Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T15:25:10.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The algebraic logic of kinship terminology structures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2010

Dwight W. Read
Dwight W. Read
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90095. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Jones' proposed application of Optimality Theory assumes the primary kinship data are genealogical definitions of kin terms. This, however, ignores the fact that these definitions can be predicted from the computational, algebralike structural logic of kinship terminologies, as has been discussed and demonstrated in numerous publications. The richness of human kinship systems derives from the cultural knowledge embedded in kinship terminologies as symbolic computation systems, not the post hoc constraints devised by Jones.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 33 , Issue 5 , October 2010 , pp. 399 - 401
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bennardo, G. & Read, D. W. (2007) Cognition, algebra, and culture in the Tongan kinship terminology. Journal of Cognition and Culture 7(2):49–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leaf, M. J. (2006) Experimental-formal analysis of kinship. Ethnology 45(4):305–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leaf, M. & Read, D. (2010) Human social organization and the computational mind: Ethnology as a formal science. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (2006a) Matrilineal clans and kin terms on Rossel Island. Anthropological Linguistics 48(1):1–43.Google Scholar
Marshall, L. (1976) The !Kung of Nyae Nyae. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkin, R. (2009) What Shapiro and McKinnon are all about, and why kinship still needs anthropologists. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 17(2):158–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prince, A. & Smolensky, P. (1997) Optimality: From neural networks to universal grammar. Science 275:1604–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Read, D. (2001b) What is kinship? In: The cultural analysis of kinship: The legacy of David Schneider and its implications for anthropological relativism, ed. Feinberg, R. & Ottenheimer, M., pp. 78–117. University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Read, D. (2007) Kinship theory: A paradigm shift. Ethnology 46:329–64.Google Scholar
Read, D. (2010) The logic and structure of kinship terminologies: Implications for theory and historical reconstructions. In: Per Hage and the renaissance in kinship studies, ed. Jones, D. & Milicic, B., pp. 152–72. University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Read, D. (submitted) Reconstructing the proto-Polynesian terminology: Kinship terminologies as evolving logical structures. In: Kinship systems: Change and reconstruction, ed. McConvell, P. & Keen, I.. University of Utah Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar