[Lingtyp] Kinship systems that distinguish age but not gender

[bingfu Lu]

As for the fact that cousins aresex-neutralized while siblings not in English, I suggest that it is due toeasiness of recognition.  Since peoplelive with their siblings much more intimately than with their cousins, siblings' sex iseasier to be recognized.  

English sex-neutralizes ‘tiger’because their sex features are not obvious. English does not neutralize ‘rooster-hen’and does not fully neutralize ‘lioness-lion’ because their sex features areobvious.

It is likely that there areseveral motivations for sex-neutralization.  What we should do is trying our best to find the functional motivations as reasonable as possible.  


On Friday, July 21, 2017, 4:40:46 PM GMT+8, Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de> wrote:

 It is indeed an interesting suggestion (by Bingfu Lu) that sex neutralization in kinship terms is related to the importance of sex for observers. This factor may also explain that we often have sex-differentiated terms for domestic animals, but rarely for wild animals.
 
 But the "importance" of sex differentiation is not easy to assess. As Greenberg notes, there is a tendency to neutralize sex also in more remote relationships (e.g. with cousins, where even English neutralizes, and with in-laws), and it is hard to argue, for example, that sex is less important in cousins than in siblings. So maybe frequency of use is a better explanation after all? Does anyone have frequency counts for 'younger sibling' and 'older sibling' terms? (And frequency counts for domestic as opposed to wild animals?)
 
 I also have a comment on Maïa Ponsonnet's crictical remark concerning the term "universal":
  
 
   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.     
    So perhaps calling it "hypothetical implication" may be safer?    The danger certainly exists that some claims become very famous and are repeated and believed even though there is no good evidence for them (e.g. that spinach contains a lot of iron).
 
 But I feel that it is clear that every claim in science has the status of a hypothesis that is subject to potential disconfirmation. The differences reside in the amount of supporting evidence. The Konstanz Universals Archive is a great resource both for references to claims of universals and for the basis of the claims (thus, without reading Greenberg (1966), one can see that universal No 1656 is based on 120 languages).
 
 Martin
 
 On 21.07.17 01:16, bingfu Lu wrote:
 
    
I agree with Martin’s bold claim.  It seems to be very natural in the following senses.
 
First, from the formal perspective, babies are very likely to be neutralized in sex.  If there is a continuum of sex neutralization from the point of being very young (babies) to the point of very old, then, the  younger section, which includes the babies, should be more likely to be neutralized.
 
Second,  from the perspective of linguistic iconicity, babies tend to be sex-neutralized because their sex features are least developing.  And it is natural, the less sex-developing, the easier to be sex-neutralized.  
 
According to the degrees of development in sex features, it might to be predicted that there may be some languages where the very old elders are neutralized in linguistic form, since very old elders are sex-retrodegraded. 
 
In short, the sex neutralization is more likely when the sex features are less strong and less important in age. 
   
  
     On Wednesday, July 19, 2017, 5:10:32 PM GMT+8, Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de> wrote: 
  
     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
       
 
 -- 
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10	
D-07745 Jena  
&
Leipzig University 
IPF 141199
Nikolaistrasse 6-10
D-04109 Leipzig    





 _______________________________________________
Lingtyp mailing list
Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20170721/759c8b9e/attachment.htm>