Biological Metaphor and Cladistic Classification An Interdisciplinary Approach

About this book

The dynamic aspect of biological systems – the birth, growth, and death of individual organisms, the evolution of one form into another over time – has formed the basis for metaphors used in many fields for both artistic and heuristic purposes. Cladistic classification uses a tree whose branch points are based on the possession of derived or relatively recent characteristics, rather than primitive ones.

Contents

Preface

Part One: Historical Perspectives
1. Biological Analogy in the Study of Languages Before the Advent of Comparative Grammar / W. Keith Percival
2. The Life and Growth of Language: Metaphors in Biology and Linguistics / Rulon S. Wells
3. "Organic" and "Organism" in Franz Bopp / Anna Morpurgo Davies
4. On Schleicher and Trees  /Konrad Koerner
5. A Legal Point / Boyd H. Davis
6. Haeckel's Variations on Darwin / Jane M. Oppenheimer

Part Two: Methodology
7. Cladistic and Paleobotanical Approaches to Plant Phylogeny / Peter R. Crane and Christopher R. Hill
8. Pattern and Process: Phylogenetic Reconstruction in Botany / Peter F. Stevens

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Biography

Henry M. Hoenigswald was a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. Linda F. Weiner is on the faculty of St. Johns College in Santa Fe, New Mexico.