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\title{Generic taxa in Hawaiian}

\author{Brett Kessler}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\begin{abstract}
  
  A computer-assisted study was performed on all native Hawai`ian folk
  genera to see to what extent the Hawai`ian system accords with
  Berlin's theory of ethnobiological taxonomy.  It was found that the
  system can indeed be described as some 600 genera grouped in a
  shallow hierarchy, with a small percentage of them, mostly taxa of
  some cultural significance, being subdivided further into taxa named
  by contrast sets built on the name of the genus.  Particular
  attention was applied to the question of correspondence between the
  Hawai`ian system and the Linnaean.  Berlin's prediction that smaller
  life forms tend to be named more inclusively (i.e., correspond to
  higher Linnaean ranks) held up well, in contrast to an alternate
  reading that holds evolutionary complexity to be the causal factor;
  however, economic importance, which may be linked to size, can not
  be ruled out as the underlying cause.  No support was found for the
  idea that a culture tends to name at either the level of Linnaean
  genus or species, but not both.  It was further found that Hawai`ian
  genera with the shortest names are more likely to correspond to
  higher Linnaean ranks.

\end{abstract}

\section{Introduction}

Berlin (1992) presents a theory of ethnobiological taxonomy that is on
the whole congenial and credible.  His philosophy is that taxa have
objective existence, and that all humans will naturally classify and
to a large extent denominate the living world in roughly the same way.
The classification will be based on inherent properties of the taxon
itself rather than on its use, and will be organized into a fairly
shallow hierarchy.  Primary names are given to taxa at or above a
certain perceptually salient rank in the hierarchy (his {\sc genus});
below that, taxa are distinguished mostly with the help of qualifiers.
Such extension of the taxonomy to subgeneric entities is
characteristic of agricultural societies.

Much of Berlin's theory falls out directly from adopting a
universalistic view of human cognition.  Specialists in child language
acquisition note that children across cultures acquire vocabulary in
similar patterns.  They automatically pick up on the idea that nouns
denote classes of distinct objects, and that these classes are
discrete.  At very young ages they learn to apply vocabulary at
different levels.  When confronted with different names for the same
object, they naturally adopt the strategy of assuming that one name is
more inclusive than the other.  Moreover, they pick up one level as
being more basic than other levels.  They tend to learn words at that
level more readily.  When confronted with names that are more
specific, they regularly use that name as a qualifier to the basic
name.  For example, they may perceive {\em car} as a basic level term,
and when taught {\em Volvo}, insist on saying {\em Volvo-car}.  The
hierarchies are fairly shallow, and often include unnamed categories.
So children perceive that mammals have something in common long before
learning {\em mammal} or even {\em animal}.  This is evidenced, for
example, by their extension of the word {\em dog} to designate animals
whose name they do not know, even though comprehension experiments
clearly show that they normally know what {\em dog} really means, and
that they are using the term faute de mieux.  Researchers also find
that children tend to classify objects in terms of inherent features
such as shape, and only rarely in terms of colour or function (Eve
Clark, p.c.).

Thus I find that most of Berlin's strongest claims, not to mention his
fundamental anti-Whorfian stand in itself, are strongly supported by
current understanding of universals of the acquisition of vocabulary
and semantics.  Indeed, it appears that the bulk of his claims are not
claims about ethnotaxonomy in particular, but rather are extensions to
biology of claims that are made of lexical systems in general.
Although one could conceive of possible universes where the facts were
different, I do not think most people would be shocked by Berlin's
principles (p. 21--26), especially if recast in terms of general
lexical acquisition.  Principle 1 says that we do not have names for
everything; 2 says that we classify based on form, not function; 3
says that we have levels of naming; 4 says that things grouped in
classes do not have to be identical, and that classes are perceived as
distinct, not continuous; 5 says that basic-level names are the most
common, and that more specific names are reserved for cases where
making distinctions is important; 6 says that basic and more specific
classes have prototypicality (some beds are more bed-like than
others).  Similarly his principles of nomenclature (p.  26-31) are
largely uncontroversial within the universalist tradition: 1 says that
the higher level classes are generally unnamed; 2-4 say that contrast
sets of names {\em (sofa bed, water bed)} are used if and only if the
class name is more specific than the basic level, unless the class is
a prototype or the class names something very important (in which case
ordinary names may be used); and 5 says that names tend to refer to
some inherent feature of the object named.  I accept all this without
question.

A few of his other claims are more questionable but are not easy to research
from a distance.  He claims that biological taxa are organized into exactly
six levels of classification, or ranks.  Certainly six is the right ballpark
for a general upper limit to the number of class levels one might expect for
biota: at a branching level as small as 3, this would accommodate 729 taxa,
which exceeds the number of taxa he claims are found in the richest systems.
But it is far from obvious that six is exactly the right number.  More
particularly, it is questionable that rank itself is a primary concept, beyond
the idea that a particular item in a hierarchy can be designated as being at
the basic level.  Rather, I would expect that class inclusion is a recursive
concept: one groups related objects into a class generally without ever
attempting to peg that class to some class rank.  Just introspecting, my naive
classification of an oak is that is a deciduous tree, which is a tree, which
is a woody plant, which is a vascular plant, which is a plant.  I naively
think of a chihuahua as a dog, which is a canine, which is a carnivorous
mammal, which is a mammal, which is a legged land animal, which is a chordate,
which is an animal.  It doesn't bother me that some hierarchies may be longer
than others, I could easily accept extra nodes in a hierarchy when I learn
more about biotes (or reflect more deeply on them), and I certainly do not have
any intuitions about whether chordates are equivalent to vascular plants.  And
clearly these hierarchies do not fit into the six ranks Berlin lays out.

Furthermore one might wish to question the very idea that classification
hierarchies are necessarily proper trees with a single root.  People can
easily place things into different categories depending on the criteria they
employ.  From its ethology, a large insect that walks about on land seems in
many ways similar to a small reptile; from its anatomy, it doesn't seem much
like a vertebrate at all.  Whether people consistently think of one
classification as primary is an interesting question.  Another is whether
there is something special about biota that make people do so, or whether the
classification tasks that have been presented to them force them to do so.  If
people in a given society really do consistently give one particular
classification when forced to make unique groupings, that fact in itself is
interesting, but it is somewhat different from saying that a society
recognizes one unique proper taxonomical hierarchy.  In fact I suspect that
the nebulous state of ``intermediate'' taxa in Berlin's theory and their low
degree of cross-cultural agreement may mean precisely that people tend to
agree on classifications when class members are objectively close together,
such that anatomical similarities are overwhelming (genus level), but they
get fuzzier when asked to group things that are farther apart, when various
classificatory criteria are at hand.

Although it is easy to theorize abstractly about some of the aspects of
Berlin's approach to taxonomy, it is difficult to really test them without the
benefit of field work.  Few sources give much information about what native
terms subsume other terms, and none discuss covert categories unless
incidentally.  There are some claims, however, that are subject to examination
using reference sources.  Berlin claims that tropical horticulturalists will
have up to 500 or 600 generic (basic-level) terms for plants and animals, and
that 80\% of these will contain no subtaxa.  Generic terms can be identified
because subtaxa will be named by contrast sets incorporating the genus name,
except for certain species of high cultural significance.  Furthermore, since
taxa have objective existence, people in different cultures should identify
the same taxa, and this includes Western biologists.  Berlin specifically
claims that generic taxa will correspond to genus or species in Linnaean
taxonomy for higher life forms, but to higher ranks for lower life forms.  It
has also been claimed more precisely that some cultures tend to give basic
names to what corresponds to Linnaean genera, and others to Linnaean species.

I have investigated these claims with respect to the native taxonomic
system of Hawai`i.  Hawai`i is an agricultural society that
technically lies within the tropics, although it should be recognized
that its climate is more temperate than typical tropical areas.  It
remained completely isolated from most of the world until two hundred
years ago, so far all practical purposes one may consider its
taxonomical system to be a natural continuation of the native
Polynesian, with no non-Polynesian influences until Cook.  Accounts of
the vocabulary and native flora and fauna were begun soon after
contact, and it is easy by and large to distinguish native species
from introduced ones, and quite easy to identify borrowed vocabulary.
Thus Hawai`i constitutes an ideal closed system.  In several respects,
however, Hawai`i is unusual.  Its extreme isolation means that the
terrestrial fauna is highly restricted (mostly insects and birds), and
the flora is atypical, consisting of a high percentage of ferns, for
example.  Hawai`ians depended heavily on food species they brought
with them from abroad, and to a very large extent on food from the
sea.  Among tropical horticulturalist societies, Hawai`i may be about
as far removed as is possible from the South American societies Berlin
investigated.  This is of course both good and bad.  If Berlin's
universal predictions are wrong, Hawai`i would seem a good candidate
for a counterexample.  On the other hand, it should be admitted that
Hawai`i is unusual enough that it could rightly be considered a
special case.

\section{Procedure}

\subsection{Data}

The first step was to compile a list of the Hawai`ian words that name taxa of
biota.  For this I relied primarily on Pukui and Elbert (1986), which is by
far the most authoritative and comprehensive dictionary of the language.  This
in turn draws upon (among others) Abbott and Williamson (1974) and Reed (1907)
for seaweeds; Neal (1965), Handy (1940), Krauss (1974), Rock (1913a), St. John
(1975a, 1975b, 1982), {\em Taro} 1970, Titcomb (1948), Whitney et al. (1939),
and Hillebrand (1888) for land flora; Pyle (1977) and Berger (1981) for birds;
Gosline and Brock (1960), Summers (1964), Titcomb (1972), and Kay (1979) for
aquatic fauna; and McKeown (1978) for land fauna.  I have not consulted these
works myself, although that would be a logical next step if I continued this
project.  I extracted the names by the simple method of reading through each
entry in the Hawai`ian-English section of the dictionary.  I also spot-checked
in the English-Hawai`ian section, which was particularly useful when entries
there gave lists of ferns, etc.  I also cross-checked by looking up all the
names mentioned in Mitchell (1992) and in Handy (1958), who drew also on Rock
(1913b), Degener (1945), and Hubbard (1952).  This not only verified that the
dictionary was complete (it didn't lack any of the names found in those
works), but also gave a good grounding in which biota were culturally
significant.

When extracting names, I systematically excluded taxa that clearly belonged
below Berlin's generic level.  This was most clear-cut when the names formed
contrast sets.  For example, the {\em lehua} tree has several varieties known
as {\em lehua `Apane} `red lehua', {\em lehua k\=u-ma-kua} `standing-back
lehua' (a variety with sessile cordate leaves), {\em lehua lau li`i}
`small-leafed lehua', {\em lehua maka noe} `misty-faced lehua' (a bog-dwelling
variety), and {\em lehua mamo} `{\em mamo} lehua' (i.e., yellow like the {\em
mamo} bird).  A more difficult case was when there were several taxa narrowly
delineating an item of great cultural importance.  Berlin recognizes that
domesticated biota are more likely to be given subgeneric names (p. 24) and
also that those subgeneric names are more likely not to form contrast sets (p.
30).  That doesn't seem to leave any linguistic means of identifying them as
subgeneric.  I therefore fell back on the strictly cultural test of
domestication, omitting names of taxa that clearly were differentiated through
human influence.  In Linnaean terms, these amounted to cultivars of a single
species.  This was most important in the case of types of taro {\em (kalo)}
(300 varieties), the sweet potato {\em (`uala)} (200 varieties), banana {\em
(mai`a)} (50 varieties), and sugar cane {\em (k\=o)} (40 varieties).  Oddly
enough, none of my sources have indicated such a proliferation of subgeneric
names for domesticated animals (the dog, pig, and chicken).  I did not apply
such a filter to fish, even though they were often kept in ponds.

I also excluded entries for which the Linnaean category was not given by the
dictionary.  Almost all names were so identified.  The exceptions were a few
cases that were obvious, and didn't need identification, such as {\em
{\=\i}lio}, `dog', in which case I supplied the Linnaean name ({\em Canis
familiaris}).  Other exceptions were some names denoting biota of uncertain
identity.  The fact that some names were omitted means there was a small but
not negligible skew in the database toward plants of some cultural
significance; such a bias is almost inevitable in any sort of study.  

Finally, I omitted taxa that I had good reason to believe were introduced to
Hawai`i after European contact.  In addition to explicit statements that a
species was introduced, I also relied on clues such as names that are adapted
from a European word, or names that include elements such as {\em haole}
`foreign'.  Doubtless many biota slipped by that are in fact non-native.  This
could have been controlled more carefully by researching each of the taxa in
the scientific literature, but that would have been prohibitively
time-consuming.  The important thing is to weed out words that are obviously
built on a secondary basis, which has been accomplished for the worst
offenders at least.

After collecting some 642 taxa, I attempted to identify names that were
suprageneric.  {\em Kupukupu} refers to ferns, particularly those with a
single stalk.  {\em Mau`u} refers to all sedges and grasses.  {\em Limu} is
usually identified as `seaweed', but it also includes any plant that grows in
water, as well as the lower cryptogams.  The word {\em l\=a`au} is identified
in the dictionary as meaning `plant'.  The root idea seems to be `stick', and
may refer to woody plants especially.  Unfortunately it is hard to tease out
whether a pre-contact Hawaiian would have used it to refer to cryptogams or
sea plants or even to grasses.  I have tentatively equated it with land
plants, including ferns and sedges, but in opposition to {\em limu}.  When
collecting statistics, I gathered under {\em l\=a`au} any plant that does not
belong to the other three categories, so that if someone has a broader
conception of its meaning, they can simply add the statistics together.  In
the animal kingdom, {\em manu} is `bird', and {\em i`a}, which is usually
translated `fish', actually refers to any water animal.  Here again, it is
hard to tease out the exact meaning of the broad term {\em holoholona}.  This
is usually translated `animal', and clearly includes insects.  Since its root
meaning is to `walk', I have interpreted this as being land animals, in
opposition to air and water animals, but again, further research is needed in
order to understand the pre-contact usage.  I grouped all the identified
Hawaiian taxa under these seven categories, which Berlin might consider
life-forms, and further distinguished vertebrates from invertebrates.  In
addition, I identified several words that are probably to be considered
intermediate categories; it can be surprisingly difficult to decide subclass
relationships from dictionary entries.  Into this category I placed {\em
aloalo} `hibiscus'; {\em ha`iwale} `slender shrubs'; {\em kolokolo} `creeping
vines'; {\em l{\=\i}p\=al\=awai} `algae'; {\em nalo} `two-winged insects';
{\em leho} `cowries'; {\em naunau} `shellfish'; {\em `\=olepe} `bivalves';
{\em `opihi} `limpets'.

The information was placed in a flat file suitable for {\tt awk} processing.
The records were multi-line entities separated by blank spaces; the fields
were single lines, untagged.  A line beginning with an asterisk introduced a
section of the file dedicated to a new life form, and an ampersand at the
beginning of a record indicated that it (probably) referred to an intermediate
taxon.  All the rest of the records (622) were implicitly genus-level.  The
fields for each record are identified by position.  The first line gives the
basic Hawai`ian name for the taxon, in the modern orthography; I used a
backquote to indicate glottal stop, and capital letters to indicate long
vowels.  The second line gives the Linnaean name for the taxon.  If the
Hawaiian name corresponds to more than one Linnaean taxon, all were given,
separated by commas or semicolons.  Normally this was a genus/species pair,
but often a genus alone.  Occasionally the taxon was above the genus level, in
which case I preposed a designation identifying it as {\em class, subclass,
ord., subord., fam.} or {\em subfam.} When the sources gave several words
identified as Hawaiian subgenera which corresponded to different Linnaean
taxa, I listed all the Linnaean taxa in the record for the Hawaiian genus.
For some records, I added a tag to each taxon, identifying the Hawai`ian
qualifier that corresponded to the taxon, but I began doing this after doing
much of the work, and did not go back and consistently expand the earlier
records.  Consequently, no use is made of that information.  The third field
of the record gives an English gloss.  The fourth field gives Hawai`ian
synonyms.  This was distinguished from the name in the first field only by
considering which one the dictionary chose to give the main definition under.

The data were processed by means of an {\tt awk} programme.  Each Hawai`ian
taxon was treated as a Hawai`ian names (field 1) paired with an array of
Linnaean names (field 2).  The Linnaean names were processed in order to
resolve the taxonomic rank of each component, with abbreviations like {\em
var.} and {\em subsp.} being ignored, and genus initials expanded.  All the
taxa were compared with each other to ensure that no two had the same Linnaean
name.  A few dozen conflicts arose, and they were studied in depth to
ascertain whether the entries were synonyms (in which case they were merged)
or whether they stood in a subtype relation, in which case either the broader
term was marked as intermediate (and henceforth ignored) or the narrower term
was reevaluated to see whether it was really subgeneric.

The most important test performed by the programme was to determine what
Linnaean rank each Hawai`ian taxon corresponded to.  This may seem
straightforward, since the syntax of the Linnaean names makes it clear what
their rank is: a single capitalized name is a genus, unless it is preceded by
one of the suprageneric rank abbreviations; two names is specific; three
subspecific.  But if a Linnaean genus is monotypic, a species name for all
intents and purposes also denotes the genus.  Even if the genus is polytypic,
the same clearly holds if only one of the species is found in Hawai`i.  If
more than one species is found in Hawai`i but only one of them is named, then
it would appear to be just as reasonable to take it as a genus name.  Either
the other species aren't known to the natives, in which case the situation is
just like the preceding, or the Hawai`ians didn't consider the difference
between the species to be salient enough to require a different name.  The
recorder of the Linnaean name would have presumably given the name for the
species he or she examined, which if we're lucky was a prototype, but which
could just as well have been the first exemplar encountered.  On the other
hand, species that are effectively monotypic do not allow one to decide
for or against the hypotheses that the culture prefers to name things at the
level of the Linnaean genus, or at the level of the species.  Note that the
need to determine whether multiple species within the same genus have
different Hawai`ian names means that this kind of study cannot be performed
with a random sample of the lexicon, but must be reasonably comprehensive.

In accordance with these considerations, the programme breaks the Hawai`ian
taxa into four categories.  Taxa known to include biota from more than one
Linnaean genus are classified as ``above the genus level''.  Taxa known to
include more than one species from the same genus are classified as ``at the
genus level''. It should be noted that it is possible in some cases that the
genus is a member of a family that is effectively monotypic.  However, this
case wasn't considered because this information wasn't available in my
sources, and at any rate the number of taxa classified in this category was
quite small.  If a taxon names a species or subspecies in a genus which has
another species or subspecies named by another taxon, both of those taxa are
classified ``below the genus level.''  The remainder---those taxa identified
as a particular species in an effectively monotypic genus---are classified as
``at genus or species level.''  These are the ones that I have argued are
basically generic, but which do not constitute evidence against the hypothesis
that Hawai`ians like to name things at the species level.

For each life form, the programme counts how many taxa are in that category
({\em l\=a`au}, land plants, are counted separately from {\em kupukupu},
ferns, and {\em mu`u}, sedges).  It tells how many taxa are in each of the
four categories described above.  For those above and below the genus level,
it lists the taxa, grouping the latter by the Linnaean genus.  The programme
then sums the information across all life forms.

The programme also computes the correlation between the length of the
Hawai`ian name and the Linnaean rank the name corresponds to.  This was done
as a poor man's morphological analysis, since it would be very difficult to
determine the etymology of all 622 of the Hawai`ian names in the database. The
hypothesis is that longer names will be more likely to be compound.  Berlin's
theory is silent as to whether there is any correlation between the structure
of primary names and the Linnaean rank.  The implication is that there should
not be: primary names normally denote taxa at the native genus rank and above,
and the mapping between native and Linnaean ranks is based on pragmatic, not
linguistic, considerations.  For this study, length of name was determined in
three ways: by segment count, by mora count, and by syllable count.  In
addition to a printed report, the programme generates data files suitable for
input into David Harrison's {\tt xgraph} programme.  The correlation computed
is the standard Pearson's {\em r} statistic.

The data file, programme, and its raw output are included as appendices to
this report.  Please refer to the programme for further information as to
the exact algorithms that were used.


\section{Results}

Table~1 summarizes how the Hawai`ian generic taxa align with the Linnaean
taxa.  Recall that {\em l\=a`au} are essentially Angiosperms other than grasses; {\em
kupukupu} are ferns (Filicineae); {\em mau`u} are grasses and sedges; and {\em
limu} are plants other than Pteropsida (algae, seaweeds, fungi, mosses).  {\em
Holoholona} are land animals---both vertebrates and invertebrates.  {\em Manu}
are birds.  {\em I`a} are water-dwelling animals, here broken down into
invertebrates and vertebrates.

The columns of the table show what percent of the taxa in these native
categories are clearly above the level of the Linnaean genus (i.e., they
comprise two or more genera); clearly at the level of the genus (i.e., they
comprise two or more species in one genus); are ambiguous between the genus
and the specific rank (they name a species in a monotypic genus); and are
clearly below the level of the genus (they name a species in a genus in which
there are other terms for other species).

\input lifeForms

Table~2 summarizes how good a correlation there is between the length of the
Hawai`ian word, computed in segments, moras, or syllables, and the Linnaean
rank it corresponds to.

More detailed data can be gleaned by reading the printout.  For each Hawai`ian
life form, it lists the Hawai`ian taxa that are definitely above and below the
Linnaean genus level.  It also tells exactly how many taxa names are of each
length in the three different measuring systems.  An appendix to this report
also presents the latter information in graphic form.


\section{Discussion}

During the course of this study, I informally verified that many of Berlin's
predictions hold for Hawai`ian.  The taxa are arranged in a shallow hierarchy.
Below a certain level, further distinctions are made by adding to the basic
word terms that are more or less descriptive.  The terms are added after the
basic term, since Hawai`ian compounds and noun phrases are left headed.  For
example, the word {\em puhi} `eel' can be used alone or qualified by the words
{\em ao} `(day)light', {\em h\=apala} `painted' ({\em Gymnothorax pictus}),
{\em ho`ol\=a`au} `stick-like', {\em k\=ap\=a} `squeezing' (a fierce species),
{\em k\=ap{\=\i}p{\=\i}} `lightly salted', {\em k{\=\i}na`u} `stained', {\em
koali} `morning-glory', {\em kumuone} `sandstone' (sand-coloured), {\em
l=a`au} `stick', {\em lau milo} `milo leaf', {\em lei hala} `pandanus lei',
{\em nanaka} `cracked', {\em nau `ai} `food-chewing', {\em nonokea} `pink?',
{\em nuku `ula} `red-mouthed', and so on.  Most of these terms are no
different in kind from the terms one might use in English to describe species
and cultivars.  In particular, they do tend to denote inherent properties or
behaviours of the plant or animal, not the use people put them to.  There
were, however, occasional qualifiers, such as {\em `o`a}, that have no
independent meaning.  I also noted many cases of prototyping.  {\em Hau} plain
and simple designates the {\em Hibiscus tiliaceus} tree; {\em hau hele `ula},
`rubescent hau' and {\em hau kuahiwi} `mountain hau' name related trees ({\em
Kokia} and {\em Hibiscadelphus}).  Furthermore, Berlin's prediction that
culturally significant biota will be classified with more granularity holds
up.  Taro, sweet potatoes, bananas and sugar cane all had dozens or even
hundreds of words, many of which could be used independently, as primary
names.

On a more quantitative tack, the total count of 622 generic Hawai`ian taxa
holds up pretty well to Berlin's prediction that tropical horticulturalists
will have an upper limit of five to six hundred (p. 23).  And my impression
was that he was broadly correct in predicting that some 80\% of the generic
taxa would be monotypic, although I did not systematically collect subgeneric
names so that I could quantify this precisely.

My main purpose in this project was to investigate the hypothesis that
societies tend to give basic-level names at either the Linnaean genus rank or
the species rank, but not both.  The data in Table~1 do not suggest a clear
answer, partly because 49\% of all the names are for the only named species in
a genus.  Certainly such names cannot be used to disprove either that the
Hawai`ians prefer to name at the genus level or that they prefer the species
level.  Even if we were able to show that all of the ambiguous names should be
classed as genus-level, there would still be a residue of 41\% that are not
genus-level.  Or if they were all shown to be species-level, then there would
still be a residue of 26\% that are not species-level.  So even in the best of
cases, where we could show that all of these ambiguous-level terms name
species in polytypic genera and that Hawai`ians refuse to apply the names to
the other species in the same genus, we could claim only that 74\% of the
basic names are at the species level, which is not an overwhelming
predominance.  As it stands, however, we should discard those ambiguous-level
taxa, in which case we see that 52\% of the remaining biota are named at the
genus level or above, and 48\% are named below the genus level, which is about
as close to random as one can get.  The hypothesis that cultures name either
at the genus or the species level should be rejected.

Berlin himself, however, gives a much more cautious prediction as his
principle~7.  On p. 25-26, he states:
\begin{quote}
For the higher vascular plants and larger vertebrate animals, generic taxa
often approximate in their content the genera and species of Western
scientific biology.  For the smaller vascular plants, lower cryptogams,
smaller vertebrates, and many invertebrates, the correspondence of folk
generic taxa more closely approximates scientific taxa of the ranks of family,
order, or class.
\end{quote}
This is not a very strong statement.  No prediction at all is made to
distinguish between the genus and the species level, or between the family,
order, and class levels.  Berlin divides the biological world into two parts,
but is vague as to whether the difference is one of size or evolutionary
complexity, or where the cutoff should be in either case.  Where do ferns fit
in, which do not seem to me to be either ``higher vascular plants'' or ``lower
cryptogams'' but rather higher cryptogams or lower vascular plants.  Do
grasses qualify as higher vascular plants or smaller ones?  Finally, the
statement ``often approximates'' is quite a hedge.  The statement would be
fulfilled if several such correspondences could be found in some system in the
world, but it does not even require that such correspondences predominate.
Surely if we divide the Linnaean ranks into two parts and the biological world
into two parts, the specified correspondence would ``often'' occur even if the
correspondences were assigned totally at random.

Much as one might enjoy tearing the statement apart, it does contain
the germ of a verifiable claim: that there is an inverse
correspondence between the size and/or complexity of a plant or animal
on the one hand and the height of the Linnaean rank its folk generic
term will correspond to.  It might be interesting to see to what
extent my data support the prediction, although it should however be
kept in mind that the study was not set up for this purpose.  In
particular, the database does not contain information about the
average size of mature specimens.  Neither does it contain information
to determine whether a genus is a member of a monotypic family.
Although this case is less common than that of monotypic genera, there
is the possibility that some of the names I have classified at the
genus level could actually be ambiguous between genus and family.  For
example, since the Hawai`ians knew of only one rodent, the rat, there
is no obvious way of deciding whether their word {\em `iole} should be
considered a species, genus, family, or order term.  (I do not think
it is any help to know that they called the non-native beaver a {\em
  `{\=\i}lio hulu p\=apale}, `hat-fur dog'.)

Keeping this danger in mind, the breakdown in Table 1 does
nevertheless provide some useful information.  Among the plants, {\em
  mau`u} `grasses' have the highest percentage of taxa named above the
genus level (22\%), followed by {\em kupukupu} `ferns' at 16\%, {\em
  l\=a`au} `other land plants' at 11\%, and {\em limu} `sea plants' at
8\%.  The same ranking obtains if one counts the percentage of taxa
unambiguously above the species level (37\%, 29\%, 24\%, 22\%).  There
is no obvious ranking here in terms of Western notions of evolutionary
complexity, where the ranking would be, in descending order, {\em
  l\=a`au}, {\em mau`u}, {\em kupukupu}, {\em limu}.  But it does
appear that size and/or a rough idea of geometrical complexity may be
involved in the ordering.  Grasses tend to be rather one-dimensional,
giving an overall impression of small size and morphological
simplicity.  Ferns are larger overall (especially in Hawai`i), and
have a two-dimensional aspect.  The other land plants include
everything from wildflowers to trees, all three dimensional, and may
be expected to average out to intermediate size, and fairly complex
apparent morphology.  {\em Limu} too have quite a range in size, since
they include some quite large seaweeds and (expanses of) algae.  But
before accepting the size hypothesis, the possibility of cultural
importance should not be overlooked either.  Hawai`ians had no grain
foods.  A few ferns were used for ferns, but were of very minor
importance.  The other Angiosperms and many seaweeds, however, were an
important part of the diet.

Among the animals, the ranking in terms of number of taxa above the genus
level is {\em holoholona}, land invertebrates, at 53\%; {\em i`a}, aquatic,
invertebrates, at 28\%, followed by aquatic vertebrates at 22\%; then {\em
manu}, birds, at 4\%.  I omit {\em holoholona} vertebrates, since there are
only three of them (dog, pig, rat), all of which would be of ambiguous
ranking.  The same ranking obtains if one counts all taxa unambiguously above
the species level.  The ranking roughly follows notions of evolutionary
complexity, with the arthropods and mollusks at the bottom, followed by fish,
then birds.  It also roughly follows a size ranking, although of course many
fish are larger than birds.  Finally, it also follows a general cultural
importance ranking, with aquatic invertebrates (crabs, mollusks, squid, etc.)
forming a more important diet element than most land arthropods (lice, etc.),
and both of them being less important than fish.  Birds were not too
significant as a food source, but several species were highly prized for their
feathers.

It would seem therefore that Berlin's observation may well be right, that
inherent properties may correlate to Linnaean rank level.  If that is so, then
the case of the Hawai`ian plants indicates that it is a matter of size or
gross geometric complexity than one of morphological complexity as Western
scientists conceive it.  However, the data here are insufficient to
distinguish this hypothesis from the idea that cultural relevance (or overall
familiarity) that is the correlating factor.

Finally, Table~2 and the graphs in the appendix give some information about
the relationship between the length of the Hawai`ian word and the level it
names.  It will be recalled that Berlin merely says that any sort of name can
be applied at the levels of the genus and above, which is what this database
consists of.  (His only prediction is that subgeneric names will normally
consist of basic name plus qualifier, which I have already informally
corroborated above.)  It would be interesting to know however whether there is
any correlation between the complexity of a word and the Linnaean rank that
the native genus it names corresponds to.  Three measures of word length were
introduced as a rough measure of complexity.

The reader should be cautioned that Pearson correlations rarely mean quite as
much as they seem to imply.  A sharp spike in an otherwise random graph can
easily result in very high correlation coefficients.  In an experiment like
this, one should probably take seriously only correlations at 0.8 or above.
One should also keep in mind that the high number of ``ambiguous'' entries
removes a lot of confidence in the ``genus'' and ``below genus'' columns.
Nevertheless there does appear to be one clear result: the shorter the word,
the more likely it is to name something above the Linnaean genus rank.  The
best measure for word length is the number of syllables, which gives virtually
a straight-line correlation.  It is possible that this correlation is actually
due to morphological complexity; perhaps derived forms or compounds are used
less often for terms at higher ranks.

Whatever the linguistic basis, this is a strong effect not directly predicted
by Berlin's theory.  Nor can his theory account for the effect, since there
are no grounds for distinguishing different types of native genera such that
one group of them could be assigned shorter or longer words.  But I believe
that this finding supports his general approach, which holds that all peoples
will tend to classify the natural world in quite similar ways.  This
correlation suggests that even when a folk genus is not at the equivalent
Linnaean rank, the taxon nevertheless must be perceived to have some
distinguishing characteristic that signals that it is more inclusive than
other folk genera, and on which basis shorter words can be assigned.  Thus the
alignment between ranks in the different systems is closer than would appear
from applying the single criterion of whether the taxon is the narrowest one
that has a primary name.

Although this study has turned up some intriguing statistics, I should
emphasize that this was a rough and ready survey based on secondary sources.
There are many further steps that could be taken if more time and resources
become available.  One could go further in determining the complete Linnaean
classification of biota, so as to see whether families are monotypic and at
what particular suprageneric rank the word size effect is strongest.  This
would also allow one to study whether the Hawai`ian taxa actually correspond
to particular Linnaean taxa at all, or rather consist of bits and pieces from
different Linnaean taxa.  The words could be analyzed morphologically, to see
whether it is morphological or phonological complexity that accounts for the
word size effect.  Field work might be able to help with determining whether
the ``ambiguous'' taxa are in fact monotypic, and if so, in what sense: that
Hawai`ians only know about the one species, or that they use the name for the
species as a prototypical name for all biota in the genus.  Most importantly,
it would be useful to find out for sure which terms can subsume other terms.
More work should also be done with the synonyms.  Certainly many terms are
restricted to use on particular islands, but the multiplicity of synonyms
leads one to fear that many of them may be referring to different taxa,
perhaps at different levels.  Finally, it would be interesting to replicate
this experiment with other cultures, to determine which of these findings are
universal and which may be attributable to the special ecology and culture of
the Hawai`ian Islands.



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\end{document}
