Meaning: tree

Illustrative Context

There is a tree beside the house.

Target Sense

• The most generic noun for a tree in this prototypical sense: at least large enough to be taller than and able to give shade to a human standing under it; perennial; and with a hard, woody trunk.
• Languages may differ in how widely applicable their most basic term is to trees of different sizes and types (also according to local species and environment). The basic lexeme may thus also extend beyond the prototypical case, e.g. in English a banana plant can also be popularly referred to as a ‘tree’. This is not necessarily a concern: the target lexeme should simply be the most basic one that would be applicable to the prototypical sense and illustrative context as defined above (and potentially also more broadly).
• Follow common usage and basic vocabulary. Strict technical and biological classification criteria are not relevant — see also the definition for the separate IE-CoR meaning ant.
• Avoid lexemes that are hypernyms, not specific enough to a tree, e.g. plant.
• Avoid lexemes that are hyponyms, i.e. narrower and more specific in any way, e.g.:
  • Avoid terms that specifically denote relatively small scale, e.g. bush.
  • Avoid terms that specifically refer to parts rather than the whole of a tree, e.g. trunk, crown, wood.
  • Avoid terms for general types of tree (e.g. conifer), or specific species (e.g. oak).
• If a language has no generic lexeme, and only distinct lexemes for different types of tree (e.g. evergreen vs. deciduous), then enter whichever of those terms is more basic or more common in the local context. Only if no clear distinction can be made on those grounds, enter the term for the deciduous tree.
• The term selected should be applicable to a single tree, and will thus normally be a singular noun. Only in a language where the clearly most basic term is a collective, and where specifying a single tree would require additional singulative morphology, should a collective noun be entered instead.
• Most languages will have clearly distinct lexemes for this meaning tree, and the separate IE-CoR meaning forest. Only in few languages might the basic lexeme be the same in both meanings, and distinguished just by additional morphology.
• Compare with the similar approach to considerations of size in other separate IE-CoR meanings such as river, bird and leaf.)