The 9-day workshop (Nov 11 - 21, 2019) on theory construction using language structure is proving to be helpful in the further understanding of some of the concepts, particularly theoretical categories.
At the outset, the study of language is conceptualized as an instrument of access to the study of the mind. The regularities in, within and across languages, points to 'mental systems' that are universal to humans (i.e., the mind generates these regularities). More specifically, the theoretical categories (such as noun, verb etc.,) identified from these regularities are seen as properties of the mind. Analogous to this, defining the theoretical categories such as "mammals" etc can be seen as an access to understand the biological world, more specifically it's diversity. After defining these categories and arranging it as a classificatory tree, it becomes all the more interesting to ask why such a classificatory tree occurs.