Question about depth of kinship terminology systems

[C Wegener]

Dear list members,

I am currently revising a paper on the kinship terminology of Savosavo (Papuan, Solomon Islands). Savosavo has terms covering 15 generations, which to my knowledge is quite remarkable in Melanesia, but I do think it is also unusual cross-linguistically. A reviewer asked if I could say more about exactly how unusual it is in a worldwide context to have kinship terms covering that many generations. Unfortunately I am not familiar enough with the extensive anthopological literature on kinship systems and kinship terminology systems to be able to find any publication that I could quote on the matter (I did try, but only find discussions of types of systems like Omaha or Hawaiian, focussing on a few generations, or purely Anthropological descriptions of the societies without much discussion of terminology). Would any of you have a suggestion where I should look, or indeed know of any publication on a system with a similar coverage?

Many thanks in advance for any advise...
Claudia Wegener

-- 
Dr. Claudia Wegener 
Fakultät für Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft 
Universität Bielefeld 
Postfach 10 01 31 
33501 Bielefeld 
+49-521-106-6929 
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