information at all, requiring one to look to other sources for
compiling the expected species checklist. These sources include desk reference works (that
are usually too expensive and too large to take into the field) and published biodiversity
inventory studies conducted at nearby localities. Additionally, one may request help from
biologists. The list should include all the taxonomic levels, as in (2), since the terms in the
local languages could match any of these taxa, not just species.
(2) ORDER PERISSODACTYLA
Family Tapiridae
Tapirus terrestris Brazilian tapir
ORDER ARTIODACTYLA
Family Tayassuidae
Pecari tajacu collared peccary
Tayassu pecari white-lipped peccary
Family Cervidae
Mazama americana red brocket deer
Mazama gouazoubira gray brocket deer
Comprehensive expected species checklists can be compiled easily for the terrestrial verte-
brate fauna of most localities, but it will be difficult for fishes and plants, and for tropical
invertebrates, impossible. For most fish and plant taxa, one will probably have to work at
the genus or family level, for most insects and other arthropods, at the family or order level,
and for worm-like invertebrates, at even higher taxonomic levels.
The expected species checklists should be taken into the field, but additionally it is useful
to circle or in some other way mark in the field guides the illustrations/photographs that

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correspond to the expected species. Likewise, for animal vocalizations, one can copy only
the tracks corresponding to the expected species onto another medium, such as a minidisk
or cassette, which can be played using the recorder taken into the field for recording texts.

4.2. List of plant and animal names in the research language

If there have been previous studies on the research language, it is useful to obtain a list of
all documented plant and animal names. In a few cases, some of the plant or animal terms
will have been documented by an ethnobiologist or by a linguist in collaboration with one
or more biologists. In these cases, the scientific designations from these studies may be
more reliable than any that the linguist working alone will be able to obtain; however,
seldom do such studies cover the entire local flora and fauna. Most frequently, the pre-
viously documented plant and animal names will either have vague definitions (e.g., ‘type
of tree’), only vernacular terms from the local dialect of the national language, or scientific
designations arrived at by undisclosed and therefore probably unsound methods. For these
dubious sources of information, the essential data are the terms in the research language,
which one will cross-check with one’s own elicited list to check if any terms did not get
elicited, and to mark discrepancies to be paid special attention to during the next elicitation
session. If one has already worked on the language, one can add to this list the plant and
animal names that they have obtained through casual vocabulary elicitation, from re-
corded texts, and from overheard speech. If the list is a composite of various sources, it is
useful to label the source for each listed name.

5. Consultants

I have found much variation among speakers with respect to their knowledge of plant
and animal terminology and their ability to identify them. Names and traditional expertise
in the natural history of certain rare plants and animals may be specialized knowledge in
the culture. Generally speaking, older people know more than younger people, and obser-
vant hunters, skilled fishermen, and experienced healers know more about land animals,
fish, and plants, respectively, than the average member of the society. These people are
often not the same people who are good at helping with text translation and elicitation
of grammatical sentences. It is also possible that some speakers may be dishonest toward
outsiders, or may find it comical to purposely provide false information. This latter type of
situation can be discovered by replication and by spending enough time in the field to get
to know people’s abilities and personalities and to establish friendships based on sincere
mutual trust and respect. It may be worthwhile to travel to multiple villages to consult
renowned experts and to look for socio-linguistic variation.

6. Elicitation strategies

The goal of elicitation is to accomplish two basic tasks. The first is to compile a compre-
hensive list of plant and animal terms in the research language. The second is to match
these terms with those in the expected species checklist. These two tasks are often con-
ducted at the same time, but they should be considered separately.

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Compilation of plant and animal terminology in the research language is a relatively

casual task compared to the more rigorous task of matching these terms to scientific identi-
fication. Names can be elicited by walking in the forest with consultants and asking them
the names of observed plants and animals, asking them to list all the members of a category
(e. g., fish or ants), using field guides and other identification aides, or even going through a
list of vernacular names in the contact language.
The main challenge in matching the terms in the research language with those in the
expected species checklist (henceforth “matching exercise”) is identification. Difficulty in
identification can be either the consultant’s or the linguist’s. For example, while walking
through the forest, the consultant will be able to identify with certainty many plants and
animals to which the linguist will not be able to assign a scientific designation. Meanwhile,
with field guides, it is the consultant that may have difficulty identifying some of the images
(see Diamond 1991 for examples of this). In the absence of biological expertise or the
presence of a biologist in the field, the linguist will have to rely almost exclusively on this
latter method. To make this type of elicitation effective, the basic strategy is, for each
species (or higher taxon) in the expected species checklist, to provide the consultants with
as many cues as possible to help them make a correct identification. For example, one can
point out the illustration of a species of bird in one or more field guides, play a recording of
its song, and discuss basic natural history information, including its size (very important),
its habitat, diet, and especially any peculiar behavior that would set it apart from other birds.
Consultants should be first asked if they recognize the species, rather than immediately
asking them for a name (otherwise they may guess, or provide an ad hoc descriptive term
for what they consider a novel species). If they do not recognize it, one can discuss further
its natural history or simply write down “not recognized” and move on to the next species.
If they do recognize it, then one can ask: i) if it has a name in the language; ii) if it does, what
it is called; iii) if it has any additional names; iv) if there is any sociolinguistic variation (e. g.,
by asking: “does everyone use this term?” and “does everyone know this term?”); v) if it
has any noteworthy natural history characteristics; and vi) what its name is in the contact
language. Questions (v) and (vi) are useful for confirming consultants’ identifications.
It is important to emphasize to consultants that “I’m not sure” and “I don’t know” are
acceptable responses.
It is crucial to replicate matching exercises (I would say at least five times) because of
the commonness of honest misidentification that occurs even with the best consultants,
especially with little-known taxa or when identification resources are not ideal. Replication
can also reveal sociolinguistic variation. I have found that elicitation with more than one
consultant present can be very fruitful, but this is not a substitute for replication.
The ability to reliably match a term with a scientific designation will depend on various
factors, including comprehensiveness of the expected species checklist, the identification
resources available, and how familiar speakers are with the type of organism in question.
A general trend is that non-scientists are more familiar with and have an easier time
identifying species that are culturally important and ecologically more salient (i.e., larger,
more common, diurnal, etc.).

7. Lack of isomorphy between scientific and folk classification systems

One important factor that should be kept in mind when elucidating the meaning of plant
and animal terms is that there is never complete isomorphy between folk biological classi-

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fication systems and Western biological taxonomy. Four logical possibilities can result from
the comparison of folk biological terminology and Western scientific taxa: i) one-to-one
correspondence; ii) underdifferentiation; iii) overdifferentiation; and iv) mismatching.
Each will be defined and exemplified below.
One-to-one correspondence is where a named folk biological taxon corresponds exactly
to a biological taxon at the same taxonomic level. For example, if a named folk terminal
taxon (i.e., a labeled category that is not further subdivided; henceforth, “folk species”)
corresponds to exactly one biological species,3 it can be said to exhibit one-to-one cor-
respondence. Consider the definitions in (3), where the folk species match the scientific
species and there is also one-to-one correspondence between the superordinate term
pinchuk and the genus Astrocaryum.
(3) pinchuk n. general term for a genus of thorny palm trees. Lat. Astrocaryum (Fam.
Palmae). Note: 3 subtypes: akte pinchuk, di pinchuk and şhukkate pinchuk.
akte pinchuk n. thorny palm tree species that only grows along rivers and large
streams. Lat. Astrocaryum jauari (Fam. Palmae). L.Sp. huiririma. Lit. ‘river pinchuk
palm’.
di pinchuk n. large, thorny palm tree species, used for making twine for hammocks,
knitted purses, fishing line, etc. Lat. Astrocaryum chambira (Fam. Palmae). L.Sp.
chambira. Lit.‘hammock pinchuk palm’.
şhukkate pinchuk n. thorny palm tree species used for making fire fans, mats, head-
bands, penis strings, etc. Lat. Astrocaryum murumuru (Fam. Palmae). L.Sp. hui-
cungo. Lit.‘fan pinchuk palm’.
Lexical overdifferentiation is the situation where a single biological species is denoted
by two or more non-synonymous folk species names. It is usually the economically most
important species that are split up in this way, most frequently cultivated plants (Berlin
1992). In Matses, as described in Fleck et al. (1999), the monk saki monkey, Pithecia
monachus, is called bëşhuidkid, bëshudu, and mamu, the latter two terms being considered
subtypes of the first term. So here the term bëşhuidkid corresponds to the species Pithecia
monachus, and bëshudu and mamu are cases of overdifferentiation, corresponding to sub-
divisions of the species (4).
(4) bëşhuidkid n. monk saki monkey, a game species. Lat. Pithecia monachus. L.Sp.
huapo, huapo negro. Note: 2 recognized subtypes: bëshudu, mamu.
bëshudu n. small Matses-recognized variety of monk saki monkey. Note: type of
bëşhuidkid.
mamu n. large Matses-recognized variety of monk saki monkey. Note: type of
bëşhuidkid.
Lexical underdifferentiation is the situation where a single named folk species cor-
responds to more than one biological species, often corresponding to a higher-level taxon (5).
(5) tsin tsin n. dragonfly, damselfly. Order Odonata (all species). L.Sp. chinchilejo. Note:
high diversity in shape, size and coloration is recognized, but no subtypes are given
lexicalized names.
3
Animal species are sometimes divided into subspecies and plant species into varieties, but for wild
species these are simply labels for geographic variation, and at any one locality only one
subspecies/variety is expected to occur.

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Lexical underdifferentiation is common with taxa that are culturally less important and
ecologically less salient, such as small rodents, passerine birds, lizards, harmless snakes,
frogs, fishes, butterflies, spiders, fungi, and understory plants that are not useful.
Mismatching is the situation where a folk taxon refers to a category that does not
compose a biological taxon. A typical type is where a folk species lumps together several
superficially similar, but genetically unrelated species or higher taxa. Some examples from
Matses are terms that group fleas with lice, lizards with salamanders, coral snakes with
coral snake mimics, and stingless bees with flies. Another common type of mismatching
is where higher-order categories do not match biological higher-order categories. An
example from Matses is the term nuëkkid, which corresponds roughly to ‘bony fish’ (class
Osteichthyes), but excludes electric eels and other eels, while including electric knifefishes,
which are in the same family as electric eels. A second example is the term wikçhun, which
corresponds most closely to ‘bird’ (class Aves), but excludes vultures, raptors, wading birds,
hoatzins, and some other large non-game birds. A third example is cheka ‘opossum,’
defined in example (1) in section 3.5.
The main point to keep in mind when matching folk biological term to a scientific
species is that the match may not represent the whole story, as the term may denote other
species, or only a subset of the species. It is interesting to note that a dictionary entry that
says “bird sp.” is not only vague, but also possibly inaccurate, as the term may actually refer
to multiple species, or only a subset of the members of a species. A second point is that the
folk taxonomy in the vernacular dialect of the contact language will have its own patterns
of one-to-one correspondence, overdifferentiation, underdifferentiation, and mismatching;
this is a more consistent source of error than mistakes stemming from regional variation.

8. Lexicalized names vs. ad hoc descriptions

Ideally, a dictionary should only include lexemes, and not ad hoc descriptive phrases. How-
ever, it is not always easy to distinguish polymorphemic lexicalized terms from descriptive
phrases. In elicitation of plant and animal names, ad hoc responses are especially common
with underdifferentiated taxa. This is partly because consultants are asked to name mul-
tiple species that appear different from each other in the field guides, but for which they
only have a single term. Also, lexical underdifferentiation is sometimes accompanied by
sublexical categorization, that is, where speakers recognize the internal diversity of these
groups, but do not have lexicalized terms for these subordinate categories. For example,
although the Matses have only one lexicalized name for referring to bats (= Order Chirop-
tera, of which 59 species have been collected at one Matses village), they recognize mor-
phological and behavioral diversity in the local bat fauna at the level of family, subfamily,
genus, or species (Fleck et al. 2002).
There are two main ways to distinguish ad hoc descriptions from lexemes. The first is
to compare the responses of different consultants for consistency. The second is to apply
phonological, grammatical and/or semantic tests. For example, lexicalized terms may have
a different intonational contour, it may be impossible to insert additional words or bound
morphemes between elements in a lexicalized term, and the referent of the lexicalized
terms may not always be deducible from the combination of the component morphemes.

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Sprachtypol. Univ. Forsch. (STUF) 60 (2007) 1 91

9. Final remarks

It is desirable that the methodology used be explicit in the dictionary, so that readers can
evaluate the reliability of the identifications. Typically, the methodology and reliability for
the different taxa will differ. For many animal terms, one may only be able to guess the
scientific designation, in which case the uncertain status of the identification should be
clearly specified in the entry. For example, consider the definition in (6), which specifies
that the author is certain that the term refers to a type of catfish, and thinks it might refer to
one or more species in the genus Paulicea, but is not sure.
(6) mësiankid sos sos n. catfish type. Lat. possibly Paulicea sp(p). (Fam. Pimelodidae).
L.Sp. cunchi.

Abbreviations

Fam. ‘family’ L.Sp. ‘Loreto (local) Spanish’

Lat. ‘Latin (scientific) designation’ sp. ‘species (singular)’
Lit. ‘literal translation’ spp. ‘species (plural)’

References

Bartlett, R. D. & Bartlett, Patricia (2003): Reptiles and amphibians of the Amazon: an ecotourist’s
guide. Gainesville, Florida: University of Florida Press.
Berlin, Brent (1992): Ethnobiological classification: principles of categorization of plants and animals in
traditional societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cocroft, Rex; Morales, Victor R. & McDiarmid, Roy W. (2001): Frogs of Tambopata, Peru. Ithaca, New
York: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.
Diamond, Jared M. (1991): Interview techniques in ethnobiology, in: Pawley, Andrew (ed.), Man and a
half: essays in Pacific anthropology and ethnobiology in honour of Ralph Bulmer. Auckland: The
Polynesian Society.
Fleck, David W. (1993): Reproductive ecology of marsupials in the rainforest of Northeastern Peru.
Honor’s thesis in zoology,The Ohio State University, Columbus.
Fleck, David W. (1997): Mammalian diversity in rainforest habitats recognized by the Matses Indians in
the Peruvian Amazon. M.S. thesis in zoology,The Ohio State University, Columbus.
Fleck, David W. (2003): A grammar of Matses. Ph.D. dissertation in linguistics, Rice University, Houston.
Fleck, David W. (forthcoming): Diccionario matsés-castellano. Lima: Centro Amazónico de Antropo-
logía y Aplicación Práctica.
Fleck, David W. (in preparation): Matses-English analytical and etymological dictionary.
Fleck, David W.; Voss, Robert S. & Patton, James L. (1999): Biological basis of saki monkey (Pithecia)
species recognized by Matses Indians of Amazonian Peru, in: International Journal of Primatology
20.6, 1005–1028.
Fleck, David W.; Voss, Robert S. & Simmons, Nancy B. (2002): Underdifferentiation and sublexemic
categories: an example from Matses bat classification, in: Journal of Ethnobiology 22.1, 63–104.

David W. Fleck
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
La Trobe University
Melbourne,Vic 3086
AUSTRALIA
d.fleck@latrobe.edu.au

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