[Lingtyp] Kinship systems that distinguish age but not gender

Wed Jul 19 11:07:01 UTC 2017

Hi all,

While I definitely agree with Martin's point about proposed universals
inciting people to look for counter-examples, it might be mentioned that it
is not so easy to publish counter-examples to well-known generalizations.
As Maia points out (if I understood her correctly), journal reviewers tend
to ask for 'theoretical accounts' and can be defensive about typological
generalizations, some of which get inflated into 'principles,' which means
that counter-examples may not necessarily make it to the attention of the
relevant communities.

In response to Nick's comment about lexical items allowing speakers to not
specify the sex of small children or infants, note that English speakers
often refer to infants as "it,"* which horrifies speakers of gender-crazy
Hebrew.

*From The Guardian (2017):  "Later, Vernon recalled, the woman “didn't even
know how to hold the baby. Its head kept falling back until I showed her
how to hold it."

Best,
Eitan

Eitan Grossman
Lecturer, Department of Linguistics/School of Language Sciences
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972 2 588 3809
Fax: +972 2 588 1224

Recent: *Greek Influence on Egyptian-Coptic: Contact-Induced Change in an
Ancient African Language *(Widmaier Verlag
http://widmaier-verlag.de/index.php?content=issue&isbn=978-3-943955-17-0)

On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 12:43 PM, Maia Ponsonnet <
maia.ponsonnet at sydney.edu.au> wrote:

> Hi,
> I certainly agree that it is good to provide clear formulations for the
> observations that are worth testing, such as the one below.
>
> However, I wonder is calling such hypotheses "universals" too early can
> create other problems. We may then omit to disqualify the hypothesis, even
> after many, many counter-examples have been provided. So we may end up
> postulating universality based on say, 10 cases, and 10 years later still
> be busy providing counter-examples for what we still call a "(potential)
> universal" while say, 20 counter-examples, have already been provided.
>
> (And of course this is partly because we need arguments and big "points"
> to hang on to in publications: it is convenient to have a universal to
> contradict when we write an article, and we are asked to write as many
> articles as we possibly can, etc.)
>
> So perhaps calling it "hypothetical implication" may be safer?
>
> Maïa
>
>
>
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> ------------------------------
> *From:* Lingtyp [lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] on behalf of
> Martin Haspelmath [haspelmath at shh.mpg.de]
> *Sent:* 19 July 2017 19:07
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Kinship systems that distinguish age but not
> gender
>
> On the basis of Turkish (*kardeş*) and Minangkabau (*adiak*), which
> neutralize the sex distinction in the younger sibling term, one could
> propose the following universal:
>
> "If a language makes a distinction between elder and younger siblings and
> neutralizes sex only in one type, then it neutralizes in younger siblings."
>
> This may seem bold, but I think that such bold formulations are productive
> in that they are likely to elicit responses from language specialists whose
> language goes against the generalization. (And if the bold generalization
> makes it into print somewhere, then one can even write an abstract on the
> basis of one's data and argue against a previous claim.)
>
> Now it so happens that a claim very similar to the one above has already
> been made, on p. 76-77 in Greenberg's chapter "Universals of kinship
> terminology", which is Chapter five of his most important work:
>
> Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. *Language universals, with special reference
> to feature hierarchies*. The Hague: Mouton.
>
> Greenberg formulates the generalization in terms of one kind of kinship
> being "marked", the other "unmarked". "Marked" features tend to be
> neutralized, so saying that younger siblings are "marked" amounts to the
> same as the above claim. (In my view of things, this would mean that some
> kinds of kinship features are more frequently used than others.)
>
> (Greenberg also says somewhere that masculine/male is unmarked, so he
> probably predicts that female terms ternd to be neuralized for age, thus
> answering Siva Kalyan's question.)
>
> So there are a lot of interesting predictions that could be tested if
> someone finally made a comprehensive world-wide database on kinship terms
> (I think some people near Hedvig are working on this).
>
> Martin
>
>
> On 19.07.17 10:50, David Gil wrote:
>
> Matt beat me to it on Malay/Indonesian!  I would just like to add that
> while many (most?) varieties that I am familiar with work the way Matt
> describes, some exhibit an asymmetry in which elder siblings are
> distinguished for gender while younger ones are not.  This pattern is also
> evident in closely-related Minangkabau:
>
> adiak - 'younger sibling'
> uda - 'elder brother'
> uni - 'elder sister'
>
> And I suspect that it is common in other languages of the region.
>
>
> On 19/07/2017 10:40, Matthew Carroll wrote:
>
> Hi Guys
>
> What about Indonesian/Malay? kakak/adik for elder/younger sibling
> respectively.
>
> Best,
> Matt
>
> On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 9:31 AM, Hedvig Skirgård <
> hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear LINGTYP,
>>
>> Does anyone know of a language that has a distinction in the kinship
>> system for age of referent (younger/older) without also having a
>> distinction for gender of referent? For example, a language that marks
>> siblings as being younger or older to ego without reference to being sister
>> or brother.
>>
>> The hypothesis is that this doesn't happen/is very rare. We'd like to
>> know if you've come across any examples of this.
>>
>> I'm asking for my friend Alex (cc:ed) who is not on the list. Please
>> direct any responses or comments to her.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> *Tōfā soifua,*
>>
>> *Hedvig Skirgård*
>>
>>
>> PhD Candidate
>> The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity
>>
>> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
>>
>> School of Culture, History and Language
>> College of Asia and the Pacific
>>
>> Rm 4203, H.C. Coombs Building (#9)
>> The Australian National University
>>
>> Acton ACT 2601
>>
>> Australia
>>
>> Co-chair of Public Relations
>>
>> Board of the International Olympiad of Linguistics
>>
>> www.ioling.org
>>
>> Blogger at Humans Who Read Grammars
>> http://humans-who-read-grammars.blogspot.
>>
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>>
>
>
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>
> --
> David Gil
>
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>
> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
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>
>
>
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>
>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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