Method and theory in the semantics and cognition of kinship terminology 9783111657738, 9783111273440

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JANUA L I N G U A R U M STUDIA MEMORIAE NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA edenda curai C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD Indiana University

Series Minor, 205

METHOD AND THEORY IN THE SEMANTICS AND COGNITION OF KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY by

LAWRENCE ELWAYNE NOGLE

1974 MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS

© Copyright 1974 in The Netherlands Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 73-91400

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., The Hague

To my parents

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I should like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Howard Maclay for the help and encouragement he gave me in completing this study. I would also like to thank my sister, Vivian E. Fredley, for typing the preliminary drafts of this paper.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgment

7

1. Introduction

11

2. Methods of Analysis

15

3. Semantic Analysis and Other Facts Folk Definitions Psychological Reality and Social Structural Reality Contextual Variation

27 28 40 49

. .

4. Application of Methods

61

5. Conclusion

85

Appendix

99

Bibliography

101

Index

108

1 INTRODUCTION

This monograph is a study in the semantic analysis of American English kinship terms by the method and theory of ethnoscience, a field also known as ethnographic semantics or the New Ethnography. Only recently have anthropologists developed methods for dealing with cognition. However, the interest of anthropology in cognition goes back at least to the second decade of this century. In 1917, C. Wissler defined culture as "a definite association complex of ideas" (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1968: 130). Several writers appearing after Wissler picked up this idea, but no one did anything definite about it until Goodenough (1951). Goodenough (1964) defines culture as the knowledge one must have in order to behave in a manner deemed appropriate by the members of his group. It will be noted that anthropologists, therefore, have an interest in competence parallel to that of linguists and psychologists. In order to distinguish the definition of culture employed here from others, let us call it COGNITIVE CULTURE. Now we can introduce some additional related definitions, ETHNOSCIENCE may be described as the metatheory, methods, and content of cognitive culture or, in other terms, the science of comparative semantic-cognitive analysis. A cultural grammar is a set of interrelated rules describing cultural behavior. A cultural grammar is the ultimate goal of ethnoscience, but it has in no way been achieved or even approximated. A MAZEWAY is an individual's cognitive map serving to organize the things, persons, qualities, etc. in his environment. "Mazeway is to the individual what culture is to the group" (Wallace 1961:16). There are several goals of an ethnoscience theory. As Marshall

12

INTRODUCTION

Durbin (1966) points out, cultural (meaning here ethnoscience) theory must meet the same goals as linguistic theory. Thus, a theory, linguistic or cultural, must account for productivity, i.e., the fact that nearly every sentence or cultural behavior is novel. A theory should be formal and should provide an evaluation procedure for choosing between cultural or linguistic descriptions. These are attractive goals, but none of them has been met by ethnoscience or the present ethnoscience study. As Chomsky (1968: 64-65) says: Are there other areas of human competence where one might hope to develop a fruitful theory, analogous to generative grammar? Although this is a very important question, there is very little that can be said about it today.... There have been some attempts to study the structure of other, language-like systems — the study of kinship systems and folk taxonomies comes to mind. But so far, at least, nothing has been discovered that is even roughly comparable to language in these domains. Harold Conklin (1964) gives a different list of goals. Productivity occurs again but Conklin also introduces the criteria of replicability and economy. Frake (1964b) suggests the term 'appropriate anticipation' in place of productivity. In point of fact, Frake and Conklin work closely together so we can expect that they mean approximately the same thing. Ethnoscience can be said to have goals in a different sense, i.e., it is an approach to the study of cognition or, alternatively, it is an approach to the study of structural reality. In the first case, ethnoscience is the explication of the categories with which various peoples act upon the world. In the second case, it is a description real to the analyst but not necessarily real to the native culture bearer and has a place in some external theory espoused by the analyst. Ethnoscience, as it has developed, is a field wide ranging in technique. It covers semantic componential analysis, especially of kinship, folk taxonomies, formal analysis, and, most recently, generative analysis and folk definition. These various methods of analysis will be discussed in the next section and evaluated in the applications section.

INTRODUCTION

13

U p to this point, anthropologists in ethnoscience have worked mainly on methodology. The main concern of the students of componential analysis and folk taxonomy has been technique and suggestions for students of other disciplines as to the development of a theory of cognition. Wallace has been the main proponent of an anthropological cognitive theory, developing the fruitful concepts of cognitive non-sharing and mazeway. Werner (Buchler and Selby 1968) has recently been engaged in the development of an anthropological theory of ethnoscience but it is not yet published. Linguistics and psychology are much more directly concerned with the development of metatheory and, specifically, cognitive theory. Where anthropologists have been successful in discussing metatheory or cognition, they have borrowed concepts from linguists or psychologists. Some anthropologists, either alone or in association with other behavioral scientists, have been trying to make the methodology part and parcel of the cognitive theory. Thus Romney and D'Andrade (1964) suggest that the psychological basis of cognitive features in the 'mind' is to be found in the discrimination of kinship terms. Features are the points of discrimination. In addition to Wallace and Werner, Hallowell (1967), in his concept of self in its behavioral environment, and Bateson (1958), in his concept of eidos, have shown the value of anthropology in developing viewpoints on cognition. But even these investigators have relied on psychology, primarily, and, to a lesser extent, on linguistics to implement their insights. Cognitive anthropology (ethnoscience) is, of course, in no danger of being absorbed by her sister sciences. Ethnoscience is, after all, comparative semantic analysis. It permits us to see the full range of cognitive categories. Also, ethnoscience permits us to separate the particularities of a cognitive system from its general parts. That is, it enables us to determine the commonalities of human psychological categories, universals if you will. Perhaps a listing of the following sections of this study is in order. First, the methods of analysis of kinship terminology utilized in ethnoscience will be discussed. Definitions of important concepts

14

INTRODUCTION

will be introduced and examples provided of the various methods. Next will appear a discussion of the relationship between the models introduced and other facts. In particular, psychological reality and contextual variation will be considered. Psychological reality occurs at two levels — a surface one and a deep one. There is first a naive level of reality. When asked what a particular relative is, an informant usually gives a folk definition. This is a surface level of psychological reality. But the social scientist has discovered a deeper reality, the semantic feature or dimension, by the methods of ethnoscience. Thus we will discuss methods employed by the social scientist to test the psychological reality of the semantic feature. Contextual variation occurs frequently in kinship terminology. We will discuss an interpretation of variation as a reflection of the occurrence of sublanguages of American English. The section on applications of the methods of analysis will do three things. First, the various methods — componential analysis, formal analysis, generative analysis, folk taxonomy and folk definition — will be utilized to describe American English kinship.1 Second, tests of the psychological reality of various componential analyses will be presented. Third, the various methods of analysis will be evaluated to see what part they have to play in an insightful description of American kinship terminology. In the conclusion, research suggested by this study will be indicated. The usefulness of ethnoscience methods as applied to kinship will be determined. Finally, the validity of ethnoscience as a research procedure will be considered.

1 The choice of American English kinship as our goal of analysis permits us to see clearly the worth of ethnoscience methods.

2 METHODS OF ANALYSIS

Four methods for the analysis of kinship semantics will be considered here. These methods are presented in the literature of anthropology diagrammatically, i.e., the paradigms of componential analysis and the trees of taxonomic studies, or as a set of rules, i.e., generative analysis and formal analysis. A set of data that can be represented by a diagram can be represented also by a set of rules. Conversely, sets of rules may generate trees or paradigms. Whether the data are represented by diagrams or by rules, the resulting ordering is a classification. This is shown by Durbin (1966) who has presented the types of rules underlying the diagrammatic representations. Rules for a paradigm are of the following type. A BC B DE C -> DE D -» FG E FG

where A -> BC = rewrite A as BC where A ... G are features

There is no ordering of features in a paradigm. Rules for trees are as follows: A -> BC B DE C -* FG D

/ B / \

Features in a tree are ordered hierarchically.

A / EF

\

C

\

G

16

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

An example of rules for a taxonomy follows: animal mammal, reptile ... primate, canine ... mammal primate -> monkey, human ... canine wolf, dog ... human -»- man, woman ... Features in a taxonomy are ordered hierarchically and, in addition, are labeled with lexical items. Superior nodes include inferior nodes. Two notions appear again and again in discussions of the above types of semantic arrangement. Those notions are those of lexeme and domain. A LEXEME is a form (linguistic label) whose meaning cannot be determined from a knowledge of anything else in the language. A SEMANTIC DOMAIN is a set of lexemes which share at least one semantic feature in common which differentiates them from other semantic domains (based on Tyler 1969: 8). The first method to be considered is componential analysis. To the best of my knowledge only one author, Paul Kay (1969), has attempted an explicit definition of componential analysis. Most practitioners in the field define it implicitly by doing one. Kay (1969: 78) defines componential analysis ...as an analytic process in which the investigator searches for (a) the dimensions of meaning underlying the domain and (b) the mapping of the values on those dimensions (the features of meaning) onto the set of lexemes. Some other terms need defining, namely dimension, feature, and meaning. Lounsbury (1969: 194) offers: A dimension of a paradigm is a set of mutually exclusive (i.e., noncooccurrent) features which share some or all of the same privileges of combination ('bundling') with features not of this dimension. A feature is an ultimate term of characterization in a set of descriptive terms appropriate for the analysis of a particular given paradigm. For a definition of meaning in componential analysis, we go to A.F.C. Wallace (1965: 229): The kind of meaning which componential analysis aimed to expose was, first of all, intensional or definitional meaning: that is to say, the minimal

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

17

information about the object to which a term referred, either sufficient to justify the utterance of the term in reference or necessary to infer from its use. Kroeber's "Classificatory Systems of Relationship", published in 1909, was the basis for the development of componential analysis as applied to kinship. This paper supplied the basic dimensions with which a later generation of kinship students were to work. In 1956 papers describing the new technique of componential analysis were published by Floyd Lounsbury and Ward Goodenough. These were seminal papers influencing numerous imitators. The next important date is 1960 when Wallace and Atkin's methodological survey of componential analysis appeared. In 1965, a special issue of the American Anthropologist was devoted to componential analysis (Vol. 67, no. 5, part 2). Numerous discussions referring to aspects of componential analysis have appeared since 1956 and are scattered throughout the journals. Some of these articles will be mentioned at other points in this study. What then are the steps in doing a nonredundant componential analysis? The first step is to choose and delimit the field. The field is kinship and it can be delimited either by syntactic control or referential control. As Hammel points out, "the essence of both procedures is that some rule of inclusion and exclusion must be used to define the corpus" (1965: 5). Syntactic control is obtained by asking some such question as "Is X a relative?" There are dangers in such an approach which are not readily apparent. Thus, in American kinship, Fa br wife is termed aunt by the prodecure. Yet, by further questioning and investigation, it is learned that Fa br wife is not a kinsman in the same sense as 'father's brother' but is what may be termed a 'courtesy' relative (Schneider 1965). Presumably, a more refined form of syntactic control is needed but, until it is obtained, perhaps the best approach is to combine syntactic control with referential control. Referential control uses external criteria in delimitation. Kinship terms1 can thus only apply to persons with whom ego has a 1

A kinship term is any word naming a relative; for instance, father, uncle, cousin.

mother,

18

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

specific social relationship such as joking or inheritance line. One does not, in American culture, ordinarily inherit from Fa br wife. There is no genealogical link. If one does inherit, it is because of affectionate ties or some other nonkinship tie. The next step is to describe the kin terms in a reference language, thereby building an external grid which is a universal schema for describing the structure of a domain independent of its treatment in a particular society. This reference language is not absolutely required. In many areas of the lexicon, no external grid is yet developed or is one likely to be developed soon. In fact, grids exist only for kinship (Kroeber 1909) and color and pronouns (Buchler and Freeze 1966). Still, where a grid exists, it is possible to define a term componentially by an intersection of two or more sets of data. One set of data has to be linguistic, the other set being "points on a genealogical grid, the results of sorting and selecting tests ... in fact, any other set of observable behavior which can be construed as having an observable referent and which is thus a kind of point" (Hammel 1965: 1168). Two reference languages can be mentioned here: the standard anthropological one of kin types and relative products, e.g., fa, mo, fa br, mo sis; and Romney's primitive logical notation, m (male) f (female) = (marriage bond) O (sibling link) + (parental link), etc. The standard kin type — relative product analysis — has seen most service, although Romney's language has recently been used by Buchler (Buchler and Selby 1968). It has been the preference of investigators of componential analyses to use the more frequently occurring single lexemes as opposed to combination units. Thus, Goodenough (1965) gives definitions of cousin but not of second cousin once removed. Presumably, combination units are derivable from single lexemes. This preference for single lexemes does not seem justifiable to the present writer. The ultimate criterion must be that they form a set, not that they are equal in frequency. At this point, one identifies dimensions in the "principles of grouping of kin types" (Wallace and Atkins 1960). This is an important point. One searches for factors that divide up the set of kin

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

19

terms. This permits the investigator to focus on externally delimited subsets of terms rather than a whole set. It can be readily seen that it is easier to determine dimensions dividing up subsets or discriminating among subsets. A procedure derived by Goodenough results in the separation of basic term sets from derivative sets. Goodenough (1965), in studying American kinship, had a subjective feeling that the set of kin terms denoting the nuclear family somehow belonged together. Investigating, he noticed that they were all alike in forming composite lexemes. Thus, father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter are all alike in taking step, -in-law, and foster to form compound terms. The rest of the kinship lexicon also has similar peculiarities of combination. Another procedure also developed by Goodenough is the formation of reciprocal sets. These are sets of terms of reciprocal usage between kinsmen. Thus, grandfather calls his son's son grandson. And grandson calls fa' fa grandfather. Brother calls his own sibling brother or sister. These and others form polarized sets which can be treated in the same way as the derivative sets already mentioned. Now comes the most crucial part of the analysis — deriving dimensions from the sets of terms so far isolated. A set of dimensions was isolated long ago by Kroeber (1909).2 Of course, these are only broad outlines. In any specific case, these components would have to be given special meanings. Deriving dimensions requires, in the special case of kinship, a working knowledge of the mechanics of kinship and of marriage rules and other aspects of the social structure in a particular society or culture. What seems to occur is a rapid series of comparisons and discriminations, only partly conscious. Whether or not this mechanism can be reduced to a set of formal discovery operations specifiable on a computer, for instance, is a moot question. In any case, the validity of a set of dimensions is judged in terms of the contribution it makes to correctly classifying and stating the relationships within a set of kin 2 These dimensions are generation, consanguinity, lineality, sex of relative, sex of connecting relative, sex of speaker, age in generation, and condition of life of connecting relative.

20

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

terms. Then dimensions and their values are defined in a symbolic way and the set of kin terms is stated in these terms. Perhaps a simple example of a componential analysis is desirable. The following discussion is based on Lyons (1968) and Tyler (1969). Take the sets of words — man, woman, child and rooster, hen, chick. Intuitively, we reason that man is to woman is to child as rooster is to hen is to chick. Man and rooster share something that is not shared by woman and hen or child and chick. Hen and woman share something not shared by the other terms and so forth. By setting up these proportions we make salient the underlying semantic compounds. These are sex with the values male, female; age with the values mature, immature; and species with the values human and chicken. Therefore, the following holds true: Man/Male — Mature — Human Woman/Female — Mature — Human Child/ 3 — Immature — Human Rooster/Male — Mature — Chicken Hen/Female — Mature — Chicken Chick/ 3 — Immature — Chicken Formal analysis was developed initially by Floyd Lounsbury (1969). It is an alternative to componential analysis. A term can have many denotata. Uncle can refer to mother's brother, father's brother, father's sister's husband, mother's sister's husband and other denotata for some informants in higher generations. In componential analysis, the investigator finds a definition in dimensions that includes every denotatum. In formal analysis, on the other hand, one denotatum is chosen as basic and rules of extension to other denotata are constructed. Lounsbury type rules are determined intuitively. Romney (1965) has developed similar rules utilizing his primitive kinship notation. Such rules, i.e., Lounsbury's or Romney's, are useful in analyzing quite disparate kinship 3

C a n be either male or female.

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

21

systems, especially those which are radically different from European ones. Such systems of rules employ the anthropological kin type categories as a basis and these categories are based on European kin systems. Formal analysis is another appeal to the extensionist hypothesis in kinship theory. This hypothesis states that we learn the kin terms and behavior for an immediate family and extend kin terms and behaviors to more remotely related relatives. At any rate, a formal analysis patterned after that of Romney (1965) for Mongol will be presented here in the next section for American English. If we accept the extensionist hypothesis, we may consider basic member definitions and rules of extension to be psychologically real. This position is the one taken by Buchler and Freeze (1966). It may be noted that the basic member definitions may be stated using dimensional features, thereby combining the two type systems. Moreover, it is not clear whether or not formal analysis is applicable outside of kinship. It seems to depend on a most particular set of circumstances, i.e., a basic statement of kin terms in kin type notation and the use of the extensionist hypothesis. An example of a formal analysis is the following one. Half Sibling Rule (Lounsbury 1965: 161) Fa son B; Fa dau -> Sis Mo son -+ B; Mo dau -» Sis A formal analysis states the kin terms in some sort of notational system. Lounsbury uses the traditional kin type notations — fa, fabr, mo, sis, etc. Romney utilizes a primitive notation as was pointed out in the section on componential analysis — m for male, + for parent link, etc. When kin terms are stated in one of these notations, it will be noted that the denotata of some kin terms are redundant in the sense that the same expressions appear in different denotations. The list of kin types accompanying a kin term is its range. We develop rules to reduce the range of a kin term to a single expression. Or similarly derived kin terms may be taken as a set and a rule written to generate one from the other. To anticipate my own work, consider the terms in English kinship for first, second, and third cousin.

22

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

Cousin can be stated a s a + a O a — a which means parents' siblings' child. Second cousin isa + a O a — a — a and a person's third cousin is a + a O a —a — a — a. A rule for extending cousin as base to second and third cousin, etc., is as follows (based on Romney 1965): Oa O a—a (where -»• means 'rewrite as') The study of folk taxonomies was developed by Charles Frake (1961, 1962) and Harold Conklin (1962). Folk taxonomies can be viewed either as an alternative to componential analysis paradigms or as a superstructure for them. Under the first alternative, certain domains would be characterized as forming what might be termed intersecting taxonomies, i.e., paradigms, and other domains would be characterized as being organized in inclusion taxonomies patterned after those in biology. This position seems to be the one taken by Lounsbury (1969) and Burling (1964). The other position is that the taxonomy is a superstructure for a feature analysis. The first position seems supported by the fact that words do organize themselves neatly and naturally in a taxonomy. But this is a superficial ordering. A closer look suggests that taxonomies themselves are based on feature distinctions. In fact, parts of the folk taxonomy of American English kinship illustrate that features are needed to construct the taxonomy. Kay (1969) suggests that a preliminary feature analysis is necessary to define the structure of the affinal part of American English folk taxonomy. Berlin, Breedlove, and Raven (1968) utilize features to define levels of a taxonomy. A taxonomy organizes words in a hierarchal structure. Certain words belonging to a domain tend to include others. Thus, dog includes collie and cocker spaniel. Dog contrasts with wolf under canine. Thus, words contrast at different levels. It is the task of the folk taxonomist to determine the levels of inclusion and contrast. He does this by observing what things go together or are constrasted in a culture or by asking questions along the same lines. Perhaps we need more precise definitions of the basic terms.

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

23

By inclusion is simply meant that item A falls within the meaning of item B. Dog includes collie as a submeaning. Those culturally appropriate responses which are distinctive alternatives in the same kinds of situations — or in linguistic parlance, which occur in the same environments — can be said to contrast. A series of terminologically contrasted segregates forms a contrast set. (Frake 1962) Generative analysis is a technique first developed by Noam Chomsky for linguistics. Durbin and Saltarelli (1966) and Bock (1968) have extended generative analysis to kinship. The derivation of such rules for kinship is quite lengthy and can be seen best in the work of Bock on American English kinship. Such rules not only derive kin types, they also assign names to them. In the generative analysis of kinship, kinship expressions are considered to be a set of strings and the description of kinship is treated as if it were a grammar. According to Bach (1964: 14): A grammar shall consist of a set of symbols interrelated by an ordered set of rules. Every rule is of the form x -> y and may be interpreted as an instruction to rewrite x as y. Terminal symbols are those which never appear to the left of the rewrite arrow as symbols to be replaced (Bach 1964: 14). Nonterminal symbols are those which are to be replaced. Rather than repeat Bock's explanation or try to improve on it (alternative theories are possible), a simple set of rules for language will be presented to show the technique. Sentence NP VP Det adj N Verb Adv

NP + VP -» Det + adj + N -> Verb + adv -*• a, the -J- big, red, colorful... -»• balloon, bandana ... floated, fell ... -»• erratically, there

24

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

This grammar generates such sentences as the following: A big balloon floated erratically. A red balloon floated there. The colorful bandana fell there. It should be noted that generative rules for kinship, language, or any other domain can generate an infinite number of terms. That is, one can have recursive rules. S NP + VP NP -> N + (S) VP -> V + (NP) By allowing NP to be rewritten as S, strings of any desired length can be produced. We know that kinship and, therefore, its terms are potentially infinite. For example, there seems no motivated limit to the number of occurrences of 'great' that may precede the term grandfather. Thus, a set of rules with recursive power is needed. Further, such rules provide for alternative derivations of a given term, such as uncle, accounting for its ambiguity as between mother's or father's brother and father's sister's husband. Bock or any other student would not claim that such rules of cultural competence necessarily represent, in an isomorphic sense, the rules in an informant's head. Rather, they merely claim that such rules account for the same data. To the present writer, such generative rules are potentially the most interesting approach to ethnoscience. They do not replace the methodological approaches we have considered. Rather, they are applicable only when an investigator is thoroughly conversant with the culture, i.e., it is his own or he has 'gone native'. However, they do meet Durbin's metatheoretical requirements for an ethnoscience theory. Werner (1966) believes that knowledge is organized in lists and this is what an encyclopedia does. Along with an encyclopedia, one surely possesses a dictionary component and this dictionary component is most economically described as based on semantic fea-

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

25

tures. There exist increasing numbers of studies demonstrating the reality of semantic features (Wallace 1965; Romney and D'Andrade 1964; Osgood 1968). There are good reasons for denying the necessary psychological validity of generative rules. These rules describe the relationship among the objects described by the generative system. It is the relationships that are real and not the form of the rules. Generative analysis manages to state such relationships in an easily understood fashion but that is the extent of its validity in any sense in which one might be interested. Componential analysis, folk taxonomies, and formal analysis all describe relationships, too. None of them is necessarily real. It is the relationship that is real and not the form of description. Possibly anthropologists and psychologists would be better off if they stopped looking for an inner reality and satisfied themselves with examining the hard won intuitions of their informants. There is a lesson in the approach of the transformational linguist. For such a linguist, rules are important only in providing an explicit, economical, insightful view of relationships. The linguist is interested in intuition for providing better evidence of relationships or indicating additional relationships. He does not try to construct psychologically real models of mind or, if you prefer, brain structure. May it be noted that when we talk about relationships, we are talking in a roundabout way about structure. Earlier, it was said that structure implies relation. The converse is also true, of course. A concept we cannot leave out is order. Order is a relationship of a certain kind between two or more entities. According to Alan Beals (1967: 64): It is a belief of most anthropologists that mankind has a need for closure or neatness. It is assumed that man is the natural enemy of disorder and that he will attempt to arrange his thoughts about the universe into neat cells and categories. If we were to assume the opposite and suggest that man was disorderly, we could not have a science, only a description of aimlessness. It should be clear that, in ethnoscience, the investigator accepts these premises. Componential analyses, folk taxonomies, and all the other methods are attempts at orderly classification.

26

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

It should not be concluded that the contribution of anthropology to cognition is insignificant. Most of this study is an illustration of anthropological insights and methods, applied to the case of a modern culture. The methods of anthropology, it can be seen, are not limited to less developed cultures. In fact, there is a tendency in anthropology today to investigate more advanced, i.e., Western cultures. This study is also an anthropological contribution wherein linguistic insights are developed. Linguistics is, after all, a discipline within anthropology.4

4

Linguistics here is not to be confused with the discipline with limited aims known as anthropological linguistics. Anthropological linguistics has dealt with the languages of primitive cultures in what today most linguists regard as a superficial way. Linguistics is defined by Chomsky, or more remotely, Panini, as a much more developed and complicated discipline.

3 SEMANTIC ANALYSIS A N D OTHER FACTS

What is the relationship between a semantic analysis and other facts? Tyler (1969: 343) mentions the relationships familiar to most practitioners: the psychological reality of theanalysis and its variation with context, but he also mentions a relationship usually passed over — that between analyses of different semantic domains. The relations between arrangements in different semantic domains have not been well studied, presumably because of the primitive state of the field. Attention has been given to the other two questions, however, and they will be considered below. Our concern is with psychological reality and contextual variation. Psychological reality will be approached at two levels: surface and deep. If an informant is asked what a father is, he says, "Father is a male parent." This is a folk definition, and, at a naive level, is the meaning offather. It is real psychologically. Since ethnoscience as it develops must deal with such conceptions of the meanings of terms, it is important to say what a folk definition is, to determine its usefulness in ethnoscience investigations, and to see if it is a form of semantic analysis at the same level as componential analysis or taxonomies. Folk definition study represents psychological reality at a surface level. Psychological reality has usually been taken to be a matching of the anthropologist's arrangement of features or categories with that of the informant. Do informants use features or rules and, if they do, are they the same ones the anthropologist isolates? Contextual variation is important because there may be more than one analysis depending on features of context (Tyler 1969:433).

28

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS FOLK

DEFINITIONS

If we ask an informant to define a kin term, he does not do it in terms of semantic dimensions and their values; he gives us a folk definition or, as Wallace and Atkins (1960: 74) put it, a relative product definition. Immediately we are involved in some interesting problems. For instance, which is more psychologically real — a folk definition or a componential one that an informant may accept if it is presented to him but with which he feels uneasy? Problems such as these we will defer to the section on psychological reality, but we will consider here other problems of folk definition. First, it must be pointed out that the relative product definition is just a special case of the more general problem of folk definition. Other semantic relations, besides the possessive or attributive relations, need to be considered. We will examine the general problem of folk definition as an alternative to componential analysis. A striking fact is that informants are remarkably facile in constructing folk definitions. Surely, the ease and readiness with which such definitions may be obtained indicates that this is a psychologically real and interesting process. The spontaneous definitions of words that people give seem not to have been studied very seriously. Stephen Ullmann, in his well received The Principles of Semantics, does not even allude to the subject. Bloomfield (1933) makes reference to the process of definition but he dismisses its importance — definitions are, he believes, makeshift devices. Rulon Wells (1954) begs the linguist to look for the use of a word, not its meaning; the problems of reference, denotation, and connotation are beyond the ability of linguists to treat them. However, not all linguists have despaired of working with definitions. Uriel Weinreich (1962) has urged the study of lexicographic definitions as a central concern of descriptive semantics. Joseph Casagrande and Kenneth Hale (1967) have underlined the possibilities for semantic investigation that follow from the collection and study of Papago folk definitions. Weinreich, Casagrande, and Hale, nevertheless, represent a distinct minority position in linguistics.

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

29

To discover the value of the study of folk definition, to place this study in the perspective of descriptive semantics, and to discuss possible methodology in this area are the purposes of this discussion. At the outset, it should be made clear that folk or spontaneous definitions are not the same thing as dictionary definitions. The lexicographer collects examples of the usage of a word in sentences. At some point, he puts together what is similar in each usage. The lexicographer's definitions usually appear in a relatively standardized form. There is an attempt to make each definition a denotative one. The lexicographer is able to rely on expert sources. He can, for example, define red in terms of wavelength. On the other hand, when a folk definition is elicited, the situation is different. Usually an older person identifies a term for a younger one. If the interchange is between persons of equal status, only common ground is sought. In these two situations, as one would expect, imprecision is the rule. (The person defining a word does not feel constrained to give a denotative definition. Indeed, he would often be unable to give one.) Additionally, a connotative definition is often much more to the point. Folk definition is more restricted than dictionary definition in another sense, in that many lexical items are not normally defined in this fashion (i.e., function words). Implicitly, definition has been presented here as a strictly verbal behavior. In folk definition, this is probably not the usual case. Ostensive definition, demonstration, is prior and primary. For the very young child, it is the only way to define things. Apple is learned by pointing to a real apple and saying 'apple'. Demonstration supplemented by verbal definition is quite common. Consider the example given by Hockett: "See, Johnny! That's a cow. That's where our milk comes f r o m " (1958: 360). Verbal definitions come into play where ostensive definitions will not suffice. The verbal definition is used where a substitute for the direct experience of a thing must serve. A child may not see elephants or tigers in his normal environment. He never sees goblins or demons. Definition is also the concern of sophisticated adults who, presumably, have never seen a demon or a goblin. The major philosophical work on definition has been done by Robinson (1954).

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He recognizes several kinds of definition: thing-thing, word-thing, word-word, lexical, and stipulative definition. Additionally, he lists methods of definition: synonyms, analysis, synthesis, implication, denotation, demonstration, rule giving. The various methods of definition enumerated by Robinson parallel those used by Casagrande and Hale (1967) and suggested by Weinreich (1962). Robinson aside, most modern philosophers interested in language have turned away from the concept of definition. This is made abundantly clear in the Rulon Wells (1954) article mentioned earlier. Quine (1953) sees the lexicographer as ultimately not dealing with words but with sentences. "We may continue to characterize the lexicographer's domain squarely as synonymy but only by recognizing synonymy as primarily a relation of sufficiently long segments of discourse" (Quine 1953). The cognitive psychologist also is concerned with definition. Vygotsky (1962) presents approaches to the investigation of concepts through definitions given them. After reviewing studies based on definitions, he rejects the approach. Such a study, he believes, is a study of finished concepts, not concept formation. Also, such studies, from his point of view, are too concerned with verbal behavior. Piaget and Inhelder (1958) likewise see through the definition their subjects give them to the processes behind it. Bruner et at. (1956) give recognition to the defining attributes of a definition, but they quickly pass on to more interesting matters. The structuralist Titchener may have been talking about definitions in part when he discussed meaning. It was not really a new theory; Berkeley had practically said it; but Titchener gave it explicit formulation and importance. In simple form, it was this; it takes two mental processes to make a meaning. When a sensation or image is added (accrues) to a sensation or image, one has a meaning in the form of a perception or an idea. It is no new thought to a logician that a meaning is a relation. Here we have Titchener saying that a conscious meaning is a conscious relation, and specifying the nature of the relation. (Noble 1963) Some modern psychologists are also obliquely concerned with definition. The subjective behaviorists Miller, Galanter, and Pribram offer a cybernetic approach (1960: 195).

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31

The child amuses us with his operational definitions. 'A knife is to cut.' 'A book is to read.' 'Milk is to drink.' Each concept is defined by the concrete operations that it customarily evokes.... The child is building up TOTE units by associating a perceptual image used in the test phase with an action pattern used in the operational phase of the unit. The number of these TOTE units that a child must learn is enormous and he probably learns them, initially at least, by following this simple verbal formula that associates a subject with a predicate. Jean Berko (1958), as part of a wider study on the learning of English morphology by children, analyzed definitions of compound words. She was struck by the fact that many children have private meanings for words. In a wider sense, Berko's study is interesting because it illustrates the truth that psychologists seldom study definitions for themselves but only as an adjunct to some other investigation. Descriptive semantics is a fast growing field. Although it is not usually regarded as such, it is concerned for the most part with definition. Ward Goodenough (1956: 195) freely admits this point. The aspect of meaning to be dealt with is signification as distinct from connotation.... Significata are prerequisites while connota are probabilities and possibilities. Only the former have definitive value. Wallace and Atkins (1960) make the same point. Both Goodenough and Lounsbury describe their initial purpose in the semantic analysis of kinship terms as the statement of "definitions in terms of distinctive semantic features". It is interesting to inquire why semantic componential analysis is necessary. Surely native speakers can define the kin terms of their culture. The reasons for definition by distinctive features, rather than verbal definition, seem to be two: the verbal definition may not account for certain behavioral discriminations the native speaker is seen to make; the distinctive feature analysis produces a simpler and better organized account of the domain. Another branch of descriptive semantics, taxonomic analysis, has a closer connection to verbal definition. Charles Frake (1961) makes this point clear. Frake discusses the possible use of analytic, perceptual, and explicit rules to determine the naming of diseases among the Subanun. Analytic rules are equivalent to

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componential analysis. Perceptual rules involve the stimulus discriminations made by people when they categorize things. Explicit rules pertain to the explicit definitions of a culture; in other words, to verbal definition. The Subanun themselves must learn to diagnose diseases through verbal description of their significant attributes. It is thus relatively easy for a Subanun to describe what makes one disease different from another. (Frake 1961: 574) Discussing descriptive semantics, Lounsbury (1963: 574) indicates that verbal definitions are oftentimes basic for such investigations. The usual procedure in such undertakings is to move from (a) the compilation of raw lexicographic data on particular denotations to (b) the assembling of the denotata of each single linguistic form as a semantic class of objects.... An approach with roots both in descriptive (ethnographic) semantics and in transformational grammar is that of Katz and Fodor (1964). They list two components of a semantic theory: a dictionary component and a projection component. Only the dictionary component is of interest to us here. These authors consider, but reject, the conventional dictionary form, i.e., the familiar verbal definition. Instead, they employ a normal form definition. Such an entry consists of grammatical markers, semantic markers, and distinguishers. (See appendix for a discussion of Katz and Fodor.) They declare that the normal form definition is equivalent to the conventional definition — the same information is displayed. The normal form definition is the only one which permits a formal statement of the projection rules. Also, there are "many important semantic relations which cannot be formally reconstructed from entries in conventional dictionary form" (Katz and Fodor 1964:496). Herein seems to be the crux of the matter. Descriptive semanticists do not believe that verbal definition in itself can account for the semantic facts. Many relevant relationships cannot be expressed. Too often, definitions represent private meanings. There seems not to be any structure to verbal definitions—they cannot be formalized.

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33

Verbal definitions can, however, provide the basis for more sophisticated approaches. The proponents of the study of folk or verbal definition disagree. They believe that verbal definitions can be classified and studied formally. Casagrande and Hale (1967) classified Papago folk definitions by the method of definition. They identified thirteen methods of definition: attributive, contingency, function, spatial, operational, comparison, exemplification, class inclusion, synonymy, antonymy, provenience, circularity, and grading. These authors note the similarity in type of semantic relationship between definitions and word associations. They suggest that there may be individual differences in cognitive styles of definition. Casagrande and Hale (1967) also note that there seems to be a tendency for certain types of semantic relationships to be associated with folk definitions belonging to different lexical domains or different form classes. Weinreich (1963) suggests that the degree of terminologization of a vocabulary might be measured by determining how reliably subjects are able to match terms with their definitions. Presumably kinship terms would be more consistently identified correctly than would terms from the domain of animals. Semantic continuities and discontinuities might also be made clear using verbal definition. A set of definitions would be analyzed to determine by what features they differed. The more continuous the set, the more minimal the differences between definitions would be. A discontinuity would be indicated by the fact that a change in a component "failed to yield a designatum of some sign in the given language" (Weinreich 1962: 150). Within the domain being considered, another definition structure would appear. To illustrate this point, consider the present writer's data from the domain of animal names in English. (The definitions are reduced, i.e., the metalanguage is erased.) horse donkey cow But

four legged animal/neighs four legged animal/hee-haws four legged animal/moos

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hound squirrel

dog/big long ears/big lips animal/bushy tail

Definition specificity is a further approach to the formalization of definitions that is suggested by Weinreich (1962). One would count the number of criteria used to describe the object being defined. Weinreich also proposed that the metalanguage used in a definition is indicative. Possibly different classes of words are defined using a different level of metalanguage. Finally, he argues that basic and not-basic terms may be separated out. More basic terms would be defined only circularly or ostensively. Why should one bother to pursue the study of folk definitions? The main reason is that the various methods of lexical study are limited. Students of semantics have been interested for a long time only in bits and pieces of the lexicon. Componential analysis is limited to highly structured paradigms, i.e., kinships, color, or ecology. The normal form definitions utilized by Katz and Fodor are determined by intuition and the needs of the projection component. The idea of the structure of a vocabulary is foreign to the semanticists with leanings toward transformational grammar. Their concern is with the context. The relationships of interest are those among semantic markers. Psychological approaches are also not helpful. The psychologist is usually interested in frequency of occurrence or some such variable. Nothing has been said so far about the sources of definitions. Like the professional lexicographer, the ordinary person probably derives many of his definitions by abstracting them from the use of terms in sentences. Roger Brown (1956) has discussed the work of Werner and Kaplan, two investigators interested in the question. Artificial words were placed in six sentence contexts. The children used as subjects in this experiment were told that the meaning of an artificial word remained unchanged through the various sentence contexts. Paul Ziff (1960) has considered the same problem but from a linguistic point of view. He indicates there are several steps in the formulation of a verbal definition. The first step in determining a definition is to map out "the membership of a word's

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35

distributive and contrast sets". In other words, it is necessary to discover all the sentence contexts into which a term may fit. Then it is necessary to determine with what other terms the term in question contrasts within the distributive set. The next step is to disambiguate the term in the contrast set. Thus 'That is a tiger' and 'That is a lion' differ in that one of the two utterances is "the condition of being striped" (Ziff 1960: 189). Lastly, "the relevant nonsyntactic semantic differences" obtained from the contrast set are combined into a definition. The elements of a definition then represent relevant semantic differences between a term and other terms fitting into very similar contexts. This viewpoint suggests that words of a given domain differing in only one element — henceforth called descriptor — ought to share more sentence contexts than words differing by two descriptors (elements). The above would be true if folk definitions are ever formulated in this way or this precisely. Ziff's description seems more true of dictionary definition than folk definition. However, some similar process must occur in vocabulary learning. It is not the case that every word is learned by ostensive or verbal definitions provided by other people or by looking up a word in a dictionary. In addition, many words used in sentence contexts cannot easily be defined by the average speaker. The other source of definitions is selection of relevant features from the real world. Ultimately, certain sensory quantities and qualities are more apt to induce attention than others. High intensity of light, the color red, etc. have powers of attraction independent of learning. As a result of increasing experience, "every man is likely to see an apple or grapefruit or rabbit first and foremost as a unitary whole rather than as a congeries of smaller units or as a fragment of a large environment .... Every man will tend to segregate a mass of moving matter as a unit, separate from the static background, and to pay it particular attention" (Quine 1953: 64). Presumably, information coming into the human being is compared to that learned earlier. The perceptual properties of an input are determined by reference to existing perceptual properties which have proved to be relevant. New definitions are formed by

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analogy with already existing important perceptual groupings or already formed verbal definitions. The concepts which already have names in the language community are learned similarly. Consciously or unconsiously, the language learner pays attention to response cues given by those members of the community who are 'experts'. As Brown points out, "the categories 'bed', 'chair', and 'floor' could be distinguished by noting which entities are lain upon, sat upon, and stood upon" (1956: 288). At first, private meanings must serve. However, as the language learner gains experience with the semantic categories of his language community, old definitions can be modified to be in line with them. Additionally, new things which require verbal definition will be defined in terms of the semantic categories favored by the culture. Robinson (1954: 127) discusses this point. Demonstrative words like him or me or there or soon are not names. Such words, he declares, can and are defined in two ways. A first method is the one demonstrated above. The word is defined by using it. The second method, a less frequent method, is to state the rule of the word's employment. Such words are usually learned by hearing them used. It is a common observation that children do not ask to have such words defined. Since it takes such a long time to learn to use such words properly, one wonders why children fail to inquire about these words. Do they somehow go unnoticed? Or do the speakers of a language soon learn which words are grammatical and which are 'naming'. How does this relate to the grammar? This fact of language acquisition seems to me to be an important one which has been largely ignored until recently. Another observation worth recording concerns the relation of children's definitions to those adults give them. Of course, the adult is constrained when defining a word for a child. He limits his metalanguage and also the range of words he will define. Yet he uses the various types of semantic relationships already mentioned. Children seem, however, to define words using fewer semantic categories: attributive, operational, synonymy. It is frequently noted that

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37

children seem to define and associate words by contiguity relations. A question worth asking is why, if the child is exposed to other types of semantic relationship, he does not use them. Experimental work on age and type of definition used seems to be unavailable. However, work has been done on the related process of word association.1 Brown and Berko (1960) correlated the change through time of word associations and grammar acquisition. The change from continuity to paradigmatic word associations was paralleled by increasingly correct grammatical performance. However, one is still left in the dark about the problem originally posed. The child is exposed to other sorts of definitions at an early age. Why does he not learn them? Is the generation of verbal definitions tied up with the development of grammar? Do we have maturational processes to contend with? Sentence, like the entities phoneme and morpheme, is a linguistic construct. They have status because they enable the linguist to form meaningful generalizations. There is no reason why one could not speak about a 'grammar' of definitions. Surely one could say that new definitions are generated from old ones. It is not the case that the language learner learns all his definitions by hearing them or constructing them by analogy. The average individual knows twenty to thirty thousand words, but he is capable of learning more. As a heuristic device or as a tour de force, whichever it may be, it is worthwhile considering definitions in this way. The intent is not to recapitulate grammar, but to indicate that some of the same processes the grammarian has identified in syntax are operating here. Of course, many definitions take the form of equational predications or other sentence types while some are only phrases. A word may be defined using any of a number of semantic relationships. Uncle is the opposite of aunt. It is also the mother's or father's brother. Do we define it by antonymy or attribution? A taxi is what is called if your car won't start. It is also a yellow car for hire. Yet certain kinds of words tend to be defined by certain semantic relationships. Robinson (1954: 131) has noticed this fact 1

Casagrande defines a word association as a truncated definition (Casagrande and Hale 1967).

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among dictionary definitions. Casagrande and Hale (1967), studying Papago, and the present writer, studying English folk definitions, have made the same discovery. Classification is a fiction. There are as many classifications of semantic relationships as there are people classifying words. Basically, a classification breaks down into two types: paradigm and contiguity. Within these two types there is a continuum. The classification of a word depends on what aspect of it is most salient. The saliency of aspects of words is interesting but beyond our present interest. Saliency becomes important to us only when we consider the reasons for the existence of folk definitions. Thus, if we used the folk definition as the basis for the determination of semantic markers for an integrated semantic theory, we would be interested. Also, if the associates of a word in a sentence helped guide selection of other words, this might be relevant. To be able to set up a set of rules, it would be necessary for the level of descriptor vocabulary to be more basic, i.e., simpler and also smaller than the vocabulary from which the words being defined came. The smaller the descriptor vocabulary, the less the chance that a word could be defined in more than one way. The same holds true if the vocabulary of descriptors is more basic. Unfortunately, the descriptor vocabulary turns out to be at the same level as that of the words being defined. Thus, there is no control from this end either. If rules of use seem out of reach, are there any other means of control the linguist might employ? What about the set of analytic questions that might be used in assigning a word? It is not assumed that the native speaker asks himself these questions before he defines a word. Rather, the analytic questions provide a way for the linguist to view semantic classification. Perhaps the various semantic relations represent, if incompletely, the relevant semantic differences by which sets of contrasting sentences are divided. Relevant nonlinguistic semantic differences may also be involved. Perhaps such semantic relations are pointing the way to the recognition of anomaly. Read Paul Ziff (1960: 194):

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS A N D OTHER FACTS

39

More significantly, without some sort of formulation of the relevant differences it will be impossible to explain deviant or odd uses of the words in question.... But how can odd or deviant uses be shown to be either odd or deviant without in some way formulating the relevant conditions associated with the words in question and then showing that they are not satisfied in the case in question? Below are a set of questions which match the various semantic relations. They are partially ordered to permit the disambiguation of close definition (Vickery 1961; Casagrande and Hale 1967). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Is X a member of a more inclusive class? Is there something or somebody that usually has X? Does X have a characteristic attribute? Is X usually accompanied by something else? Does X have a particular function or use? Is X found in a particular place? Is X the goal or recipient of an action? Is X like something else? Does X fit in a series? Does X have a special source? Is X the opposite of something? Is X a synonym of something?

The list is partially ordered in that a sample of definitions collected by the present writer are for the most part correctly classified the first time through. Some are not — verbs are the most obvious exceptions. The failure to obtain a set of rules of use is indicative of the arbitrariness of the semantic relationship classifications. Perhaps it is also an indication of the amorphous quality of the lexicon itself. A deeper study of semantic relationship would seem to be not worthwhile, if not impossible. As a last observation, it is interesting to note how words from the more structured domains are handled. For the most part, the words which are consistently associated with a particular semantic relationship come from structured domains. Consider the connection

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between antonymy and adjectives. Adjectives tend to be polar. This fact made possible the semantic differential of Charles Osgood. Color terms are all defined attributively. Kinship terms are defined by antonymy or attribution. The consistent placement of body terms under the relation, spatial, suggests that body terms ought also to be somehow structured. However, no such studies are known to me. Folk definition study may not tell us much that is new, but it reinforces the evidence that has been obtained from other methods of lexical study. Even simple definitions have multiple semantic relations. Thus 'frost' — 'a white thing that comes down like snow every morning' demonstrated several semantic relationships: frost — frost — frost — frost —

white morning comes down snow

It was proposed that the verbal definition might be viewed as an inventory of word associations. The most frequent association would be that one closest to the word being defined.

PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY AND SOCIAL STRUCTURAL REALITY

An issue taken up by Wallace and Atkins (1960) is the problem of psychological reality, social structural reality, and indeterminacy. Wallace and Atkins point out that Goodenough "repeatedly states in his paper on Trukese terminology (1956) that the purpose of the componential analysis of kinship terms is to provide psychologically real definitions.... The intention of componential analysis in Goodenough's terms is to state the meaning of terms to the native users of the terms" (Wallace and Atkins 1960:75). Wallace and Atkins share Goodenough's commitment. They believe there is something that can be termed cognitive culture. However, they point out that other componential analysts do

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41

not share this commitment and, more important, componential analysis does not necessarily provide a psychologically real description. There are, after all, as these authors (Goodenough 1956; Burling 1964) point out, a multiplicity of possible solutions. Solutions other than a supposed psychologically real one, i.e., social structurally real ones, can be employed profitably. Wallace and Atkins (1960:75) have distinguished between psychologically real descriptions and social-structurally real ones. A psychologically real description lets the anthropologist see the world very much as a native does. Where the native sees a discrimination or equivalence, so does the anthropologist. On the other hand, a structural description accounts for the data. It permits the anthropologist to make sense of the native's world but in terms of his (the anthropologist's) categories, not the native's categories. Here we will give primary attention to psychological reality. Social structural reality is within the domain of the social anthropologist or sociologist. We have a definition of psychological reality. Is it complete or are there others? Wallace (1962) suggests that psychological reality exists in the identity of the concepts of the analysts with those of the native users. In other words, the rules determined by the analyst are the self-same rules employed by the native user. Noam Chomsky is also interested in the general problem of psychological reality, although he does not phrase his interest in these terms. He is interested in determining a native user's competence. Now Chomsky does not insist on the identity of the rules used by the analyst with those used by the native speaker. Rules for Chomsky approximate the linguistic intuitions of the native informant, but the rules Chomsky devises are not necessarily the same rules that exist in the informant's head. Chomsky, in other words, is content to provide a set of rules real to the analyst and capable of being manipulated without insisting that his rules are necessarily the informant's rules (see Hammer 1966). Wallace suggests that markers (dimensions, features, etc.) exist in the head of the informant and that the analyst's description portrays these markers. Chomsky, if he were to work with semantic markers, would suggest that markers

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can be used to describe a system and predict informant intuitions or behavior and yet are not necessarily markers in the informant's mind. In fact, Chomsky does not despair of his lack of knowledge of the psychological or neurological rules of the mind or the brain. He is satisfied that his rules possess the ability to predict, and nothing more can be asked of rules in any theory — linguistic, psychological, or physical. Before leaving this point, it should be pointed out that Chomsky is a mentalist and materialist both. The positions are not contradictory. He is a mentalist in that he looks inside the mind of his informants and rejects stimulus-response theories. He is a materialist in believing that eventually we will have physical explanations of mental facts and intuitions. It has been said that Chomsky is concerned with his informant's agreeing with the scientist as to judgments of grammaticalness or semantic category as the case may be. Thus, psychological reality in Wallace's sense is an illusory goal. What then would be a kinship version of Chomsky's approach? We want to be able to predict naming of persons or kin types. Our naming operation is the same as the informant's naming operation. We have said that social structural analyses predict naming and that many different dimensional analyses may do the same. Therefore, despite what was said earlier, Chomsky's position does approximate that of the social structure analyst in a sense. The difference is in the use made of the rules. The sociologist or social anthropologist is interested in social structure; the Chomskyan is interested in cognition. Chomsky would extend his theory to cover more and more intuitions and judgments of native users, gaining faith that his was a cognitive theory as it handled additional cognitive facts and especially those predicted before the data was available. Yet there is an additional approach also derived from Chomsky. If alternative analyses were not evaluated by the methods of Wallace, how would they be evaluated? We have said after all that alternative analyses would be possible in a Chomskyan position. Considering dimensional analyses as representing a partial theory, we can evaluate alternative models, not by psychological reality, but by some such concept as generality or simplicity (see Chomsky 1957).

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43

What do we mean by generality and simplicity in the present case? By generality we mean that the same dimensional concepts or concept types must be used for different kin systems. That is, we want cross cultural generality. Kroeber's (1909) and Murdock's (1949) lists of kin dimensions provide the basic ethnographic concepts used in dimensional analysis. They are used in one form or another in many analyses. However, dimensional analyses are emic, not etic, analyses. 2 Investigators have found it necessary to define many dimensions which are common only to a single or a few systems. When partial systems are analyzed there is more commonality than when complete systems are analyzed. However, it is the emic-etic difference that is primary. For real generality, etic analyses must be employed. A few dimensions — sex, generation, lineality, consanguinity — have full or nearly full etic status. We will always have to define a set of etic components and a set of social-cultural components which are idiosyncratic to the culture. As the second criterion we have simplicity. This is not a single criterion but the combination of several subcriteria. Scientists, as a rule, prefer the simplest analysis or theory. This may be for esthetic reasons or because of a general belief that God would not unnecessarily complicate the universe. Now let us consider the subcriterion of simplicity. First, the concepts must form a domain; that is, there must be one dimension in common. This follows from the central notion of dimensional analysis — complementarity. "A term may be said to complement one or more other terms if it signifies some value which the other terms definitely deny in favor of another value" (Wallace and Atkins 1960:69). The common feature defines a semantic domain. In a domain, the meaning of each word differs from the meaning of each of the other words in the domain by one or a few features. Next the dimensions must not overlap. Dimensions must be independent. Dimension A must not be predictable from another dimension, B. There must be a minimal number of semantic spaces. A semantic 2

See Pike 1966.

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space is the intersection of dimensions in a two-dimensional space. Thus, there must be a minimal number of dimensions and a minimal number of values on the aforementioned dimensions. In general, this means a preference for binary values for dimensions, but not necessarily. Any system can always be reduced to binary dimensions but sometimes the cost is high. Analysis may lead us to develop a three-value dimension. This dimension can be reduced to two binary dimensions, but we would have four possibilities in the semantic space instead of three in the former case. Here preference for binary dimensions complicates the semantic space. Lastly, ego should be included in the system. Genealogical reckoning in any of its guises is ego oriented. Psychological reality has been tested in several ways. We will want to look at these various tests. First, however, certain other issues should be considered. In discussing psychological reality we are talking about the content of the mind. Do all individuals have the same system? Psychology, during the last half century or more, has been interested in process. The model of mind that has developed is behavioristic, a partial outgrowth of associationism. Yet, the conditions of life are such, i.e., he lives in such and such a culture that he faces certain commonalities. Thus, everyone, depending on the roles he plays, is to a certain extent standardized. Anthony Wallace (1961) has considered this issue. Many students of society have believed that shared cognitions are basic to the continuance of society. Wallace questions this statement. He points out that the only formal attempts to specify cognitive systems, the work of dimensional analysts and other ethnoscientists, have led the investigators to conclude that there are many possible systems of analysis. Wallace asks if it is necessary for persons to share cognitive systems in order to behave correctly. He formally analyzes the cognitive backdrop of a sociocultural system and demonstrates that cognitive sharing is not necessary for social interaction. Wallace goes on to point out that cognitive nonsharing permits a more complex socio-cultural system to "arise than most or any of its participants can comprehend" (1961:40).

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45

In this paper we will examine only a few informants. We use individual informants for a good reason. We want to show what one individual's semantic system looks like in a well-developed area. Presumably, a view of idiosyncratic systems will contribute to an understanding of such systems in general. A related point is that native users may employ more than one semantic system. This was first seen by Goodenough (1956) who said none of his alternative analyses of Trukese kinship could be removed from consideration as expressions of the native user's cognition. There are two possibilities here: two or more complete systems, i.e., here kin paradigms, in the thinking of the native user. Alternately there may be parallel dimensions at certain points in the kin paradigm. Let us call these two possibilities by the name SYSTEM REDUNDANCY. Cognitive nonsharing and redundancy seem not to have been tested empirically yet. The literature on empirical tests of psychological reality is small but well conceived. In evaluating these behavioral tests it should be remembered that there is no a priori reason to suppose that such tests are, in themselves, any more indicative of an underlying mental reality than are such procedures as componential analysis. Rather, it is the case that when two independent approaches produce similar results, one's confidence in both is enhanced. Thus, it is clearly useful to consider a number of behavioral tests on the grounds that the results of these studies will certainly help in determining the validity of the approaches to kinship with which we are primarily concerned. Romney and D'Andrade were the first investigators to do something substantial. They employed three measures to test psychological reality: a listing of kinship terms in free recall, semantic differential ratings, and direct judgments of similarity and difference by triad sorting. They made two assumptions. First, the more semantic dimensions two kinship terms share, "the greater will be the similarity of response to these terms" (Romney and D'Andrade 1964: 154), which follows from two prior assumptions: first, that dimensions constitute the meaning of a term; second, that the more dimensions shared, the closer the meaning. The second major point

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is that they assume they are dealing with denotative meaning. In the listing of terms in free recall, Romney and D'Andrade were interested in order of kin terms, frequency of appearance, and the productivity of modifiers. The first two measures gave an index of the 'saliency' of kin terms. It is interesting to note that the two measures, order and frequency, tend to agree. Yet they tell us little about the reality of the dimensional analysis. Rather, they contribute something else to our knowledge of kinship behavior. It should be noted that terms fell out in pairs, i.e., father-mother, brother-sister, grandmothergrandfather. The third measure in free recall was the productivity of modifiers. Romney and D'Andrade calculated the percentage of times such modifiers as great, in-law, half, step, first occurred with certain kin terms. In this way, they broke their full list of kin terms down into subsets. They suggest that as no range sets (their term for a list of kin types under a cover term) are divided in this manner and that "the fact that sets of terms occurring with the same modifier are bounded by components (or combinations of components) may be interpreted as supporting the idea that terms are classified by components" (Romney and D'Andrade 1964: 157). Next the authors tried semantic differential ratings. Apparently they hoped to untangle denotative meaning from connotative meaning. They were unsuccessful. It might be added that the inventor of the semantic differential, Charles Osgood, and his coworkers also met defeat in applying the standard semantic differential to denotative meaning. The last test of the two investigators was the most successful, the triad sorting task. In this test, a subject is asked to indicate which of three terms is most different in meaning. 3 This test was performed on a large group of high school students (150). The authors looked for high frequency pairings of terms as a measure of shared components (dimensions). Romney and D'Andrade observed that in comparing their analysis of American English kin terms to that of Wallace and Atkins (1960), their analysis predicted better than did 3

Meaning here being defined by the subjects.

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47

that of Wallace and Atkins. High frequency pairings of terms agreed with Romney and D'Andrade's analysis of minimal meaning differences, i.e., one dimension differences. Wallace and Atkins' model sometimes paired high frequency pairings of terms with minimal meaning differences but, at other times, it did not. We can conclude that of Romney and D'Andrade's three tests, only one, the triad task, helped very much in determining psychological reality. This was very much what Wallace and Atkins (1960) had prophesied. They believed that sorting tasks were the best way to approach psychological reality. Anthony Wallace (1965) also employed a sorting task. However, instead of having the subject do the sorting, he presented a sort and asked the subject (informant) to identify the dimension upon which it was based. Interestingly enough, Wallace used a single informant, a Japanese student studying at the University of Pennsylvania. Using this informant, Wallace worked out two analyses of his kinship system. One he forced into the paradigm he had used for American English kinship in his and Atkins' 1960 paper. In the other analysis he tried to be as responsive as possible to the informant's intuitions. Possessing sets of dimensions from each analysis, he presorted and presented them to his informant. (Thus, father, brother, son against mother, sister, daughter would suggest to the informant the difference of sex.) He asked the informant to inspect the sets of terms he had presented and to tell him by what criterion they were arranged in two groups. He assumed that the dimensions actually used by the informant in genealogical reckoning would be more salient, i.e., more easily put into words, than those she did not use. Such was the case. His informant was able to make sense out of his Japanese model of kinship but could not see any sense in his Americanized model. Wallace collected more than just a sorting decision. In his informant oriented study, he collected additional information on Japanese kinship and on further possible sortings as she tried to understand his presorts. The third investigation of psychological reality familiar to me is that done by Professor Osgood and his coworkers in attempting to

48

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

validate his theory of semantics (Osgood 1968). Osgood used sorting tasks as well as tasks of other kinds. A sorting task was the first to be tried by Osgood. Subjects were given a set of tags on which appeared various interpersonal verbs (the domain Osgood was investigating) and they were asked to arrange the words in strings originating at the origin of a target display. The hope was that the distribution of interpersonal verbs would correspond to a set of a priori features Osgood had devised for the interpersonal verbs. That is, if a string of interpersonal verbs agreed in being coded on a semantic feature, that feature was validated. By this test, Osgood validated his most salient features. A second sorting task was a group experiment, but here subjects were explicitly given the a priori features. Osgood and his coworkers asked, if given the a priori features, could subjects use them to differentiate words. The subjects were able to differentiate words according to the a priori codings quite well. Osgood and his coworkers also tried satiation of semantic features. In this task, different words supposedly containing the same abstract feature were repeated. In semantic satiation the connotational or word associational meaning of the word is temporarily reduced by repetition. In two different studies, negative results were obtained. There was no evidence for semantic features. This does not mean that semantic features do not exist; rather, it reflects on the delicacy and instability of all semantic satiation experiments. The last task tried by Osgood and his coworkers was a word finding task. In this test, subjects were shown a card on which was printed an incomplete word, i.e., letters were missing. There were four conditions: a control condition in which there was no cue; a condition with a cue in the same semantic field; a condition with a synonym as a cue; and a condition with a complete definition as a cue. The investigators were interested in the subject solving the mystery by insight, so he got only a brief look at a card. The theory behind this experiment was that cue words with closely similar meanings (many shared features) should activate common psychological processes which would lead to the correct integration of the word with missing letters. This study is as yet in-

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

49

complete. Osgood concludes his discussion of psychological reality by saying that certain semantic features are more salient, affect behavior more, and are thus more real. What can we say about the empirical tests of psychological reality? First, they have not been studied in sufficient detail. We can expect better results. Wallace's approach seems most applicable for the anthropologist and linguist in field situations, and though his method will require some adjustment according to the sophistication of the informants, it will be generally useful cross-culturally.

CONTEXTUAL VARIATION

An interesting point about the American English kinship system is made by Schneider and Homans (1955:1195): Perhaps the fundamental characteristic of the American system of terms for kinsmen is the presence of a wide variety of alternate terms. Mother may be called 'mother', 'mom', 'ma', 'Mummy', 'mama', by her first name, by her nickname, diminutive, 'old woman', and a variety of other less commonly used designations.

Schneider and Homans believe that the traditional anthropological distinction between terms of address and reference is irrelevant in discussing American English kinship terminology. They go on to say that the many alternate forms are useful mainly is distinguishing contexts and they have found one useful distinction for dealing with such a kinship terminology. A kinship term has two functions — classifying and role-designating. Schneider and Homans are interested in knowing if such variant terms as 'mother' and 'old woman' are different in meaning and, if different in meaning, they inquire whether the difference is in the classifying function, the roledesignating function, or both. The two authors conclude that the kinship terminology in its variety agrees in its classifying function. That is, father, dad, daddy, pop, old man all refer to the same class of kinsmen or, as I would say, these terms refer to genitor or componentially male senior lineal nuclear family. They feel that the differences lie in the role designating function, and the rest of their

50

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

paper is a discussion of the possible sociological roles the kin term variety serves. Granted that these terms differ in their role designating aspects, how may they be handled linguistically? Are they synonyms with different connotations, nonsynonyms, or equivalent terms in different languages (Wallace and Atkins 1960: 67)? Wallace and Atkins point out that if these terms are considered nonsynonyms, then the denotata, the kin classes, have qualifiers and there will be extra dimensions in the componential definition. Now there is no harm in expanding the number of dimensions, but are the denotata of these terms actually different? This would imply that denotata differ with age, social class, and sex, but this is simply another way of saying that there are different sublanguages.4 The third solution to this problem — e.g., considering the terms to belong to different sublanguages — Wallace and Atkins reject for two reasons. One, it requires six analyses, not one, and secondly, the authors feel that these are not really different age, sex, and class languages — most English speakers know or use all the terms.5 A thesaurus, not a dictionary, is needed to distinguish words from different situational varieties of language. Thus, depending on the situation, one can dine or eat. An instructor can be said to have talked or lectured. Or more to the point, 'father' can be dad or old man. The words of the set — father, dad, daddy, pop, old man, governor — illustrate situational variation. Pop, in my language, means male, senior generation, nuclear family, lineal, i.e., the componential definition of 'father', but it also expresses affection. Governor, although I recognize it, is not used by me. Old man, like governor, is usually employed in a peer group situation. Daddy is part of my recognition vocabulary, used in the following situations: small child talking to male parent, most situations; adolescent or 4

That is, a language variety that can be determined by its vocabulary alone. A term defined in part by age, sex, or class considerations is not only a nonsynonym of similar terms, it can be considered to belong to a different language. 5 Wallace and Atkins define sublanguages only by users. One must also consider the uses of language. And this is an answer to the criticism of Wallace and Atkins that most English speakers know and use all these terms.

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51

adult female talking about male parent in an informal situation. Dad indicates a sense of familiarity and good relations with the male parent. It is used in informal situations to speak of the male parent, usually by sons but sometimes by daughters. Father indicates respect and is employed in formal situations by male and female children. The real question is 'Are sublanguages something to be contended with in the study of language, whether it be semantics, phonology, or grammar?' If the need for different sublanguages can be established, then the reader may more readily assent to considering the terms of the kin term set father, dad, daddy, pop, old man, governor to belong to different sublanguages of American English. It will be demonstrated below that subcodes of language exist, that they consist of grammatical and phonological differences as well as vocabulary differences, and that these subcodes express the same thought (say the same thing) but in different form. It has been remarked that there is not much difference between Wallace and Atkins' "equivalent terms in different languages" and "nonsynonyms". To represent the terms componentially as nonsynonyms, there would be added an additional feature in the componential definition as well as a qualification on the denotata. For equivalent terms in different languages, a selection restriction must be added which says that a term is used in a specific situation. This might be equivalent to a marker. However, there would not here have to be a qualification on the denotatum. The denotata are the same for equivalent terms. What must be added to the semanticcognitive theory is some sort of context of situation model, and this reduces to the introduction of situation mentioned by Katz and Fodor (1964). Granted, as Katz and Fodor say, that a complete theory of this kind is not possible, still a limited one is possible. It is needed in the interpretation of the semantics of the language. Therefore, in addition to a dictionary as discussed in this book, a context of situation model is needed for independent reasons. If we try to explain sentences, projection rules as in Katz and Fodor (1964) are needed. The introduction of a context situation model is

52

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

not an unnecessary complication of the semantic-cognitive model. It is needed to justify the choice of equivalent terms in different languages rather than nonsynonyms or synonyms with different connotations under the problem of synonymy in semantic analysis. Below, such a context of situation model will be discussed. Several language varieties or codes coexist within a single person. Varieties of language which show an internal patterning of their own and are not in free variation with other language varieties can be accorded the status of code.6 For instance, formal and informal styles of language are separate codes. The view then is that any individual is simultaneously in control of a number of linguistic codes which enjoy specialized use. In the normal case these codes are all subcodes of that abstract code which is the ordinary concern of the linguist. The use of one or the other of these varieties depends on cues from the situation. Well known to all students of language is the language choice behavior of bilinguals, especially coordinate bilinguals. Such bilinguals come to use one language in one situation or set of situations and the other language in a different set of situations. Of course, the differential patterning is not a pure one. In some situations, either language may be used. There is a dearth of studies concerned with situational varieties of language. In a sense, this fact may be taken to be indicative of the marginal character of such varieties and, also, the difficulty of investigating them. Indeed, a marginal character for such varieties is suggested by referring to situational varieties as specialized languages, e.g., trade language or control tower language. This need not be the only approach. Linguistic subcodes can be viewed from several angles by the investigator. (1) He can envision a relatively pure language accompanied by a few marginal special varieties. Two sorts of differences are suggested :

6

Code, register, and variety all refer to approximately the same thing.

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

53

(a) special vocabulary — home run, phoneme (b) collocations

— hordes of chínese, the top twenty

In any view of subcodes, vocabulary and collocations are more visible than grammatical differences. (2) He can adopt the view that language is simply a collection of situational varieties. Here there would be no marginal varieties — all varieties would enjoy equal status. Ignored would be any conception of an abstracted normative version of language. (3) He can accept the existence of a pure code and various subcodes dependent on it. The pure code would be simply the intersection of the various subcodes as the varieties would be considered derivatives of the pure code. All three conceptions listed above are simply ways of emphasizing one aspect over another. Rather than adopt one view over the other, it is best to keep all three in mind. The first view is the usual one adopted by descriptive linguists and psycholinguists. The third view is the one presently being developed by British linguistics (Halliday et al. 1964) and by American anthropological linguistics (Gumperz 1964). So far as the present writer knows, the second view is claimed by no one. It is introduced for its heuristic value. As a synonym for situational variety of language, register is a useful term. As the group most interested in the study of registers, the views of the Firthians on registers need to be considered. A register is defined on both grammatical and lexical grounds. Two texts from what by nonlinguistic criteria are different situations are not necessarily in different registers. Two registers exist only if there are persistent and sufficient differences in grammar and lexicon. This point is strongly made by the Firthian linguists (Halliday et al. 1964) but ignored by some of their critics.7 Moreover, in the theoretical system devised by the Firthians some 7

Langendoen (1964), a transformational linguist, gives as proof of the incorrectness of the Firthian concept context of situation the fact that while grabbing a snack at a lunch counter, he could discuss economics or politics in addition to the menu.

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SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

further points are made. First, the meaning of any piece of text is the product of its contextual meaning and formal meaning. Where contextual cues are few, the meaning of a piece of text has to be derived from the formal meaning using a principle of analogy or compensation. Patterns of speaking in which there is a surfeit of nonlinguistic clues are extended to situations where they are lacking. In a sense, this treatment of the problem is no different from that of Langendoen. Langendoen (1964: 309) argues that the context of situations is not visible in the ordinary sense accorded the term visible. A theory of culture like a linguistic theory must be concerned not with making catalogs of 'observables' neatly arranged in tables but rather with characterizing the representation of culture in the minds of individuals and especially with providing an account of how individuals growing up in a particular society learn its cultural pattern.... With such an internal representation of things, the speaker would not be entirely dependent on the immediate situation for cues. Some attention has been given to the problem of classifying registers or situational varieties. Usually this is done by indicating an intersection of two or more dimensions. Halliday, Mcintosh, and Strevens (1964) classify registers as the intersection of three dimensions — field of discourse, mode, and style. Field of discourse refers to what is going on, e.g., the content of discourse. For instance, there are registers of politics and personal relations, shopping, and playing games. Mode refers to such a distinction as written language versus spoken language. At a different level, this would break down into the modes of newspapers, advertising, sportscasting, or conversation. By style, they mean such dichotomies as colloquial or polite, intimate or deferential, technical or nontechnical. Robert Dixon (1964b) suggests a somewhat different classification. Situational varieties could be classified according to the amount of linguistically relevant nonlanguage material present. He has a further classification. This is a division based on the distribution of opportunities to speak accorded the participants in a situation. There is the case in which only one participant can talk

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

55

or write — the lecture, radio or television, the novel. The other extreme is that in which there is free interaction — telephone or face-to-face conversation. This classification seems obvious to us but it is, according to Dixon, a primary factor affecting differences in usage varieties. The validity of the kinds of distinctions made above is most readily seen in the case of language choice. Herman (1961) is explicit on this issue. Discussing bilinguals in Israel, Herman mentions that an individual's first language is preferred over Hebrew when talking over the telephone. Visible cues in the environment and gestures are unavailable to aid in understanding. Also, technicians talking together may prefer a language like English for discussing professional problems since the first language may not have a highly developed technical vocabulary. Admittedly, little work has been done on situational varieties within a given language. The differences may be slight. Some languages may be more differentiated than others. At any rate, the question of varieties deserves serious study. Frick and Sumby (1952) show that a language can be restricted not only in its grammar and lexicon but also in the set of messages possible in its employment. The context of situation sharply reduces the set of possible messages. Only a restricted number of situations requiring communication can arise for a pilot during landing and only a restricted number of procedures need be employed by pilot and controller in conjunction. Therefore, in bringing an airplane in for a landing, the two parties are nearly aware of what will be said before it is uttered. This extremely restricted language very nearly approaches the limit of a one to one mapping of language and situation. On this point, consider the selection from Charles Frake (1964:127): Our stranger ... needs what Hymes (1962) has called an ethnography of speaking: a specification of what kinds of things to say in what message forms to what kinds of people in what kinds of situations. Of course an ethnography of speaking cannot provide rules specifying exactly what message to select in a given situation. If messages were perfectly predictable from a knowledge of culture (situation), there would be little point in saying anything.

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SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

The next matter to be taken up is the form of the existing context of situation models. Several exist. Their differences are relatively minor. In British linguistics, two major models have been proposed. T. F. Mitchell (1957) has developed fully the original suggestions of Firth (1957). Jeffery Ellis (1968) evolved a model taking into consideration ideas culled from the Neo-Firthian linguists. Jakobson (1960) programmatically sketched out a context of situation model. Dell Hymes (1962, 1964a, b, c) filled in some of the gaps. Susan Ervin-Tripp (1964) also blocked out a reasonable model. To discuss one of them is to discuss all of them. T. F. Mitchell (1957) attempts to relate language to situation in a relatively direct manner, elaborating the ideas put forth by Firth in a paper that is at the same time empirical and theoretical. He has applied context of situation concepts to the language of buying and selling in Cyrenacia. Generally the reader is left unsure of the orientation Mitchell is employing. He is concerned with situational determination of linguistic subcodes. Attention is also given to formula utterance and patterns of speaking. Mitchell breaks the environment down into several obvious aspects. (1) First, he places the speakers in time and space. Examples would be (a) being in a classroom, (b) meeting on a street, (c) early in the morning. (2) Secondly, he pays attention to what the persons in the context of situation are doing: (a) teacher lecturing, (b) eating lunch. (3) Next, he mentions the attitudes of the participants: (a) supplication, (b) boasting. (4) Finally, he considers sociological factors: (a) a person is educated or not; (b) he lives on the right side or wrong side of the tracks; (c) he is a grocer or professor. In the particular case he studied, Mitchell isolated several categories as influential in language activity. These were the object of sale, locale, categories of transaction (market, auction, shop), and stages of transaction (opening, investigation, bidding, conclusion).

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

57

Mitchell quickly locates technical and nontechnical languages and shows differential use in the situations. As envisioned, the context of situation model ought to apply to the choice between the language of buying and selling and some other situational language variety. Analysis into smaller units would seem limited to the listing of formula utterances and to determining formula patterns of speaking, e.g., forms of address, etc. The weakness of this context of situation model was readily seen by other interested linguists. Ellis (1968) sought to redefine the model whereas Dixon (1964a, b) approached situation at an entirely different level. As it turns out, the new Ellis model maps on to those proposed by Jakobson and Ervin-Tripp. Dell Hymes (1964c: 18) presents the reformulated orientation clearly. There is not complete freedom of co-occurrence among components. Not all imaginably possible combinations of participants, channels, codes, topics, etc. can occur.

The new focus weighs channel, code, participants, etc. quite equally. The system does not revolve around language alone. Ervin-Tripp (1964) lists the following components of the situation. Setting includes locale and situation. These last two have been termed immediate and wider situation by Ellis.8 She also mentions participants. Here she is interested in status and role relations. She mentions topic (thesis for Ellis) which is the content or referent of speech. The functions of the interaction (for Ellis, reference) also come into attention. Formal features of communication (register for Ellis) are discussed also. Neither writer is able to give explicit definitions of the various components of the situation, but situation could be defined merely as two persons in interaction on a given topic. Ervin-Tripp mentions that the definition of setting is a major problem. Ellis (1968: 82) has an obscure definition of the two aspects of situation (setting). By immediate situation is meant everything relevant other than included 8

Ervin-Tripp and Ellis seem to have been unaware of one another's work.

58

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

under other heads, in the place and at the time of the speech event.... Wider situation is everything relevant in the universe at any time. One wonders what relevant means here. Participants and topic are obvious. The functions of the interaction can be several — requests, routines, expressive monologues, information and instruction, phatic communion. The recognition of the register concept is a major innovation. The simultaneous study of topic, register, and function seems to be the direction for further research. Besides being at the same time vague and obvious, the various components of the situation seem not to have been related in any interesting manner. For instance, are the participants always more important than the immediate situation in determining the choice of language variety? Or is it the case that choice of language variety depends on the specific features of the situation. What are the relations of correlation and dependency of the various components of the situation? Such questions need to be answered before the so-called context of situation or sociolinguistic models can be considered anything but listings or presentation technique. The essence of a context of situation theory is to be found in the weighting and relating of the various components of the context of situation. Only empirical research can provide us with the answers. Unfortunately, it has not been done yet. Closely related to context of situation study is the work of the New Ethnographers with whom we are already familiar, e.g., Frake (1961; 1964), Conklin(1955; 1962), Wallace (1961), and those influenced by them, e.g., Brown and Gilman (1960), Brown and Ford (1961). The fundamental insight is that of contrast set. The environments of contrast are not just linguistic but are behavioral. A person who selects a message in a situation does so from a set of appropriate alternatives. In the case of formula utterances, one out of a small set of messages is chosen. In disease diagnosis, saying a disease is smallpox means also that it is not one of several hundred other diseases. Upon meeting Joe Smith on the street, one can say 'Hi, Joe' or 'Long time, no see, you old horse trader'. In the

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND OTHER FACTS

59

remainder of the cases the choice — as will have become apparent by now — is between various linguistic subcodes. Viewed in the manner just developed, the language switching of the bilingual is the best example available of the existence and utilization of situational varieties. The extensive differences between languages only make more visible the fact of switching for situation. Attention to the use of the different languages in the bilingual instance ought to show differentiation into situational varieties for each language. The greater the command of the second language, the more situational varieties that ought to be detected. Listings of situational components have been rejected here, not because the listed component were so obvious, but because they were not related in any interesting manner. The establishment of a theory of relationship of components is a primary need for the field being considered. Although we lack any exact knowledge of the interrelationships, we can say that the components of the situation do function to determine code choice. The fact that a superior speaks to an inferior or that two doctors meet to discuss a mutual professional problem means that choices are being made. Such code switching cannot be said to be either conscious or unconscious. It is both. Speaking to a baby, one perhaps consciously adopts baby talk. The professional consciously chooses his words as he attempts to communicate with his colleagues. Much of the process of learning is devoted to just this subject of consciously learning and using a situational variety. The study of French as a foreign language to be used just in a French classroom or on an overseas trip is only the most manifest of examples. Bilinguals or speakers involved in a diglossic-like situation are usually able to capture the various differences in situational use of language, if asked. They can quickly recognize grammatical, lexical, and phonetic differences. In a large but uniform speech community, such as the United States, monolingual speakers would experience much more difficulty in separating varieties. Quick assent might be gained to a distinction of formal and informal styles

60

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS A N D OTHER FACTS

of use. It would probably be denied that there are any further situational distinctions to be made in grammar, lexis (the combinatorial properties of words), or phonology. Such denials may contain an element of validity. It may be true that certain speech communities are more specialized (in the sense of situational varieties) than others. Perhaps in the American case, the common core does extend over a great number of situations. Still, it would be surprising not to find any linguistic specialization in this regionally diverse, technologically complex language community. Perhaps it is there, but we just have not looked for it. To what subcodes do the terms Father, pop, old mart, etc. belong? As has been indicated above, one defines a subcode in two steps. First, one works out the context of situation, e.g., importance of participants, etc., and then one looks for repetitions of the same word or phrasing in this and similar situations. An interesting point about kinship vocabulary is that not all terms have different but equivalent forms and meanings in different but equivalent subcodes. Thus, there are several term equivalents for father and mother, a few for brother and sister, son and daughter, and none at all for nephew, niece, or many other kin terms. Do these other kin terms have the same form but a different meaning corresponding to that given the meaning 'father' in pop? Or are the sets of terms defined by the central question restricted in these cases?

4 APPLICATION OF METHODS

In this study in the methodology and theory of kinship semantics, several different methodologies for investigating lexical semantics have been presented. Now we want to put these methodologies to work. All together, the methodological statements to be presented provide a particular picture of cognition which can be viewed in two ways. First, we can suppose that the different empirical presentations along with their accompanying method and theory combine to generate an overall statement of kinship semantics. By this view, each presentation would be needed to illustrate some portion of the semantic-cognitive field. On the other hand, we can take the view that the different presentations are not true as they stand but that all the presentations merely illustrate some aspects of a deeper reality. Thus componential analysis, generative analysis, folk taxonomy, etc., are not adequate as they stand but all point to something else. This distinction can be put another way — on one hand, the different presentations are as parts to a whole; on the other hand, all the presentations taken together point to some ultimate analysis. Having considered some of the problem areas in the study of the psychological reality of componential (dimensional) analysis and having reviewed the experimental literature on the same issue, we are in a position to investigate these problems ourselves. The central point of studies of psychological reality is the validation of the analysis from the viewpoint of the native speaker. Some investigators believe that specific tests of psychological validity are not necessary and are perhaps misleading. Roger Brown (1964)

62

APPLICATION OF METHODS

indicates that a better test of the validity of an analysis or theory, of any sort whatever, is extending it to cover more and more material of a related sort. Presumably as data is amassed only one theory will be able to handle all of it. This theory is the one we accept. A similar point is made by Frake (1964b) and he goes on to argue against the distinction between social structural reality and psychological reality. To repeat, on this view, the theory accepted is the one that works in the greatest number of cases. The range of possible analyses or theories can be narrowed down by an evaluation procedure for analysis as we discussed briefly above and, finally, by discovering correlates of semantic features. There exist three published componential analyses of American English kinship. Wallace and Atkins (1960) worked out a system to describe in the simplest terms the principles of doing a dimensional analysis. Romney and D'Andrade (1964) presented a different analysis using Romney's primitive notation for kinship. When the two were compared for psychological reality by Romney and D'Andrade, Romney and D'Andrade's system proved more real. In 1965 Ward Goodenough published a third analysis of American kinship which he said was particularly his own and which represented the 'Yankee' dialect. Additionally, he covered the complete set of kin terms, not a restricted set. Goodenough invited other analysts to construct their own systems to represent their own dialects or idiolect but also employing the rigorous analytic procedure he (Goodenough) set up. Below I have attempted just this. It is interesting that Goodenough believes that kinship system differences will, if they occur at all, happen along dialect borders. He apparently accepts the one language — one culture dicta. Being a midwesterner, I probably speak a variant of 'General American'. When analyzed, my system differs slightly from Goodenough's analysis. However, the differences do not arise from dialect differences. Schneider (1965, 1968) has conclusively demonstrated that there is a single American kinship system. Differences that occur, i.e., in treatment of cousin or admission of in-law relatives as one's own relatives, are, for the most part, family differences. My analysis differs from Goodenough's but only because I have

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APPLICATION OF METHODS

chosen to define a dimension where Goodenough does not, or viceversa. The identity of dimensions and the choice of binary or trinary values is, at present, largely a matter of personal choice. The only reason I can give for not adopting Goodenough's dimensions outright is that my own dimensions appeal to me intuitively. As long as dimensional analysis is not completely formal, such differences must be accepted. But let it be noted that my dimensions could be easily converted to Goodenough's. It would require only a set of simple rules for establishing identity. At any rate, my analysis of my personal variant of the General American kinship system is as follows: DIMENSIONS:

nuclear family/nonnuclear family affinal/consanguineal/ficti ve relati on same ascending/contemporary/same descending generation consanguineal linking/affinal linking relative relative lineal/collateral male/female

1.1/1.2 2.1/2.2/2.3 3.1/3.2/3.3 4.1/4.2 5.1/5.2 6.1/6.2

EXPLANATION OF DIMENSIONS:

Nuclear relatives are those relatives who belong to the families of procreation or orientation, i.e., fa, mo, sis, br, son, dau. Nonnuclear relatives are all others. Affinals are relatives by marriages. Consanguineals are all others. Same ascending, same descending and contemporary generations are self-explanatory. Consanguineal linking relatives mean such a relative stands between ego and the kin term in question. Affinal linking relative has a parallel explanation. Lineals are ego's direct ancestors and descendants. Collaterals are all others. Male and female are self-explanatory.

64

APPLICATION OF METHODS TABLE 1

Componential Analysis of American English Kinship

husband wife st fa st mo stbr stsis st son st dau fa mo br sis son dau un au faL mo L brL sis L sonL dauL gf gm gson gdau un au cousin neph niece fosfa fosmo fosbr fos sis fos son fos dau

n/n

A/c/f

A/C/D

CI/Al

1/c

m/m

1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2

2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.3

3.2 3.2 3.1 3.1 3.2 3.2 3.3 3.3 3.1 3.1 3.2 3.2 3.3 3.3 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.2 3.2 3.3 3.3 3.1 3.1 3.3 3.3 3.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.3 3.1 3.1 3.2 3.2 3.3 3.3

4.1 4.1 4.2 4.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4.1 4.1 4.2 4.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5.1 5.1 5.2 5.2 5.1 5.1 5.2 5.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 5.1 5.1 5.1 5.1 5.2 5.2 5.2 5.2 5.2

6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.0 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 0 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2 6.1 6.2

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

In studying psychological reality, the following approach was used. There were four informants. They were selected because the in-

65

APPLICATION OF METHODS

vestigator had frequent access to them and because they were prepared to spend a great deal of time discussing problems of kinship. All four informants were Americans. The first informant, A, was male, sixty-two years old, and born near Champaign, Illinois. His immediate ancestors were also from the area. Informant B was female, fifty-five years old, and born near Newton, Illinois. Her immediate ancestors were from the same area. Informant C was male, twenty-nine years old, born in Champaign, and his parents came from Texas and Illinois. Informant D was thirty-one years old, male, and reared in the Chicago, Illinois area. There was one additional full time informant — myself — age twenty-eight, born in Champaign, Illinois, with parents from the same area. Several additional people offered comment on various issues. The first task was the use of Anthony Wallace's single informant method to determine the existence of cognitive nonsharing and redundancy. Rather than study the entire kinship system, i.e., forty plus terms, a restricted subset, the basic consanguineal terms, was used. The reason for this decision was that these fifteen terms were basic to the others and more frequently used. The fifteen terms are listed below. Father Mother Son Daughter

Grandfather Grandmother Grandson Granddaughter

Uncle Aunt Nephew Niece

Brother Sister Cousin

In the method of Wallace, various presorts are devised and presented to the informant. Thus, the investigator might organize the terms on a sex dimension with male terms in one pile and female terms in another. The informant would be asked to look at the presort and tell the investigator on what basis the cards were sorted. Thus, an informant would view the two sets of cards, one with male kin terms and the other with female kin terms, and tell the investigator that the piles differed by sex or that all males were in one pile and all females in another pile. This identification was the basis of the sorting. If the presort was of lineal and collateral, an answer

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APPLICATION OF

METHODS

such as the following would be acceptable: for lineal — all of these are parents and children; for collateral — these are other relatives. Whether an informant gave me a one word answer, i.e., sex, or a circumlocution, i.e., parents and children for lineal, I would accept it. I accepted either a one word answer or a recognizable definition of the concept. All analyses agreed in having a sex dimension. All distinguished lineal and collateral relatives, though there were some differences. For instance, Romney and D'Andrade (1964) call brother and sister lineal whereas Goodenough (1965) and I call them collateral. Moreover, Wallace and Atkins (1960) divide collateral into colineal and ablineal. 1 An additional point of difference is that Wallace and Atkins (1960) distinguish generations whereas the other authors utilize a senior-junior dimension. Goodenough (1965) and I utilize a nuclear family/nonnuclear family dimension which the others lack. Below is a table showing which dimensions of the possible dimensions the informants were able to identify. The sixty-two year old male is A. The fifty-five year old female is B. The twentyTABLE 2

Components Chosen by Informants Component

mal e/male nuclear/nuclear senior/junior lineali/collateral" lineaU/collateral" lineal, colineal, ablineal generation

Informant A

B

C

D

X X X X O O X

X X X X O O X

X X X X O O X

X X O X O O X

" Nogle, Goodenough b Romney, D'Andrade 1 "Colineals are non lineals all of whose ancestors include or are included in the ancestors of ego; ablineals are consanguineal relatives who are neither lineals nor colineals" (Wallace and Atkins 1960:161).

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67

nine year old male is C and the thirty-one year old male is D. As can be seen by inspection, either my analysis or the Goodenough analysis would fit these data. The analysis is redundant — both senior/junior and generation dimensions were identified. Moreover, the analyses themselves are redundant as we have seen. All utilize the sex dimension, all utilize some form of the lineality dimension and two utilize the nuclear family dimension. The value of individual informants came in the additional material that could be collected. The informants were asked to verbalize how they arrived at an answer. One informant, D, quickly arrived at a single word answer for dimensions. It seemed to this student that he actually thought in terms of dimensions or something close to it. This informant, D, though he had never studied kinship formally, came from a family where kinship was important. For instance, he had numerous relatives and, in addition, frequently attended family reunions with more distant kin. None of the other informants were as interested in kinship. A, B, and C phrased their groupings for the correct dimension in genealogical terms. For instance, those are all fathers and sons — lineal; those are brothers and sisters of parents and sons and daughters of uncles and aunts — collateral. This fact suggests that we study more closely genealogical reckoning and its basis, the relative product or folk definition. Finally, informant C discussed kinship terms in geometrical terms. He said that "offspring were below ego", that collaterals were "two degrees away from you" and lineals were "one degree away from you". In general, C thought in genealogical and geometrical terms. The other informants were questioned to see if they also thought in geometrical terms but they were unable to say. Genealogical reckoning can be realized as a geometrical model but it is not a necessary step. Still the genealogical model is real to my informants. All of them knew what a family tree was and spontaneously constructed one. A family tree is a good example of the genealogical model. The second test of psychological reality was Romney and D'Andrade's (1964) triad test, here applied to individuals. This task involved asking the informants to choose two out of three terms as

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APPLICATION OF METHODS

being closer together in meaning. Informants were specifically told to put two of the three words closer in meaning together. The meaning of meaning was left to the informants. My own estimate is that ordinary people agree more closely on the meaning of meaning than do philosophers, psychologists, linguists, or anthropologists. Only eight terms were used here because of the geometrical way possibilities increase in the triad method. Eight terms provide fifty-six triads. The terms were father, son, brother, uncle, nephew, grandfather, grandson, and cousin. Using Goodenough's (1965) analysis of kinship terminology (the previous task showed that it was adequate and practically interchangeable with my analysis, at least for the basic kinship system), it was determined how many features of the possible maximum number of shared features were shared by any two terms. Then this result was compared by inspection to the results of the triad task, i.e., number of times two terms were put together of the total possible number of times two terms could go together. For all four informants, there were fourteen to fifteen disagreements between the two sets. As they all agree in magnitude and place of error, only one analysis will be presented (see Table 3). If the proportions A and B agree in magnitude, we accept them. Otherwise we reject them. Fourteen of twenty-eight comparisons are rejected or are questionable according to the test. The Goodenough analysis is not psychologically real to informant A. Informants B, C, and D gave essentially the same picture. Berlin, Breedlove, and Raven (1968) used the triad test on individual informants also. I have no reason to offer for the failure of this test except that the process of continually discussing kinship with these informants may have changed their reaction from what it would have been had they been naive. The commentary of the informants as they performed the procedure, i.e., sorting terms, suggests again they are utilizing genealogical reckoning and relative product definitions. This time, even informant D indicated by his replies that he was thinking in genealogical terms. We said that a good test of the validity of competing analyses or theories is to try to extend them to more and more cases. We will correlate (in the general, not the statistical sense) two sets of

69

APPLICATION OF METHODS TABLE 3

Informant A Romney-D'Andrade Triad Sort

fa son fa br fa un fa nep fa gf fa gs fa cous son br son un son nep son gf son gs son cous br un br nep br gf br gs br cous un nep un gf un gs un cous nep gf nep gs nep cous gf gs gf cous gf cous

Number of Shared Features of Possible Shared (A)

Number of Times Two Terms Appear Together (B)

Hypothesis: Ratios are Related

4 of 5 3 of 5 3 of 5 2 of 5 4 of 5 3 of 5 Oof 5 3 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 Oof 5 3 of 5 3 of 5 2 of 5 2 of 5 Oof 5 4 of 5 4 of 5 3 of 5 Oof 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 Oof 5 4 of 5 Oof 5 Oof 5

6 of 6 5 of 6 2 of 6 1 of 6 4 of 6 1 of 6 1 of 6 5 of 6 2 of 6 1 of 6 4 of 6 2 of 6 Oof 6 2 of 6 1 of 6 3 of 6 1 of 6 Oof 6 5 of 6 1 of 6 Oof 6 Oof 6 Oof 6 Oof 6 2 of 6 4 of 6 Oof 6 1 of 6

accept reject reject 7 accept reject accept reject accept reject accept reject accept ? accept accept ? accept accept reject reject accept reject reject reject accept accept accept

distinctive features or, in other words, look for an intersection of two sets of data (Hammel, 1965). One set of distinctive features is the semantic features determined by a componential analysis. The other set of features is drawn from "the field of ideal kinship behavior", e.g., how one ought to behave toward a member of a particular class of kinsmen (Pospisil 1964:401).

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APPLICATION OF METHODS

In this analysis one set of features did not serve as a standard against which the other set was judged. Rather, both sets of features were manipulated concurrently to obtain an intersection. The procedure was as follows: Semantic distinctive features were provided by prior analysis. We had the Wallace and Atkins (1960), Romney and D'Andrade (1964), Goodenough (1965), and the current author's analyses from which to select features. By the process of introspection and by asking various informants, it was determined what behaviors could be connected with kinship. Below are the kinship behaviors my informants and I agreed upon. There may be other behaviors to be considered. I rather expect that there are. But at least these behaviors are salient to us. 1. Primary Legal

Responsibility.

Using ego as base, his senior and junior lineal relatives may be dependent on him because of infirmity or extreme youth, respectively. Contemporaries in ego's generation are supposedly able to take care of themselves, except in exceptional circumstances, or to share the responsibility with ego. This includes wife, brother, and sister. The law differs somewhat from ideal kinship behavior here. In law, ego is responsible for spouse, parents, children and, to a lesser extent, grandchildren. He seems not to be responsible for grandparents. The correlated semantic feature is lineal/collateral. 2. Primary Line of Inheritance.

The rule here, in ideal behavior as well as law, is that lineals inherit with the exception that spouse also inherits. There is a logic that includes spouses here as lineal. Presumably, ego brings his spouse into his line by marriage so that you have a succession of husband-wife pairs in a genealogical line, ending with ego and his wife. Of course, then you have to explain why child's spouse and grandchild's spouse are not also made quasilineals and brought into the line of inheritance. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to admit that we have uncovered no semantic feature which places spouse with lineals. We just do not use this behavioral distinction, i.e., primary line of inheritance/nonprimary line of inheritance.

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71

Still this is troublesome because inheritance is certainly a very salient feature of ideal kinship behavior. 3. Attendance at Weddings, Funerals, Graduations, Holidays, etc. In ideal behavior, kinsman, i.e., consanguineals and affinals both are supposed to attend such celebratory functions. Attendance at functions/nonattendance at functions correlates with kin ¡kin. 4. Residence Proximity. Live together/live apart. In ideal behavior, nuclear family relatives live together, nonnuclear family relatives live apart. Thus father, mother, brother, sister, and ego live together in a primary family. Ego and spouse and their son and daughter live together in another primary family. The families of procreation and orientation together make up the nuclear family. 5. Respect Relations, Authority

Relations.

Respect/nonrespect, authority/nonauthority. This ideal behavior feature correlates with a senior-junior semantic feature. Seniors are shown respect and exert authority, and vice versa for juniors. 6. Joking Relation. In ideal behavior, only age mates (contemporaries) are permitted to play jokes on each other. 7.

Indulgence. Indulgence/nonindulgence. In ideal behavior, all seniors, with the exception of parents, are permitted to indulge juniors. This feature does not correlate with any of the semantic features so far discovered. 8. Gift Giving. Gift giving/nongift giving. Ideally, all relatives exchange gifts but there exists a scale of costs

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APPLICATION OF METHODS

which vary with the kinship distance of the relatives. Parents, children, and siblings get the best gifts. Grandparents, grandchildren, next. Uncles, aunts, and cousins come after these. 9.

Teaching-Learning.

Ideally, seniors teach and juniors learn. This category is pretty well self-explanatory. 10. Type of Affection.

Inhibited affection/overt affection. This ideal behavioral feature correlates with the semantic feature male/male. Again, it is self-explanatory. Primary legal responsibility/nonprimary legal responsibility and lineal/collateral correspond. Attendance at functions/nonattendance at functions correlate with kin/nonkin. Living together/living apart correlate with nuclear family/nonnuclear family. Respect/nonrespect, teaching/learning correlate with senior/ junior. Inhibited affection/overt affection correlate with male/female. The following semantic features, to recapitulate, are selected and may be the ones of the most valid semantic-cognitive analysis. kin/kin senior/junior male/female nuclear family/nuclear family lineal/collateral These features will serve to define the basic kinship terms. Either Goodenough's (1965) or my own analysis of kin terms will utilize the above features. Earlier we asked which was more real psychologically, a com-

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73

ponential (dimensional) analysis or a folk definition analysis. My informants were clearly at home with folk definitions of kinship terms. They gave such definitions spontaneously. In fact, when they tried to name presented dimensions, they resorted to folk definitions. Clearly folk definitions are psychologically real for my informants. The informants differed only slightly in the definitions they gave. Indeed it seems to me that any adult member of American English culture would generate a similar set. I do not know that members of other cultures would be so facile but it seems likely in a majority of cases. Here is a list of kin terms and accompanying definitions. It is interesting to note that informants give folk definitions applying only to consanguineals when a kin term applying to both consanguineals and relatives by marriage is present, i.e., see uncle and aunt. father mother brother sister aunt uncle son daughter nephew niece cousin grandfather grandmother grandson granddaughter husband wife father-in-law mother-in-law son-in-law daughter-in-law brother-in-law sister-in-law stepfather

"male parent" "female parent" "parents' son" "parents' daughter" "father's sister or mother's sister" "father's brother or mother's brother" "male child" (male offspring) "female child" (female offspring) "brother's son or sister's son" "brother's daughter or sister's daughter" "father's (mother's) brother's (sister's) child" ("child of aunt or uncle") "parent's father" "parent's mother" "child's son" "child's daughter" ... "male spouse" "female spouse" "husband's or wife's father" "husband's or wife's mother" "daughter's husband" "son's wife" "husband's or wife's brother" "husband's or wife's sister" "mother's husband" (mother's second husband)

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APPLICATION OF METHODS

stepmother stepson

"father's wife" (father's second wife) "spouse's son" (son by spouse's former marriage) stepdaughter "spouse's daughter" (daughter by spouse's former marriage) stepbrother "parent's spouse's son" stepsister "parent's spouse's daughter" great grandfather "parent's grandfather" great grandmother "parent's grandmother" great uncle "grandparent's brother" great aunt "grandparent's sister" great grandson "grandchild's son" great granddaughter "grandchild's daughter" great nephew "sister's or brother's child's son" great niece "sister's or brother's child's daughter" first cousin "parent's brother's or sister's child" second cousin "parent's brother's or sister's grandchild" 2 third cousin "parent's brother's or sister's great grandchild"* We cannot discuss folk definitions without discussing the closely related problem of genealogical reckoning. For instance, you learn that a certain relative is covered by a certain term in relation to some ego. This is a reference point. You work backward from the relative you do know to the one whose relationship you do not know in order to reckon kin. Let us say you know an individual, Bill. What is his relation to you? You find Bill's relation to a person A whose relationship to yourself you do know. Bill may be Walter's son. Walter you know is your fathers' brother, so Bill is father's brother's son. We know from the arbitrary learning of connections between definitions and kin terms that father's brother's son is cousin. Four things are basic in genealogical reckoning. The parentchild relation between two individuals is one. Knowing that a person is a sibling or knowing that he is a spouse are two others. Lastly, knowing the sex of the individuals in question is important. If you know what a parent is, what a child is, sibling, a spouse, if you know the sex and a reference point, you can reckon kin. 2 * Some speakers of American English have somewhat different cousin definitions.

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75

We have two distinct approaches to defining kin terms — the componential or dimensional and the folk definition. If we find that both kinds of analysis seem to have some validity, we may ask how to go about distinguishing them. What are the implications and goals of the two kinds of analysis? The componential analysis implies a model in which word concepts, the kin terms, are made up of more atomic and ultimate entities or markers. The folk definition analysis suggests that kin terms are made up of phrases or sentences which have both a syntactic structure and individual words as meanings. However, the nature of the meaning of the individual words is not explained. Are they in turn made up of markers as in the componential analysis or are they represented in some entirely different manner? Now the available evidence on semantic markers suggests that they are possibly real entities but it is not conclusive. In the absence of a substantive opposing theory of semantic content, we will provisionally accept the semantic marker theory. This leaves us with the task of explaining satisfactorily the two representations of the kin terms. Ward Goodenough, a seminal thinker on cognitive culture, states that a person's cognitive organization of experience consists of a system of percepts and concepts with a grammatical structure, and sets of propositions about the arrangement and transformation of the percepts and concepts, i.e., a body of knowledge or what might be loosely termed an encyclopedia. Componential definitions of kin terms belong in the dictionary. Relative Product or Folk definitions belong in the encyclopedia. The meaning of a kin term thus appears twice. This redundancy or representation insures that a concept will be received and used more reliably under conditions of noise or other interference. The goals of componential analysis are several. First is the formal representation of semantic relationship as is discussed in Katz and Fodor (1964) and Katz (1966). Second is the application of componential features along with projection rules in understanding sentence meaning. Thus, as we have seen in the account of behavioral correlates of semantic features, verbal definitions may not

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APPLICATION OF METHODS

account for certain behavioral discriminations the native speaker is seen to make. On the other hand, the goals or aims of folk definitions seem to be two. First, and primary, is the explicit teaching and learning of word meaning between adult and child. The naive person thinks of word meanings as auditory or visual images, feeling tones or definitions. Images and feelings are idiosyncratic and hard to communicate. Definitions are easy to communicate and just may be formed for the very purpose. The other goal of folk definition analysis is to enable a person to reckon kin terms. The folk definition seems part and parcel of genealogical reckoning. Componential or feature definitions seem to form systemic organizations. It is not clear that folk definitions do the same. Of course, a folk definition concept, i.e., father's brother, may be said to be made up of three components — father, possessive, and brother — with father and brother traceable back to these more elementary concepts. But no consistent picture of a system suggests itself to the writer to account for folk definitions overall. This suggests that the encyclopedia or system of knowledge is just a list. We mentioned generative analysis earlier as an excellent way of portraying semantic relationships within kinship systems. Philip Bock, in an ingenious paper (1968), and Durbin and Saltarelli (1966) have worked out rules for complete systems of American kinship. Here is an example of such rules worked out for the basic consanguineal relatives and spouses. Bocks' innovation in generative rules — x + y name — is used here. Here is a note about the notation (based on Bock 1968: 1).

[]

(+ )

Rei Pa Ch sib

stands for rewrite as Brackets stand for a situation in which choice is to be made between symbols appearing between the brackets. Parentheses stand for optional choice of symbol found between them, means addition as usual stands for relative stands for parent stands for child stands for sibling

APPLICATION OF METHODS

sp m f Rel Pa

+ -f-

PaPa + PaPa + ch + chch sib Pasib sibch tsibch

+ + + + + + + + + + +

m f m f m f m f m f m f m f m f

- >

- > - >

>

- > - >

- >

stands for spouse male female Pa(Pa) ch(ch) (pa)sib(ch) sp Father sp Mother grandfather grandmother son daughter grandson granddaughter brother sister uncle aunt nephew niece cousin cousin

77

m

wife

Such generative analysis is suggestive in its definitions, i.e., pa + m (male parent), of relative product or folk definition. Generative analysis is one formal way of representing folk definitions in a systemic manner. However, folk definition does not agree with a formal analysis point for point. For instance, in folk definition, brother is parent's child, not sibling. Sibling is a technical term we have introduced. We certainly do not suppose that the rules for generating kin terms which exist in the individual's head (if indeed any rules do exist) are similar to those portrayed. Rather, they are, as we pointed out earlier, good indicators of semantic relationships. Note that valid generative rules would be possible only for sets of words which formed systems. Only those parts of vocabulary which have structure are amenable to such analysis. Note also that a generative analysis has as primitives, concepts which we would break down in feature analysis. M + f are primitives in generative

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APPLICATION OF METHODS

analysis and they are atomic concepts, features, in componential analysis. I cannot answer whether or not they are equivalent in the two notations. Formal analysis as developed by Lounsbury (1969) and Romney (1965) was suggested as another alternative to componential analysis. Romney (1965: 138) suggests that the two forms of analysis, i.e., formal analysis and componential analysis, are complementary. I will readily assent that the two forms of analysis are complementary to the analyst looking at them as a way of bringing out some interesting point about relationships between kin terms or for comparing kin systems for some anthropological reason. But are the systems complementary in the sense of representing the cognitive facts? I have already introduced kin term representation in two forms, i.e., the componential and relative product. Formal analysis does not represent a cognitive system. It is useful only for discussing relations. What is more, I think componential analysis is partly in that position, too. While componential analysis can be basically accurate, it needs supplementing by formal analysis. Somewhere between the two lies the golden mean. Relative product analysis, I think, is correct in its present form. Now where does componential analysis need supplementing by formal analysis? The place is the use of 'great' with grandfather, grandmother, etc., and 'first', 'second', 'third', etc., with cousin. The native speaker is limited by memory as to the number of 'greats' he can place on a term, but still it is an open category. With paper, he can extend it greatly. If one explained these open terms with semantic features, the number of values of a feature would be very large, potentially infinite. Much better would be a rule for generating kin terms of the open terms. Formal analysis provides us with such a rule. In addition, formal analysis provides us with a kin type notation basic to genealogical reckoning and thus, we may say, to the relative product or folk definition. Below, kin terms are expressed in Romney's special genealogical notations. This is necessary in order to formulate the rules for the

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79

open categories. I would hope that Romney's notation and form of rule would become standard for formal analysis. Some examples of kin terms in Romney's notation from Romney and D'Andrade (1964) are presented below. The rest are my responsibility. a m f

+ —

O =

A fa mo br sis son dau un au hus wife

a + m a + f a + a—m a + a—f a —m a —f a + a O m a + a Of f = m m = f

stands stands stands stands stands stands stands stands

for for for for for for for for

fa-in-law mo-in-law br-in-law sis-in-Iaw son-in-law dau-in-law st fa st mo st br st sis st son st dau

a person of either sex male female parent link child link sibling link marriage bond and m = f + m A f == m + m m = f + f A f == m + f m = f O m A f == m O m m = f o f A f == m O f a —f = m a —m = f a + f = m a + m = f a + m = f — m A a -1- f = a + m = f — f A a 4- f m = f — m Af = m -- m m = f — if Af = m -- f

-m -f

We can formulate other terms to see how they look but we will see they are better expressed as rules. ggf ggm ggs ggd g neph 2nd cous 3rd cous

a + a + a + m a + a + a + f a—a—a—m a —a —a —f a O a — a —f a + aOa —a—a a + a O a —a —a —a

Formal Rules (based on Romney 1965): Rule 1: + a O -> + a + a O This is a rule for formulating the extensions of great nephew and

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APPLICATION OF METHODS niece. It is to read as the following: If there is a segment + a O within a formula for a kin term, it can be expanded to the great term by the addition of + a

Rule 2: O a -+Oa — a This extends cousin to 2nd, 3rd, etc. Rule 3: a + m^-a + a + m a + f a -f a + f This extends grandfather and grandmother. Rule 4: a — m -> a — a — m a — f -> a — a — f This rules extends grandson and granddaughter.

A number of psychologists have seen the necessity for organization in memory (Bousfield 1953; Katona 1940; Miller 1956; Miller et al. 1960). Free recall experiments are only the most salient example. George Mandler (1967, 1968) lists two general principles of organization and memory. First, organization is necessary for memory. "Second the organization of, and memory for, verbal material is hierarchical, with words organized in successively higher order categories" (Mandler 1967: 328).3 The fact that some psychologists are coming to believe that verbal material is hierarchically structured can be joined to the belief of ethnoscientists that much of a culture's vocabulary is organized in folk taxonomies, usually hierarchical structure. Let us assume that verbal units, words of domain, are organized hierarchically. What then is the place of the markers? Kay, in Buchler and Selby (1968: 216), suggests that taxonomies, while based on words, are in turn made up of semantic features. Kay came to this conclusion after facing the problem of drawing a taxonomy for the basic English kin terms: "It may also be useful to finish drawing in the affinal section of the tree graph. 3 These statements will not be substantiated. That would lead us into issues outside the scope of this paper.

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If the 'reader finds a solution that satisfies his intuitions concerning the notion level of contrast he will probably also find that it is based explicitly or implicitly on the features definitions (componential definitions) of the lexemes'" (in Buchler and Selby 1968: 216). Katz (1967) suggests that for individual words in a semantic marker theory, there is no inclusion structure. This is the opposite of Katz and Fodor's (1964) statement. Semantic markers really form an unordered set. The statements of Kay and Katz can be shown to agree. Katz says the underlying features of a vocabulary are not structured. Kay says features, unorganized or organized, participate in the formation of a structure of words or other verbal units. It is more likely that words of a domain rather than features form an organization. Below is a partial taxonomy of American kin terms. It was determined by asking the following questions. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Name the relative terms. What kinds of relatives are there? What other kinds of relatives are there? What other ways can relatives be divided? What relative terms go together?

Then came questions dependent on answers to the above questions. For instance: What What What What What What

kind of blood relatives are there? kind of in-laws are there? kind of close relatives are there? kind of distant relatives are there? kinds of parents are there? kinds of offspring are there?

While this list of questions and the method underlying it are not as exact as the formal elicitation measures employed by Metzger and Williams (1966), it does agree with them in spirit. The taxonomy (see Figure 1) obviously owes much to the partial

APPLICATION OF METHODS

Figure 1. Taxonomy of American English Kin Terms fos dau fos son fos sis fos br fos mo fos fa spouse dau L son L

£

sis L

G

br L mo L fa L st dau st son st sis st bro st mo st fa g r

" ~

« ë

1

1

I

dau son g mo

a, 1

g fa mo fa sis

T3 O O

br

3

au un §R

nie nep cous

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taxonomy of American English Kinship presented by Kay in Buchler and Selby (1968:210). A problem I have alluded to before is whether or not all native speakers have a kinship system. After all, it is completely possible to know and use the kin terms in a fully concrete way. Thus, the kin term father could be connected directly with one's own father — the way he looks, affective aspects, etc. None of the informants I talked to seemed to use all kin terms concretely. With my four intensively studied informants, there was some indication of the possible validity of semantic features. The four major informants and others gave folk definitions with ease. Questions arose in the treatment of second cousin, third cousin, second cousin once removed, etc. Several of my informants did not know the rule for determining second cousin and had to think about it or have it explained. I had occasion to talk to a six year old boy and got good folk definitions for the basic relatives, i.e., the only ones he knew, and judgments of semantic similarity between terms (triad test) that agreed with my own intuition. Most of the current studies in semantics have grown up around one version or another of the semantic feature theory. Feature theory seems a genuine breakthrough in semantic studies, but there are problems with semantic feature theory. There are also alternatives to feature theory. Certainly folk definitions have a cognitive representation which, I think, is independent of the feature definition. If folk definitions are organized systemically, perhaps the generative analysis is the best portrayal of this. I also think that features and taxonomies are related. Words are organized in taxonomies of one sort or another but depend ultimately on feature definitions to define the taxonomy and the terms at issue themselves. Again, some representation of the productivity of the great and cousin terms is needed. Probably formal analysis is wrong in detail. However, it is a first representation and at least makes the point that some such representation is possible. When informants were asked to define further the units which made up componential or folk definitions, two things happened: they stopped, unable to go further, or they produced much more

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APPLICATION OF METHODS

information. Let us take examples. In componential definitions, further information was available on relative age, i.e., junior/senior, and sex. Informants did not offer any further information on other components. Information was available on these concepts, age and sex, and not others because these concepts were (1) familiar and (2) represented bodies of knowledge. In folk definitions, if one asked for further information on the basic units, there were ultimately only four — male, female, parent, child. Note that these involve the concepts of sex and age; age only obliquely in that one dimension of difference between parent and child is age. The information the informants gave on male and female, parent and child were bodies of knowledge. I have not included this set of results because it entails the writing of an ethnography on Midwestern American beliefs about sexual reproduction and the theories of parenthood and childhood and the relations of all of these. The ability of the informants to expound on these matters is support for the greater psychological reality of folk definition as opposed to componential analysis. The basic concepts of folk definition of kinship terms lend themselves to expansion whereas this is not possible for all the basic terms of componential definitions. We need to remember that basic to the meaning of a term are organized sets of beliefs. These basic units of knowledge, BUKS for short, do not represent auxiliary information for understanding a concept but are basic to understanding, BUKS also provide a source of semantic features. The most important concepts within a BUK could be determined statistically, i.e., number of times concept occurred or otherwise. Thus, in the BUK, sexual reproduction, male and female as a contrast set would appear frequently. In the BUK, parenthood — senior, junior — would appear frequently. A BUK is not an atomic concept but is instead a universe of discourses surrounding a term. The BUK must take its place alongside other theoretical and empirical entities associated with the word.

5 CONCLUSION

We may ask what other recearch is suggested by the present study. Are the various approaches to kin term semantics applicable to other domains? Formal analysis seems to be limited to kinship. It depends on the extensionist hypothesis of anthropology (see methods section). Folk definition analysis can be utilized in any substantive domain, i.e., content words. Function words seem not to be definable by this method. Folk taxonomies seem limited to hierachically related terms. The class inclusion relation utilized in folk taxonomies and in Katz's and Fodor's semantic theory seems not to produce substantive components. Take the example of Chafe (1965). The term crimson is considered. We can extract components of 'color' and 'red' from it, but, when crimson is compared to scarlet, we must uniquely define crimson utilizing in our unique definition of crimson the components we extracted, 'color' and 'red'. Thus, if components are entities, i.e., features, we must explain how it is that they can be extracted from crimson and yet remain to be dealt with again when we uniquely define scarlet. It is better to conceive of 'color' and 'red' as levels of abstraction and not features. As Chafe (1965) points out, crimson or black or cat are not defined by features but by a unique configuration of meaning. That is, certain sectors of the vocabulary — kinship, color, direction — can be described by a number of atomic features. However, for much of the vocabulary there is only one component in the meaning of a term. The elementary semological unit is the morpheme. Thus, for English kinship, father would be defined as lineal, nuclear

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family, male, senior generation, but cat would be defined by the unique meaning 'cat'. We started discussing the inclusion relation existing in folk taxonomies and Katz-Fodor semantics, but at this juncture we can also discuss componential analysis. I have said that for much of the vocabulary, there will not be atomic concepts, markers, but one can consider levels of abstraction. Research in semantic marker theory must develop methods for distinguishing levels of abstraction, if such exist, from markers. The marker or feature approach must be extended to more and more domains to see if it actually works. This is especially true for domains dealing with natural things as opposed to domains dealing with man-made concepts or things. The technique for validating analysis, i.e., for choosing among them in terms of psychological reality, must be extended. In particular, some means for detecting a semantic configuration must be determined. This involves studying the syntax of semantics. The Gestalt psychologists told us to look at wholes, not parts. Perhaps analysis into parts leads us away from the truth. Generative analysis seems applicable in the same way as componential analysis to highly structured domains. It is questionable whether the recursive potential of generative analysis utilized by Philip Bock (1968) could be extended to other domains. In a sense, generative analysis, folk definition analysis, formal analysis, taxonomic analysis, and componential analysis are all feature analyses. It all depends on what is thought to be an atomic concept. We need to determine which method of expressing features is useful in general and which is useful in particular cases. This is a metatheoretical study to be done in conjunction with the more empirical investigations. We need to specify the goals of the various forms of analysis. A potentially interesting avenue of research concerns the relation between psychological studies of free recall and taxonomies. Bousfield (1953) found that sets of words when recalled fall into groups dependent on some superior category. If one had a list of randomly assorted words about agriculture, fishing, and animal husbandry, the words would tend to be recalled in three separate groups even

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though when first seen they were not so grouped. There is organization in memory. How delicate is this organization? If the terms from the lowest level of a folk taxonomy were presented, would the terms be recalled in terms of their more inclusive head terms? Can we obtain experimental verification of taxonomies? Another research possibility involves further development of the interplay between context of situation and terminological studies. Different term equivalents appear in different situations. Recall the analysis of the set — father, pop, dad, daddy, old man, governor. Each of these terms, while having the same denotatum, is used in a different situation. We need tode termine for this set and other sets of kin terms, and for the vocabulary as a whole, how various components of the situation determine choice of linguistic variant. When is setting primary? When participants, when function, when topic? How would one go about such studies? The first task of the investigator must be to go out and collect data on situational subcodes. Data must be collected in as many contexts as possible and from more than one informant. Analyses of differences at the levels of vocabulary, lexis, grammar, and phonology are needed. The range of terms to be studied must be determined. One can listen to unelicited speech and record forms or one may ask the informant when he would use a certain term or what term he would use in a given situation. Preferably, one would want to hold constant all components of a situation but one, and vary that one. That may not be possible and one may have to accept covariation of two or more components. For instance, if one changes the participants in a situation, the topic may change. As an alternative, one might judge total situations as types. This would work out best if the set of possible situations turned out to be reasonably small. Presumably, the term chosen could vary with any of the components of the situation. It is hard to foresee for kinship which components would be most important. Sex (a participant variable) and formality (a setting variable) seem to be the major determinants of the referential use of the various equivalent terms for father. A problem passed over by the proponents of componential

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analysis and related semantic techniques is the analysis of the secondary meanings of multiple meaning words. Yet to be worked out are empirical methods for the analysis of secondary meanings based on componential analysis or some other semantic technique. Standard procedures cannot be used because one cannot be sure it is the secondary meaning being analyzed. Componential analysis and the other methods require that a domain be recognized. What would a domain be for the secondary meanings? The domains to which the various secondary meanings belong are different and not coterminous with the genealogical domain. For instance, cousin has a baseball meaning which must be joined with other baseball terms and not with the genealogical meanings uncle, father, etc. It would be difficult to work out a control question for such a domain because, without some preliminary analysis, one would not know what to ask. Let it be noted that there is one possible domain other than the genealogical for American kin terms that immediately comes to mind. This is a religious domain. There are religious secondary meanings for father, mother, sister, and brother. In order to evaluate the secondary meanings of kin terms, the secondary meanings of these terms must be made salient. This could be done by providing thematic and sentence contexts. Then providing that one could keep the secondary meanings salient, the psychological reality of the proposed analysis could be tested. To sum up, there are these problems facing the person who tries to extend componential techniques to secondary meanings. 1. Methods must be worked out to determine the domain to which a secondary meaning belongs. 2. Methods to make salient the secondary meaning must be developed. 3. Tests of psychological reality must be developed. Many social anthropologists define kinship by sociological variables rather than genealogical ones. It would be interesting to see if a sociological backdrop could be used for kin terms, giving the componential meaning in sociological rather than genealogical terms.

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In other words, genealogical features such as lineal, nuclear family, senior generation would be replaced by sociological variables such as group membership. The possibility that componential definitions based on sociological rather than genealogical criteria can be used makes one wonder about the uniqueness of solutions in other domains. Hopefully, tests of psychological reality would decide which was the more correct. But if the wrong frame of reference for a domain was chosen initially one might never discover the correct one, and failure of tests of psychological reality would make one question the advisibility of using componential descriptions for that domain. The methods of semantic analysis developed to this date do not provide a unique analysis, one that we could say was the psychologically real one. Rather, investigators have faced the possibility of a number of equivalent analyses, none any better than the others. Perhaps our methods of analysis could be further objectified and cross validated in order to narrow the choice among analyses. To begin with, one could require that both syntactic and referential control be used in the beginning of analysis. The control question of syntactical control needs to be supplemented by further ethnographic procedures (Schneider 1965). In fact, it must be emphasized that semantic analysis techniques cannot replace standard ethnographic procedures and the sensitivity of the field anthropologist. That I did not proceed, when discussing BUKS, to discuss the theories of kinship, parenthood, and sexual reproduction that are involved in the understanding of kinship and kinship terms represents the fact that I am not skilled in constructing ethnographies and that I had only a small humber of informants with which to work. Another step in semantic analysis which can be used to narrow the possibilities is the search for external factors that divide up the domain. Mentioned in this paper were the separation of basic terms from derivative terms and the formation of reciprocal sets. The most sensitive part of semantic analysis is in the derivation of dimensions from the sets of terms isolated in the above procedure. I have no specific suggestions here, just the hope that new workers in the field will focus on this problem. It is complex. Our general

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principle in narrowing the number of equivalent semantic analyses is to multiply the data on which our analyses are built. This requires doing a general ethnography. Ethnographic semantics has been concerned with the semantic relations class inclusion, contrast, antonymy, and synonymy. However, the first two relations are treated apart from the second two. Frake (1961) and Conklin (1962) have dealt with folk taxonomic systems. A taxonomic system has to do with class inclusion and coordination (contrast). Componential analysis has been developed to show with what other terms a term X is in contrast or to what other terms of the term X is similar. This is to say that componential analysis treats synonymy and antonymy relations for the most part. It depends on a set of coordinate terms having been determined in the initial procedure. Four types of semantic relationships have been determined so far. Are there others we ought to consider? Psychologists and specialists in information retrieval have long been interested in this problem. In both fields, nearly as many different classifications exist as there are students who have considered the subject. (For purposes of exposition, one is as good as another.) Casagrande and Hale (1967) have presented a set of relations. As the relations are self-explanatory, they will merely be listed: attributive, contingency, function, spatial, operational, comparison, exemplification, class inclusion, synonymy, antonymy, provenience, and grading. It is clear that the relations that are most abstract or most closely fitted to the language are the four we have listed above. This is not to say that other relations are inapplicable to sentence interpretation, etc. For example, the psycholinguist Osgood has suggested that selection within a sentence may depend on the varying word association probabilities between the words in a sentence. Presumably, the amount of hierarchical structure or the amount of semantic relationships depends on the absolute number of semantic components. The larger the number of semantic components for a vocabulary of a given size, the more the vocabulary is structured hierarchically. This proportion does not hold at all points absolutely. At some

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point, as the number of semantic marker components is reduced, a minimum will be reached. Beyond this limit, provided that the number of vocabulary items has remained constant, hierarchical ordering will give way — new types of semantic relationships will have to be introduced. To rephrase this, consider the following: In a hierarchical representation, semantic markers go from the generic to the specific.1 If A includes a, a can nowhere in the vocabulary structure appear above A or A's coordinate semantic markers: B, C, D ...J. Such a constraint places an absolute minimal limit on the number of semantic marker components since it is necessary to distinguish each and every vocabulary item uniquely. Although the minimal number of semantic markers differs with the size of the vocabulary, it is clear that there exists some limit. If we wish to go under the minimal limit of semantic marker number, set by the size of the vocabulary, we must relax the class inclusion — contrast constraints. The need for order of components would have to go, i.e., a could appear above A.2 Again, one might envision a case in which a subordinate marker was dominated by two coordinate superordinate semantic markers. Perhaps hierarchically ordered semantic markers and unordered semantic markers would appear in the same word. Whatever the case, it would seem that additional semantic relationships are implied. The definition of what is a semantic relationship is the most basic problem in the study of semantics. Philosophers have pondered this question for quite some time. Quine, in "The Problem of Meaning in Linguistics" (1953), admits that the problem baffles him. The above discussion of various semantic relationships indicates some of the problems. However, the major problems here considered — that of introducing semantic in addition to inclusion and contrast relations — ought to be reemphasized. Clearly, this is a task for future research in the area. Probably the set of semantic primitives serves a purpose addi1 It should be pointed out that Katz (1967) now rejects the hierarchical representation of markers. His present view is that they form an unordered set. 2 This particular case, a above A, is unlikely. More likely we would find cases of a above the coordinates of A, i.e., B, C, D, etc.

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tional to that of supplying the dictionary component. This other use is the construction of a conceptual dictionary or thesaurus-like listing. Herein, lexical items would be represented (ordered) in sets of semantically related word clusters. Surely these clusters would be determined by the possibilities of collocation. Such a conceptual dictionary may contribute to the understanding of co-occurrences. Possibly the type of component for semantics that is required is a combination of the dictionary and thesaurus representation. When one considers the size of the active vocabulary of the human being, representation of it only by means of semantic marker depth begins to seem unwieldy. For reasons of economy, the representation of sets of meaningfully related words ought to be described by the use of expansion rules patterned from those suggested by Lounsbury (1965). The color terms themselves are only distinguishable by their co-occurrence restrictions. Thus, one set of markers could establish color and expansion rules, but constrained by co-occurrence restrictions would provide for enumeration of the various shades. Outside the basic color term set, terms like vermillion and scarlet have further co-occurrence restrictions. Terms like damask and cerise are almost totally restricted by collocation. Rather than endlessly reduplicate the semantic marker set describing red, some sort of condensation operation must be found. Gleason (1962) suggests that, for the color term sets, there may be grammatical constraints operating to distinguish basic from nonbasic color terms. Gleason, viewing the basic color term set, realizes it cannot be defined grammatically. However, he has discovered that the basic color set and its related extension color terminology is grammatically distinguished. Gleason points out that the basic colors all take -er or -est. Secondary color terms, such as vermillion or emerald do not take -er or -est but do take more and most. Finally, rare terms such as cyanic and xanthic, although recognizable as adjectives, do not take these constructions. Their only environment is a highly restricted collocational set, i.e., 'contexts dealing with flowers'. In this case, then, only the color terms need be enumerated and then constrained by the projection rules. The grammar would account for further restrictions of this sort.

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The kinship domain is rare among semantic domains in permitting varied methods of analysis. This fact is probably partially a reflection of the special nature of this domain — it is highly structured. Paradigms, i.e., semantic componential analysis, and taxonomies are only two kinds of cognitive ordering. More complex orderings are possible. Folk definitions are among those more complex orderings. It must be emphasized that folk definition analysis is a form of cognitive ordering similar to paradigms and taxonomies. Componential analysis is structured using intersection and contrast. Taxonomies introduce inclusion in addition to contrast. Folk definitions permit all the structure and all the relationship possibilities inherent in the syntax of a language. Words standing for man-created concepts are easily described using semantic features. Words standing for natural things or processes are only partially amenable to semantic feature analysis. A dog is a canine and so can be partially described by a taxonomy but, when one gets down to actually defining dog, one must switch to a folk definition, i.e., four legged animal that barks, has a tail, etc. The meanings involved can only be described in terms of certain syntactical relationships. O f course, one might employ attributes instead of words and still utilize the syntax, but this would gain little. It only seems necessary if one is unalterably committed to a form of the feature theory. It is hard to believe that the human mind actually utilizes this form of representation. Features in a syntax are possible for some semantic domains, i.e., those that are highly structured or which refer to simple manmade concepts. The primary relations of the paradigmatic and taxonomic orderings, contrast and inclusion, are relations which also occur in the analysis of the syntax of sentences. May we not suppose that contrast and inclusion relations at the feature level are also syntactic relations if of an elementary sort. D o we need a syntactic theory at the feature level? If we consider paradigms, taxonomies and folk definitions as types of cognitive orderings, then we are committed to a utilization of the idea of syntax in semantics. I would like to suggest that a syntactic component is basic to any semantic theory. I would go farther and say that the syntactic com-

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ponent associated with semantics is the same one we are familiar with in linguistics. All that is required is an extension of the idea of syntax theory to the semantic feature level because class inclusion and contrast are formal syntactic constraints. In a theory of this type, a deep structure syntax would develop concurrently with a vocabulary of definitions which are defined one in terms of another. Neither syntax nor semantics is more basic as is argued by competing schools of transformational linguists, but both are basic and dependent on each other (McCawley 1968). Why do I say words are defined in terms of each other? If we supposed that words were defined in terms of properties, attributes, or some other form of elementary unit we would be in the position described above of being unable to describe adequately concepts pertaining to natural units. If words are defined in terms of one another we have the following case: given a set of words a ... j: a implies b, b implies j, j implies a. No elementary units are required. Earlier I distinguished the dictionary from the encyclopedia — feature in the dictionary, definitions in the encyclopedia. This is an artificial definition reflecting my own culture. This distinction has a place in making salient the difference in feature and definition analysis. And perhaps some words are represented in both fashions introducing a form of redundancy. But whether a dictionary and encyclopedia exist in the mind or the distinction between them is an artificial one, we must reflect further on the distinction between semantic features and folk definitions. Semantic features permit certain semantic distinctions to be concretely realized — synonymy, antonymy, paraphrase, anomaly, etc. They function in an interpretive theory of sentence understanding when employed with projection rules; they account for some behavioral data. Folk definitions are used in teaching-learning and genealogical reckoning. Perhaps we have a problem similar to that of physicists in explaining the mysterious behavior of light; in some respects light acts like a particle and in other respects it acts like a wave. Physicists accept this dilemma and talk about the dual character of light. Perhaps we can use the analogy. In some respects meanings seem to be made up of features; in other respects meanings

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act as though they were made up of more structured things, probably folk definitions. The problem of the semantic feature and the folk definition is just the opposite. The feature is a theoretical entity which we are trying to realize. The folk definition is an empirical entity we are trying to relate to a theoretical account. The folk definitions we obtain for kinship terms are complete and adequate. The folk definitions we obtain for other words are not as good. The folk definition is based on the surface of language. To obtain complete 'deep' structure definitions of words, definitions that are similar to dictionary definitions, we must develop methods for obtaining these introspective reports. This is one possibility for further research. Two distinguished American psychologists, Charles Osgood (1968) and George Miller (1967), have recently turned their interest to semantic theory, specifically feature theory. Thus psychologists, as well as linguists and social anthropologists, are now investigating semantics. We may expect them to integrate feature theory with general cognitive theory in psychology. Both Osgood and Miller are interested in replacing the intuitive procedures of the linguist and anthropologists with more objective procedures of a statistical sort. Objectivity of analysis, fine distinctions, and better validity measures seem to be the future approach of psychologists in this area. Social anthropologists and linguists seem more interested in extending the analytic procedures to new domains. For instance, Bendix (1966) has extended componential analysis to general vocabulary. Still, he sticks to a specific domain — verbs of having. The whole problem of semantic domain needs consideration in the future. The better work in semantic theory has been done in semantic fields. A semantic field is somewhat different from a domain. A domain is a group of words included under a specific cultural interest — agriculture words or interpersonal verbs. A semantic field is a domain too, but it also includes the proviso that the words of the domain mutually delimit each other. One wonders what type of structure will be associated with various domains — taxonomy, paradigms, tree.

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Semantic feature analysis, i.e. componential analysis, folk definition analysis, formal analysis, generative analysis, taxonomy — none of these provide a complete picture of meaning. Rather, these various methods agree in defining the minimal meaning. In fact, they are only relationships, or better, points of contrast, of the meaning of a concept. The full meaning for the informants I talked to is never the idea of an image. A kin term or any other sort of word includes a penumbra of information besides the features or significata. When an informant uses father he thinks not only of father as a genealogical intersection, he thinks of father as a person who does certain things, who is caught up in certain affective relationships, who is certain individuals — own father, wife's father, Joe's father, etc. Father is some continuous thing, not a discrete intersection of dimensions. Suppose semantic features define the minimal meaning of a term. Then the whole meaning can be reconstructed from the minimal meaning. Features are points around which a reconstruction of meaning takes place. Reconstructive processes are not new to cognitive studies (Bartlett 1932; Neisser 1967). This is surely a point for future study. The componential analyses of American English kinship by Wallace and Atkins (1960), Romney and D'Andrade (1964), Goodenough (1965), and myself (this study), all differ. All of these analyses work within the same universe. The basic data are the same in every case but each author has chosen to organize it according to his own assumptions, and assumptions differ. In order to have all the dimensions chosen by different individuals for a given kin system be the same, it is necessary that they possess the same set of underlying assumptions. These assumptions are the genealogical model and the categories derivable from the application of varied kinship systems to it. Dimensions must be etic categories derived from this model. The genealogical model depends on universal (etic) concepts of a biological nature — birth, birth order, siblings, and sex — and universal concepts of a social nature — the fact that it takes two persons to form a social relationship, and marriage and incest taboos.

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It is not only the comparison of the same system by different investigators that is at stake but also the comparison of different systems of kinship, i.e., cross-cultural studies. The problem is that the componential analyses so far developed and presumably the other methods of analysis we have considered are only presentation techniques. The authors of such analyses are not constrained by one theory of kinship but only influenced by certain conventions of structural linguistics. Perhaps an analogy would shed some light. Before Darwin, work by biological taxonomists showed much variation from one another. Each taxonomist had his own favorite ordering. It was not until the theory of evolution was developed that biologists had a principled basis for ordering organisms. The case is similar in kinship terminology analysis. Investigators have lacked a suitable theory of kinship. For general vocabulary, one would say the lack is one of a theory of culture. Still lacking such an ordering theory, kinship terminology analysis could be made more comparable. Rather than define a new category of one's own definition every time it was necessary to distinguish relatives in a kin system, reliance could be placed on the overlapping sets of etic categories discussed by Kroeber (1909) and Murdock (1949) to distinguish kin terms. Of course, what one investigator intuitively feels to be a dimension may be left out, i.e., Goodenough's and my feeling for the nuclear family — nonnuclear family distinction, but this may only be for a short time. For consider the fact that decedence of relative versus nondecedence, a category established from certain California Indian languages by Kroeber (1909) as an etic one, is not found elsewhere in the world, but the nuclear family distinction is widespread among Eskimo kinship systems. If occurrence — nonoccurrence rather than universality defines an etic category, then nuclear — non nuclear may well be an etic category. Future work in kinship terminology analysis should rely on the etic dimensions already defined. A kin system should be defined in these terms as fully as possible and then, if additional dimensions are needed to define the system, these should be clearly noted as non etic categories. Future analysts then may be able, working in a cross-cultural situation, to define addi-

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tional etic dimensions by viewing the socio-cultural ones in previous analyses. Three things were done in this monograph. First, the methods of ethnoscience applicable to American English kinship were reviewed and commented upon. Next, the relationship between ethnoscience models and other facts connected with kinship were considered. The importance of folk definition analysis was shown and a critical survey made of the literature on folk definitions. The problem of the psychological reality of the semantic feature was discussed in some detail. The problem of contextual variation in American English kinship was redefined as a problem in portraying equivalent words in different sublanguages of the primary language. Context of situation models for defining sublanguages were discussed. Third, the several methodologies for discussing kinship semantics were presented — componential analysis, folk definitions, folk taxonomy, generative analysis, and formal analysis. The position finally taken was that each of these approaches illustrates some crucial point in semantic theory. Words seem organized in a composite structure — semantic feature and taxonomy. Features and taxonomy are interdependent. Folk definitions seem cognitively real and generative analysis provides a means for systematizing them. Finally, formal analysis accounts for the productivity of certain kin terms. It is hoped that this study has raised as many problems as it has solved. It was certainly designed that way. This has been primarily an exercise in method and theory, to see what was substantive in the ethnoscience methods applicable to American English kinship.

APPENDIX

We ought to make clear what Katz and Fodor's semantic theory is. Katz and Fodor have developed a theory for the understanding of the semantics of sentences. A theory of sentence semantics has two parts: a dictionary and a set of projection rules. The two components are interdependent. The dictionary must consist of lexical entries in a form that can be utilized by the projection rules. Here we are primarily interested in the dictionary so we will give short shrift to the explanation of projection rules. Briefly, projection rules amalgamate the lexical items under a syntactic heading where the choice of one interpretation of the meaning of the syntactic heading rather than another depends on agreement between the meanings of the lexical items involved in the syntactic heading. The meaning of the lexical items are expressed in terms of atomic meaning units, markers. Representation of the meaning of lexical items by markers permits a formal statement of the projection rules. In Katz and Fodor's theory, a dictionary entry is represented by a grammatical marker (unenclosed), semantic markers enclosed in parentheses, and distinguishers enclosed in brackets. This is the normal form representation of a word meaning. The grammatical marker tells what part of speech the lexical item is. The semantic markers and distinguishers are used as the means by which we can decompose the meaning of a lexical item into its atomic concepts, thus enabling us to exhibit the semantic structure in a dictionary entry and the semantic relations between dictionary entries (Katz and Fodor 1964:496). The semantic markers indicate that part of meaning which is

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systematic. Distinguishes indicate that part of meaning which is idiosyncratic. It should be noted that semantic markers are points of disambiguation of the multiple senses of words.

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INDEX

Assumptions of Componential Analysis, 96-98 Atkins, J., 17, 18, 28, 31, 40, 41, 43, 46-47, 50-51,62,96 Bach, E., 23 Bartlett, F. C., 96 Basic Unit of Knowledge, 83-84 Bateson, G., 13 Bendix, E. H„ 95 Berko, J., 3 1 , 3 7 , 5 8 Berlin, B., 22,68 Bloomfield, L., 28 Bock, P., 23, 86 Bousfield, W. A., 80,86 Breedlove, D., 22,68 Brown, R., 34, 36,37, 58,61-62 Bruner, J., 30 Buchler, I., 18,21 Burling, R., 22,41 Casagrande, J., 28, 30, 33, 37-39, 90 Chomsky, N „ 12,23,41-42 Classification, 37-40 Classification of Situational Varieties, 54-60 Code, 52 Cognitive Culture, 11 Cognitive Nonsharing, 44-45 Componential Analysis, 15, 16-20, 6 2 , 7 2 , 8 6 , 9 0 ; Goals of, 72-76 Components of Situation, 57-58, 87 Conklin, H„ 1 2 , 2 2 , 5 8 , 9 0 Context of Situation, 51-60, 87 Contextual Variation, 27,49-60 Contrast Set, 23, 58

Cultural Grammer, 11 D'Andrade, R., 13, 45-47, 62, 67, 79 96 Dimension, 16 Dixon, R . M. W „ 54-55 Durbin, M., 12,15,23 Ellis, J., 56-57 Empirical Test of Psychological Reality, 45-49 Ervin-Tripp, S., 56-57 Ethnoscience, 11; Goals of, 12; Theory, 11-13 Evaluation of Componential Analyses, 42-44 Expansion Rule, 92 Feature, 16, 75, 83,95 Firth, J . R., 56 Folk Definitions, 27, 28-40, 85, 93, 95; Test of, 72-75 Fodor, J., 32,51,81,99-100 Ford, M., 58 Formal Analysis, 15, 20, 22, 78-80, 85 Frake, C „ 12, 22, 23, 31-32, 55, 58,62, 90 Freeze, R., 18,21 Frick, F . C., 55 Galanter, E., 30-31, 80 Genealogical Model, 67,74 Generality, 43 Generative Analysis, 15, 23-25, 76-78, 86 Gilman, A., 58

INDEX

Gleason, H. A., 92 Goodenough, W„ 11, 17, 18-19, 31, 41,45,62-63,68,72 Gumperz, J., 53 Hale, K„ 28, 30, 33,37-39,90 Halliday, M. A. K„ 53-54 Hallowell, A. I., 13 Hammel, E. A., 17,18, 69 Hammer, M.,41 Herman, S., 55 Hockett, C., 29 Homans, C., 49-50 Hymes, D., 56-57 Inclusion, 23 Inhelder, B„ 30 Jakobson, R., 56 Katona, G., 80 Katz, J., 32, 51, 81,91n, 99-100 Kay, P., 16,22, 80,81,83 Kinship Behaviors, 69-72 Kinship System, 83 Kinship Term, 17 Kroeber, A. L., 17,18,19,43,97 Langendoen, D. T., 53-54 Level of Abstraction, 85-86 Lexeme, 16 Lounsbury, F., 16, 17, 20, 22, 32, 78,92 Lyons, J., 20 McCawley, J., 94 Mandler, G., 80 Mazeway, 11 Meaning, 16-17 Memory Organization, 80-81, 86-87 Metzger, D., 81 Miller, G„ 30-31,80,95 Mitchell, T. F., 56, 57 Murdock, G. P., 43,97 Neisser, U., 96 Noble, C., 30

109

Osgood, C., 25,47-49,95 Piaget, J., 30 Paradigm, 15 Pospisil, L., 69 Pribram, K„ 30-31, 80 Psychological Reality, 27, 40-49; Test of, 61-72 Quine, W. V., 30, 35,91 Raven, P., 22,68 Reference Language, 18 Referential Control, 17 Register, 52, 53. See also Code Robinson, R„ 29, 36, 37 Romney, A. K., 13, 18, 20-21, 45-47, 62, 67,78-79,96 Rule, 23 Saltarelli, M., 23 Schneider, D., 17,49-50,62, 89 Secondary Meaning, 88 Semantic Domain, 16 Semantic Relationships, 37-38, 90-92 Simplicity, 43 Situational Variety, 52-53 Social Structural Reality, 40 Sublanguage, 50-53 Sumby, W., 55 Syntactic Control, 17 System Redundancy, 45 Taxonomy, 15, 16, 22, 85,90; Test of, 81,82 Terminal Symbol, 23; Nonterminal Symbol, 23 Titchener, C., 30 Tree, 15 Tyler, S., 20,27 Ulimann, S„ 28 Vickery, B. C., 39 Vygotsky, L. S., 30 Wallace, A. F. C„ 11, 16, 17, 18, 28,

110

INDEX

31, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46-47 50-51, 58, 62,96 Weinreich, U., 28, 30, 33,34 Wells, R„ 28,30 Werner, O., 13,24

Williams, G., 81 Wissler, C., 11 Ziff, P., 34-35,38-39

janua linguarum Series Minor 1 4 9 16 23 24 30 33 38 41 56 57 59 60 68 71 72 73 74 75 88 89 90 98 99 101 105 106 107 109 110 112 114 115 119

Dfl

Jakobson, R. and M.Halle: Fundamentals of Language 8, Chomsky, N.: Syntactic Structures 9, Rosetti, A.: Sur la théorie de la syllabe 15 FF/ 10, Bastide, R. (ed.): Sens et usages du terme "structure" dans les sciences humaines et sociales 39 FF/ 25, Levin, S.R.: Linguistic Structures in Poetry 10, Juilland, A. and J.Macris: The English Verb System 15, Garvin, P.L.: On Linguistic Method 24, Longacre, R.E.: Grammar Discovery Procedures 15, Chomsky, N.: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 12, Saumjan, S.K.: Problems of Theoretical Phonology 30, Chomsky, N.: Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar 12, Haas, M.R.: The Prehistory of Languages 16, Greenberg, J.H.: Language Universals 14, Hockett, C.F.: Language, Mathematics, and Linguistics 28, Akhmanova, O. and G.Mikael'an: The Theory of Syntax in Modern Linguistics 20, Lieb, H.-H.: Communication Complexes and Their Stages 20, Jakobson, R.: Child Language, Aphasia and Phonological Universals 12, Hockett, C.F.: The State of the Art 18, Juilland, A. and H.-H. Lieb: 'Klasse' und Klassifikation in der Sprachwissenschaft 14, Kramsky, J.: The Word as a Linguistic Unit 14, Sampson, G.: Stratificational Grammar 11, Weinreich, U.: Explorations in Semantic Theory 16, Pelc, J.: Studies in Functional Logical Semiotics of Natural Language 28, Houston, S.H.: A Survey of Psycholinguistics 28, Meyerstein, R.S.: Functional Load 19, Akhmanova, O.: Phonology, Morphonology, Morphology • 18, Botha, R.P.: The Methodological Status of Grammatical Argumentation 11, Birnbaum, H.: Problems of Typological and Genetic Linguistics Viewed in a Generative Framework 16, Chomsky, N.: Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar 24, Ghosh, S.K. (ed.): Man, Language and Society 35, Bierwisch, M.: Modern Linguistics 12, Botha, R.: Methodological Aspects of Transformational Generative Phonology 25, Jakobson, R.: Studies on Child Language and Aphasia 16, Helbig, G. (ed.): Beiträge zur Valenztheorie 18, 32, Parret, H.: Language and Discourse

janua linguarum Series Minor 123 Oiler, J.W.: Coding Information in Natural Languages 125 Kramsky, J.s The Article and the Concept of Definiteness in Language 128 Garvin, P.L.: On Machine Translation 130- Juilland, A. and A.Roceric: The Linguistic Concept of Word 133 Ohnesorg, K. (ed.)s Colloquium Paedolinguisticum 134 Jakobson, R.: A Bibliography of His Writings 141 Gumb, R.D.s Rule-Governed Linguistic Behavior 143 Prucha, J.: Soviet Psycholinguistics 148 Lieberman, P.: The Speech of Primates 151 Khlebnikova, I.: Oppositions in Morphology 152 Nilsen, D.L.F.s Toward a Semantic Specification of Deep Case 153 Blumstein, S.A.: A Phonological Investigation of Aphasic Speech 154 Bloom, L.: One Word at a Time 155 Bolinger, D.s That's That 156 Nilsen, D.L.F.s The Instrumental Case in English 158 Prucha, J.s Information Sources of Psycholinguistics 165 Shands, B.C. and J.D.Meltzer: Language and Psychiatry 173 Stemmer, N.: An Empiricist Theory of Language Acquisition 182 Chomsky, N.: Strukturen der Syntax 192 Levelt, W.J.M.: Formal Grammars in Linguistics and Psycholinguistics (three volumes)

Dfl. 20,32,22,16,45,10,18,22,20,28,12,20,26,12,28,15,15,29,12,-