Componential Analysis of Kin Terms - Some Problems and their Solutions

Abstract

Componential analysis of kinship vocabulary has a long tradition, but a look at the practicing of the method reveals two basic problems. The first pertains to ensuring "consistent" kin term definitions (i.e., definitions with necessary and sufficient components), and the second to the discovery and handling of multiple solutions to kinship systems. The paper introduces a computer program implemented to handle these two problems, and in general, designed to study kinship vocabulary. The program guarantees consistent componential models and the discovery of all alternative models, as well as introduces simplicity constraints to reduce the usually huge number of alternatives to a unique or just a couple of models. We illustrate the problems with examples from the literature and apply the program to a complex kinship vocabulary (Serbo-Croatian) to show its operation.

Machine Componential Analysis of Kinship Vocabularies: An Example

“…The goal of the present paper is to briefly present a computer program that automates the task of componential analysis and to analyze Catalan kinship terminology with this program. A similar discussion, using Serbo-Croatian as an example, can be found in [4]. Catalan is a western Romance language, spoken by some 4.1 million people in Spain, Andorra, France and Italy.…”