[Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation

Sat Feb 1 18:59:48 UTC 2025

dear all,

I was going to make the same point as Guillaume.  Many languages in the
world colexify Father with *Father's brother* (F=FB) - also known in
English as *paternal uncle*.  However, the usual implication of such
systems is that F=FB is dislexified from *maternal uncle* (Mother's
brother, MB).

[Note:  I coined the term *dislexify* in my 2022 paper "Lexical tectonics:
Mapping structural change in patterns of lexification
<https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zfs-2021-2041/html>"]

*Vanuatu systems*
The pattern {F=FB}≠{MB} is the most common one in Pacific societies. Thus
in Vanuatu, I use different terms, and have different sorts of
interactions, with my (classificatory) fathers vs. with my uncles [MB].

I here use Eng. *father(s)* to refer to the emic category F=FB, and
*uncle(s)* for MB, i.e. whatever term is distinct from *father*.  The
creole Bislama does the same: calquing the vernacular substrates,
*ankel  *exclusively
refers to MB, whereas *papa* is both used for F and FB.

This system is known, in Morgan's 1871 kinship typology, as the "Iroquois
system <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_kinship>" (or its Crow &
Omaha variants):

[image: image.png]

For comparison, European languages usually belong to Morgan's Eskimo system
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_kinship>:
[image: image.png]

Systems where F=FB=MB are rare in the world, but they do exist. They
correspond to Morgan's *Hawaiian kinship system*:
[image: image.png]

(Outside of Melanesia, Zygmunt mentioned that F=MB in some Chadic
languages;  I assume that the term also includes FB, and so those systems
are Hawaiian.)

I don't know any language in Vanuatu that has Hawaiian-like terminology,
i.e. would colexify F=FB=MB.  The dislexification F(B)≠MB is usually
perceived as essential:  while maternal uncles might be described in
English figuratively as a kind of "social father", the point of the
Iroquois / Crow system is precisely that they are distinct from actual
fathers and their brothers.
In (at least some parts of) Vanuatu, this principle is linked to
matrilineal transmission of land rights:  I own the same land as my mother
and her brothers, but not the same land as my fathers.
________
*Men vs. women referents*
The Iroquois system (at least in Vanuatu societies) usually works
symmetrically for women:
My mother's sisters are my (classificatory) mothers;  but my father's
sisters are my "aunts" -- i.e. there's a special term dislexified from
*mother *(sometimes derived from *mother*, but distinct from it).  Also,
the word for *aunt *is also used for my *maternal uncle*'s wife; but
my *paternal
uncle'*s wife is simply my mother.  Using kinship abbreviations (where
Z='sister'), we have {M=MZ=FBW} on the one hand, and {FZ=MBW} on the other.

We could say that the Iroquois system follows a principle of
dislexification between 1/ the terms for parents and 2/ the term for
parents' cross-sex siblings.

I have found some exceptions though, when the referents are women:

   - e.g. in Teanu (Solomons), the word
   <https://marama.huma-num.fr/Lex/Teanu/e.htm#%E2%93%94ete>*ete
   <https://dictionaria.clld.org/units/teanu-ete_1>* colexifies
M=MZ=FZ=FBW=MBW;
   whereas for males, *aia
<https://dictionaria.clld.org/units/teanu-aia_1>* 'father'
   [F=FB=MZH] is still dislexified from *gea* 'uncle' [MB].
   - I also observed this unexpected colexification {M=MZ=FZ=FBW=MBW} in 3
   languages of N Vanuatu, namely Hiw, Lo-Toga, Lakon.

In other terms, in the Pacific languages I've observed, the *principle of
dislexification between parents and their cross-sex siblings* is absolute
for male referents, but only a statistical trend for female referents.
This observation is confirmed by Fox (2021) for Austronesian languages more
generally:

   - Fox, James J. 2021. A research note on laterality and lineality in
   Austronesian relationship terminologies. *Oceania* 91.3 (2021): 367-374.
   [doi <https://doi.org/10.1002/ocea.5317>]

________

What I don't think exists, though, are languages that colexify F with MB
and not with FB.  Like Guillaume and Masha, I would be very intrigued if
these were found.  (For women, the same surprise would occur if M
colexified with FZ, but not with MZ.)

Kinship systems, due to their inherent constraints, can surely provide
other examples of impossible patterns of lexification.

best
Alex
------------------------------

Alex François
LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/> — CNRS–
<https://www.cnrs.fr/en>ENS
<https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
–PSL <https://www.psl.eu/en>–Sorbonne nouvelle
<http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
Australian National University
<https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a>
Personal homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
_________________________________________

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2025 at 18:19
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation
To: Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>
Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>

Dear all, dear Guillaume,

Thanks for your input on the alleged kin term universal. Guillaume is
completely right in what he writes about its claim – mea culpa, I should
have made this clearer from the start.

I would be interested in getting more information on whether it holds – or
whether there are examples going in the direction of Östen’s “guess”.

Best,
Masha

On Feb 1, 2025, at 17:43, Guillaume Jacques via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

Dear all,

Concerning the universal on kinship terms that Masha was mentioning, the
claim is not that no language can colexify Father (F) and Mother's Brother
(MB), but rather that *if* F=MB *then* F=MB=FB (Father's Brother), in other
words you don't have a language colexifying F and MB and dislexifying FB
from them (F=MB≠FB). I think that this is a very robust universal, which
brings important evidence for the general principles of the evolution of
kinship systems.

Best wishes,

Guillaume

Le sam. 1 févr. 2025 à 17:19, Östen Dahl via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> a écrit :

> Dear all,
>
>
>
> With regard to the claim that 'father' and 'mother's brother' cannot be
> colexified, consider the following quotation from the Wikipedia article on
> "Matrilineality":
>
>
>
> "While a mother normally takes care of her own children in all cultures,
> in some matrilineal cultures an "uncle-father" will take care of his nieces
> and nephews instead: in other words *social fathers* here are uncles."
>
>
>
> That is, fathers and maternal uncles are similar in that they can both
> play the role of "social fathers"; it is not unthinkable that a language
> spoken in a society on the borderline between patrilineality and
> matrilineality will lexify the concept "social father". What this shows is
> that the criterion of cognitive complexity can lead you in the wrong
> direction. In fact, kinship terms sometimes unite relationships which are
> tricky to give a common definition, such as "brother-in-law" in English.
>
>
>
>    - Östen
>
>
>
>
>
> *Från:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *För *Martin
> Haspelmath via Lingtyp
> *Skickat:* den 1 februari 2025 16:40
> *Till:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Ämne:* Re: [Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation
>
>
>
> Dear Masha and others,
>
> In addition to "cognitive complexity", one may also consider frequency of
> use as constraining lexification.
>
> For example, 'female wolf' is not more cognitively complex than 'female
> horse' (English *mare*, contrasting with *stallion*), but gender/sex is
> less commonly mentioned in connection with wild animals than with domestic
> animals, so English does not dislexify 'male wolf' and 'female wolf'.
>
> In my 2023 *Frontiers* paper, I suggested that some important
> lexification tendencies can be explained with reference to root length
> possibilities: Roots are typically 1-2 syllables long, so when a meaning is
> not frequent enough, it needs more syllables and hence multiple morphs:
>
> Haspelmath, Martin. 2023. Coexpression and synexpression patterns across
> languages: Comparative concepts and possible explanations. *Frontiers in
> Psychology* 14. (doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1236853)
>
> (The paper also cites David Gil's 1992 paper.)
>
> Incidentally, it seems that "lexification" is clearer than
> "lexicalization", because the latter is used in multiple meanings (see my
> 2024 paper, §7: https://www.peren-revues.fr/lexique/1737).
>
> Best,
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> On 01.02.25 12:40, David Gil via Lingtyp wrote:
>
> Hi Masha,
>
>
>
> Some examples from the semantic domain of quantification can be found here:
>
>
>
> Gil, David (1992) "Scopal Quantifiers: Some Universals of Lexical
> Effability", in M. Kefer and J. van der Auwera eds., *Meaning and
> Grammar, Cross-Linguistic Perspectives*, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin,
> 303-345.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> David
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 1, 2025 at 5:29 PM Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> I am involved in a handbook chapter in which I would like to give a few
> examples of suggested universal constraints on lexicalisation, e.g., those
> primarily concerning meanings that should not be expressible in a word (a
> stem, root or whatever), preferably not from the domain of colour terms. To
> give an example, Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2010) argue that no verb
> encodes both manner and result simultaneously, which has been contested by
> Beavers and Koontz-Garbodens.
>
>
>
> Or,  a definition of a term covering both ‘father’ and ‘mother’s brother’
> would be cognitively very complex since it will require disjunction
> (‘father’ or ‘mother’s brother’, cf. ‘male relative of one’s patriline’ for
> ‘father’ and ‘father’s brother’) (Evans 2001) – I don’t know if this
> constraint still holds.
>
>
>
> Many thanks and all the best,
>
> Masha
>
>
>
> Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
> Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
> Editor-in-chief of “Linguistic Typology”
>
> President-Elect of Societas Linguistic Europaea
> www.ling.su.se/tamm
> tamm at ling.su.se
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
>
> David Gil
>
>
>
> Senior Scientist (Associate)
>
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
>
>
>
> Email: dapiiiiit at gmail.com
>
> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>
> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
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>
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> --
>
> Martin Haspelmath
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6
>
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
>
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-- 
Guillaume Jacques

Directeur de recherches
CNRS (CRLAO) - EPHE- INALCO
https://scholar.google.fr/citations?user=1XCp2-oAAAAJ&hl=fr
https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295
<http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques>
http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
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Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
Editor-in-chief of “Linguistic Typology”
President-Elect of Societas Linguistic Europaea
www.ling.su.se/tamm
tamm at ling.su.se

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