Kinship Expressions and Terms

All languages have expressions that can be glossed ‘father,’ ‘wife,’ ‘brother-in-law,’ etc., covering consanguineal, spousal, and affinal categories. However, from the beginning of serious cross-cultural study, it has been apparent that societies differ in the kinship categories used. To facilitate comparison, an ‘etic grid’ is necessary; namely, an open-ended universe of kin-types, such as ‘father’s sister,’ corresponding to the denotata of the infinitely expansible possessive construction seemingly found in all languages. The minimal nuclear components are parent (Pa), child (Ch), and spouse (Sp), a combinatory algorithm (PaPaSp1⁄4 parent’s parent’s spouse), and cross-cutting features, including sex of referent (Chþ female1⁄4 daughter), sex of linking relative (male linking relativeþChþ female1⁄4man’s daughter), and relative age within a generation (PaSbþ senior1⁄4 senior sibling). The initial linking relative (e.g., you in your father) is referred to as ‘ego’ or ‘propositus.’ In practice, most anthropologists and linguists operate with atomic categories based on a prototypical set of flesh-and-blood nuclear family members: Fa(ther), Mo(ther), Br(other), Si(ster), So(n), Da(ughter), Wi(fe), and Hu(sband). Combinations are then of the type FaMoBrWi (father’s mother’s brother’s wife). This grid permits analysis of the denotational scope of each kin term and, ultimately the entire system, by identifying the complete set of kin-types onto which the term maps. Some terms, such as English mother and brother, denote unique kin-types. Others, such as English uncle, correspond semantically to finite sets of kin-types. However, in languages with ‘classificatory’ kin-term systems, each such term maps onto an unbounded set of kin-types. With such languages, a common approach is to generate the more complex kin-types from simpler ones by expansion rules that link kin-types closer to propositus, with kin-types in the denoted set farther away; doing so entails converse reduction rules that go from complex to simple types. If in a system the term for MoBrDa expands to include MoMoBrDaDa, then conversely, MoMoBrDaDa reduces terminologically to MoBrDa; they are both denoted by the same term in such a system of terms.