Explicit and hidden zoological categories in early Chinese taxonomies

Abstract

Abstract The present article investigates the problems of zoological taxonomical categories in texts that range from the Warring States (ca. 453–221 BCE) to the Eastern Han periods (25–220 CE). It focuses its attention on the Erya (attested 3rd c. BCE), a work that had a pivotal role during the development of Chinese lexicography. This terse glossary is probably one of the first texts that deal with the problem of taxonomical classification in early China through the use of syntactical devices that I call “categorical markers”, i.e. normalised characters that introduce an ontologically independent category of entities. By dint of the analysis of selected case studies, it will be shown that along fairly well attested “categorical markers” that constitute dichotomous systems (such as shou 獸 “quadruped furred creatures” versus niao 鳥 “bipedal winged creatures”), early Chinese taxonomies reveal less explicit linguistic devices that are implied in zoological classification, e.g. the presence of “sub-categorical markers” as noun modifiers (chou 醜 “being physically similar” or shu 屬 “to belong to a category”) used in order to create embedded taxonomies within the standard “categorical markers”. This complexity reveals an organised taxonomical system that helps us to better define the early Chinese conception of the natural world.