Toward Reinvigorating an Ethnolinguistic Approach to the Study of ‘Kin Terms’: A View from Nascent-based Zuni Relational Terminology (original) (raw)
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Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2010
Research in anthropology has shown that kin terminologies have a complex combinatorial structure and vary systematically across cultures. This article argues that universals and variation in kin terminology result from the interaction of (1) an innate conceptual structure of kinship, homologous with conceptual structure in other domains, and (2) principles of optimal, "grammatical" communication active in language in general. Kin terms from two languages, English and Seneca, show how terminologies that look very different on the surface may result from variation in the rankings of a universal set of constraints. Constraints on kin terms form a system: some are concerned with absolute features of kin (sex), others with the position (distance and direction) of kin in "kinship space," others with groups and group boundaries (matrilines, patrilines, generations, etc.). Also, kin terms sometimes extend indefinitely via recursion, and recursion in kin terminology has parallels with recursion in other areas of language. Thus the study of kinship sheds light on two areas of cognition, and their phylogeny. The conceptual structure of kinship seems to borrow its organization from the conceptual structure of space, while being specialized for representing genealogy. And the grammar of kinship looks like the product of an evolved grammar faculty, opportunistically active across traditional domains of semantics, syntax, and phonology. Grammar is best understood as an offshoot of a uniquely human capacity for playing coordination games.
Mathematical Anthropology and Culture Theory, 2018
The goal of the paper is to show how the generative logic approach to kinship terminology structures sheds light on the basis for the skewing that characterizes the Crow-Omaha terminologies. The generative logic of the Omaha terminology of the Thonga-Ronga of southern Africa is examined in detail and the skewing in this terminology is found to occur as a consequence of having a set of male generating terms for the male kin terms, but only female self for the female kin terms. This contrasts sharply with the Omaha terminology of the Fox Indians for which the skewing is the result of a deleting the cross-cousin kin terms from an Iroquois terminology. The results obtained here underscore the need to consider the skewing associated with the Crow-Omaha terminologies from the perspective of the generative logic of kinship terminologies.
On the Processes of Change in Kinship Terminology: Rejoinder
American Anthropologist, 1956
American Anthropologisl [58, 19561 usages (and associated terminology) through time and the relation of this description to the particular adaptation of a society to its natural and social environments. This is what Spoehr, Gough, and others have done. Bruner's material suggests a different model. The data from Lone Hill requires more explicit attention to individual differences or to situational (structural-functional) determinants to account for individual choice of alternative kinship usage. A. KIMBALL ROMNEY and DUANE METZGER, University of Chicago REFERENCES CITED BRUNER, EDWARD M. 1955 Two processes of change in Mandan-Hidatsa kinship terminology. American Anthropologist 57:840-850. Menasha. 1941 Some aspects of culture change in the northern Philippines. American Anthropologist 43:ll-18. Menasha.
Frames of Reference and Kinship Terminology Systems
2016
Author(s): Bennardo, Giovanni | Abstract: The content of the spatial relationships module has been extensively studied and a fundamental part of such content is the concept of frame of reference; that is, a set of coordinates that generates an oriented space within which relationships between objects are established. There are three major types (and six subtypes) of frames of reference: the relative, the intrinsic, and the absolute. The content of the spatial relationships module has been proposed as being foundational to the development of both language and cognition. In this work I explore the possibility that the various types of frame of reference participate in the construction of the basic patterns of the kinship terminology systems: descriptive-Sudanese, bifurcate merging-Iroquois (also Crow and Omaha), classificatory and/or generational-Hawaiian (also classificatory-Dravidian), and lineal-Eskimo.
CROW-OMAHA KINSHIP: REVITALIZING A PROBLEM OR GENERATING A SOLUTION
Kinship, 2021
The article discusses the long-standing Crow-Omaha problem in kinship studies with a focus on the volume Crow-Omaha: New Light on a Classic Problem of Kinship Analysis (2012), edited by Thomas Trautmann and Peter Whiteley. While successful in restoring the importance of the Crow-Omaha problem to kinship studies and contributing to the revival of "traditional" kinship studies in anthropology, the book misses an opportunity to advance a solution to this problem. Drawing on a global database of kinship terminologies and the author's own treatment of the Crow-Omaha problem in The Genius of Kinship: The Phenomenon of Human Kinship and the Global Diversity of Kinship Terminologies (2007), the article uses empirical material from multiple language families represented in the Trautmann & Whiteley volume to demonstrate the importance of alternate-generation equivalences, Bifurcate Collateral grouping and sibling terminologies in the evolution of "Crow-Omaha skewing." Methodologically, it is recommended to shift kinship terminological analysis from using representative "case studies" to drawing on large-scale databases of global kinship-terminological variation, from discussing narrow "types" to discussing kinship terminologies as systems, from anthropology-only approaches to interdisciplinary studies marrying anthropology and linguistics, from semantics-only approaches to approaches combining semantics, etymology and speech pragmatics.
Human Complex Systems, 2000
The goal of this paper is to relate formal analysis of kinship terminologies to a better understanding of who, culturally, are defined as our kin. Part I of the paper begins with a brief discussion as to why neither of the two claims: (1) kinship terminologies primarily have to do with social categories and (2) kinship terminologies are based on classification of genealogically specified relationships traced through genitor and genetrix, is adequate as a basis for a formal analysis of a kinship terminology. The social category argument is insufficient as it does not account for the logic uncovered through the formalism of rewrite rule analysis regarding the distribution of kin types over kin terms when kin terms are mapped onto a genealogical grid. Any formal account must be able to account at least for the results obtained through rewrite rule analysis. Though rewrite rule analysis has made the logic of kinship terminologies more evident, the second claim must also be rejected for both theoretical and empirical reasons. Empirically, ethnographic evidence does not provide a consistent view of how genitors and genetrixes should be defined and even the existence of culturally recognized genitors is debatable for some groups. In addition, kinship relations for many groups are reckoned through a kind of kin term calculus independent of genealogical connections. Theoretically, rewrite rule formalism is descriptive and not explanatory of kinship terminology features. Four substantive problems with rewrite rule formalism are identified and illustrated with an example based on the concepts, Friend and Enemy. In Part II these problems are resolved when a kinship terminology is viewed from the perspective of a structured, symbolic system in which there is both a symbol calculus and a set of rules of instantiation giving the symbols empirical content. The way in which a kinship terminology constitutes a structured symbol system is illustrated with both the American/English and the Shipibo Indian (Peru) kinship terminologies. Each of these terminologies can be generated from primitive (or atomic) symbols using certain equations that give the structure its form and where the structure is constrained to satisfy two properties hypothesized to distinguish kinship terminology structures from other symbol structures. The structural analysis predicts correctly the distribution of kin types across the kin terms when the atomic kin terms/symbols are instantiated via the primitive kin types. In addition, features of the terminologies that heretofore have been assumed to arise for reasons extrinsic to the internal logic of the terminology are shown to be a consequence of the logic of how the symbol structure is generated.
Mathematical Anthropology and Culture Theory, 2018
The seven commentators, Thomas Trautmann, Peter Whiteley, Patrick McConvell, Patrick Heady, Franklin Tjon Sie Fat, Klaus Hamberger, and Mauro Barbosa de Almeida, provide wide ranging and important observations that go beyond the specifics of my text (http://mathematicalanthropology.org/Pdf/ReadMACT0118.pdf) and bring to the discussion important issues that relate to our understanding of the Crow-Omaha terminologies. (Their comments may be found at http://mathematicalanthropology.org/toc.html.) Their comments alone provide a major contribution to the discourse on the Crow-Omaha terminologies. Accordingly, my response to their comments focuses on ways that the structural analysis I presented of the Thongan kinship terminology relates to this broader discussion. I have divided my reply into seven parts: (1) Relationship of Abstract Algebras to Kinship Terminologies, (2) Other Methodologies: Thick Description, Equivalence Rules, Description and Extension, (3) Ethnographic Issues Relating to The Algebraic Representation, (4) Comments by Patrick McConvell, Patrick Heady, and Franklin Tjon Sie Fat, (5) The Formalism Issues Raised by Klaus Hamberger, (6) The Formalism Issues Raised by Maura Barbosa de Almeida, and (7) Conclusion -- Why Does Ñwana (‘Son’) o Malume (‘Mother’s Brother’) = Malume?