Concerning your specific example, “tree”, there is a rich anthropological literature on folk taxonomy. You can find it by searching on the name “Brent Berlin” and then looking around (there’s probably a Wikipedia entry). It seems, for example, that while most preliterate cultures have a word corresponding to “tree”, they don’t have one corresponding to “plant”, nor, for that matter, do they have one corresponding to “animal”. Moreover it seems that folk taxonomies start from the middle and build up and down from there.
Concerning your specific example, “tree”, there is a rich anthropological literature on folk taxonomy. You can find it by searching on the name “Brent Berlin” and then looking around (there’s probably a Wikipedia entry). It seems, for example, that while most preliterate cultures have a word corresponding to “tree”, they don’t have one corresponding to “plant”, nor, for that matter, do they have one corresponding to “animal”. Moreover it seems that folk taxonomies start from the middle and build up and down from there.