living things and another to animate objects only, piqued our curiosity. We noticed that this kind of polysemy, involving nested concepts related to is not unique to Wichí. ANIMACY, Notice, for example, that English, and Spanish as well, include two sense of animal: (which includes humans and non-human animals) and ANIMALinclusive ANIMALcontrastive (which includes only non-human animals, excluding humans). There is evidence that nested meanings like this have interesting consequences on our construal of the relation among humans, non-human animals and even plants (Angorro, et.al, 2008; Angorro, Medin and Waxman, 2010; Waxman, 2005; Leddon, et.al, 2008). Participants were 17 native adults (13 women; 4 men), Participants. Wichí-speaking ranging from 15 to 52 years of age (M=29.3). Although most had learned some Spanish as a second language, they converse almost exclusively in Participants were interviewed Wichí. individually in their homes. Interviews were conducted exclusively in by a native Wichí teacher, in collaboration with the first author. We developed a set of 10 cards, each with a color photograph of a single Materials. entity. Items were chosen to cover the range of living and non-living categories plants, animals, and non-living objects (See Table 1). The teacher/researcher explained that we were interested in learning about Procedure. the meaning of To begin, she simply asked, does mean for you?” Next, to husek. husek “What understand more precisely the extension of this term, she presented each of the 10 photographs, one at the time in random order, and asked participants to name the depicted entity and to identify whether or not it has Participants were encouraged to discuss husek. their reasoning throughout the task. Responses to each photograph were scored as 1 (yes) or 0 (no).We tabulated Scoring: participants’ responses to ascertain the range of entities to which they attributed husek. Results
living things and another to animate objects only, piqued our curiosity. We noticed that this kind of polysemy, involving nested concepts related to ANIMACY, is not unique to Wichí. Notice, for example, that English, and Spanish as well, include two sense of animal: ANIMALinclusive (which includes humans and non-human animals) and ANIMALcontrastive (which includes only non-human animals, excluding humans). There is evidence that nested meanings like this have interesting consequences on our construal of the relation among humans, non-human animals and even plants (Angorro, et.al, 2008; Angorro, Medin and Waxman, 2010; Waxman, 2005; Leddon, et.al, 2008). Participants. Participants were 17 native Wichí-speaking adults (13 women; 4 men), ranging from 15 to 52 years of age (M=29.3). Although most had learned some Spanish as a second language, they converse almost exclusively in Wichí. Participants were interviewed individually in their homes. Interviews were conducted exclusively in Wichí by a native teacher, in collaboration with the first author. Materials. We developed a set of 10 cards, each with a color photograph of a single entity. Items were chosen to cover the range of living and non-living categories plants, animals, and non-living objects (See Table 1). Procedure. The teacher/researcher explained that we were interested in learning about the meaning of husek. To begin, she simply asked, “What does husek mean for you?” Next, to understand more precisely the extension of this term, she presented each of the 10 photographs, one at the time in random order, and asked participants to name the depicted entity and to identify whether or not it has husek. Participants were encouraged to discuss their reasoning throughout the task. Scoring: Responses to each photograph were scored as 1 (yes) or 0 (no).We tabulated participants’ responses to ascertain the range of entities to which they attributed husek. Results
TavernaWaxmanEtal_inpressJoCC.docx