Illustrative Context

He picked a leaf from the tree.

Target Sense

• The lexeme selected for the meaning ‘leaf’ in IE-CoR must be applicable (as in the illustrative context) to the prototypical sense of a leaf of a tree-like plant, predominantly thin and flat in shape, and of a prototypical size of the order of the leaf of a beech tree or oak.
• The default lexeme will of course in most languages be a broad term also widely applicable to leaves of many different shapes and sizes, including those of plants smaller than trees, but within that variety the term selected must also cover this prototypical case. (Compare with the similar approach to considerations of prototypical form and size in the separate IE-CoR meanings bird, lake and forest.)
• The prototypical colour – at least in the growing season – is green (given that the leaf is usually the main organ of photosynthesis), although the prototypical sense of leaf also includes that it is potentially deciduous, and thus may well change in colour before falling.
• Do not focus on strict biological definitions. IE-CoR policy is to favour basic, default terms, rather than technical, scientific ones. So although technically, in biological classification, ‘leaves’ may encompass very distinctive physical forms, including the pine needles of conifers, what matters to IE-CoR is popular usage, and how a language segments the semantic space, which typically does not strictly follow scientific criteria. In the case of ‘leaf’, most languages focus on shape and size. Select the most basic, default term, without strict attention to technical biological characteristics such as photosynthesis or deciduousness. (Compare with the similar considerations in the definition of the IE-CoR meaning ant.)
• If the most basic lexeme in your language is a collective, then this can be entered provided that it is significantly more basic and default than alternative lexemes that could denote a single leaf. In particular, if the term for a single leaf is a singulative, formed by adding additional morphology to the same basic root that is by default a collective, then that basic collective term can be entered, along with a note mentioning the singulative form. (Since the root remains the same, this does not affect cognacy at the level of the root, as followed in IE-CoR.)
• Avoid, however, terms specific to the sense of foliage where the language also has a basic term that can be applied to a single leaf as in the illustrative context. The term in German is therefore Blatt, not Laub (irrespective of the fact that Laub is cognate with English leaf)., and in French feuille not feuillage.
• The term selected should refer to the literal leaf of a tree. In many languages the same basic term may have other figurative senses too, but avoid other lexemes specific to non-literal senses of a leaf, e.g. a sheet or page of paper.