Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:35:33.901Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kin term diversity is the result of multilevel, historical processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2010

Fiona M. Jordan  and
Michael Dunn
Fiona M. Jordan
Affiliation:
Evolutionary Processes in Language and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, PB310, 6500AH Nijmegen, The Netherlands. [email protected]@mpi.nlwww.mpi.nl/people/jordan-fionawww.mpi.nl/people/dunn-michael
Michael Dunn
Affiliation:
Evolutionary Processes in Language and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, PB310, 6500AH Nijmegen, The Netherlands. [email protected]@mpi.nlwww.mpi.nl/people/jordan-fionawww.mpi.nl/people/dunn-michael
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Explanations in the domain of kinship can be sought on several different levels: Jones addresses online processing, as well as issues of origins and innateness. We argue that his framework can more usefully be applied at the levels of developmental and historical change, the latter especially. A phylogenetic approach to the diversity of kinship terminologies is most urgently required.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 33 , Issue 5 , October 2010 , pp. 388
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

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

References

Benson, N. J. & Anglin, J. M. (1987) The child's knowledge of English kin terms. First Language 7(19):41–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breuker, C. J., Debat, V. & Klingenberg, C. P. (2006) Functional evo-devo. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 21(9):488–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fortunato, L. & Mace, R. (2009) Testing functional hypotheses about cross-cultural variation: A maximum-likelihood comparative analysis of Indo-European marriage practices. In: Pattern and process in cultural evolution, ed. Shennan, S. J., pp. 235–49. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gray, R. D. & Atkinson, Q. D. (2003) Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin. Nature 426(6965):435–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gray, R. D., Drummond, A. J. & Greenhill, S. J. (2009) Language phylogenies reveal expansion pulses and pauses in Pacific settlement. Science 323(5913):479–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gray, R. D., Greenhill, S. J. & Ross, R. M. (2007) The pleasures and perils of Darwinizing culture (with phylogenies) Biological Theory 2(4):360–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holden, C. J. (2002) Bantu language trees reflect the spread of farming across sub- Saharan Africa: A maximum-parsimony analysis. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences 269(1493):793–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holden, C. J. & Mace, R. (2003) Spread of cattle led to the loss of matrilineal descent in Africa: A coevolutionary analysis. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences 270(1532):2425–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, D. (2000) Group nepotism and human kinship. Current Anthropology 41:779–809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, D. (2003a) The generative psychology of kinship, Part I: Cognitive universals and evolutionary psychology. Evolution and Human Behavior 24:303–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, D. (2003b) The generative psychology of kinship: Part II. Generating variation from universal building blocks with optimality theory. Evolution and Human Behavior 24:320–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, D. (2004) The universal psychology of kinship: Evidence from language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8(5):211–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jordan, F. M. (in press) A phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of Austronesian sibling terminologies. Human Biology.Google Scholar
Jordan, F. M. (forthcoming) Comparative phylogenetic methods and the study of pattern and process in kinship. In: Kinship systems: Change and reconstruction, ed. McConvell, P. & Keen, I..Google Scholar
Jordan, F. M., Gray, R. D., Greenhill, S. J. & Mace, R. (2009) Matrilocal residence is ancestral in Austronesian societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276(1664):1957–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kay, P. & Regier, T. (2003) Resolving the question of color naming universals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 100(15):9085–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kitchen, A., Ehret, C., Assefa, S. & Mulligan, C. J. (2009) Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276(1668):2703–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mace, R., Holden, C. J. & Shennan, S., (2005) The evolution of cultural diversity: A phylogenetic approach. Left Coast Press & Berg.Google Scholar
Majid, A., Nicholas, J. Enfiled & Miriam, van Staden, ed., (2006) Parts of the body: Cross-linguistic categorisation (vol. 28, 2/3: special issue) Elsevier.Google Scholar
McCarthy, J. J. (2007b) What is optimality theory? Language and Linguistics Compass 1(4):260–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ragnarsdóttir, H. (1997) The acquisition of kinship concepts. In: Language and thought in development, ed. Broeder, P. & Murre, J., pp. Broeder, P. & Murre, J., Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar