a measure of the degree of correspondence of folk to scientific biological classification 1

Abstract

The paper begins by discussing the utility of new techniques for measuring the degree to which various folk systems of biological classification approximate the scientific zoological or botanical classification. One such technique is described and applied to the Tzeltal classification of mammals. Statistics provided by the proposed measure provide a test of the hypothesis that there is a psychologically fundamental and logically general set of folk biological taxa. The measure is formally defined.