Computer Enumeration of Significant Implicational Universals of Kinship Terminology

The discovery of general patterns and their subsequent explanation is a familiar method in linguistics and other cross-cultural research. This article addresses the computerized enumeration of significant cultural and linguistic patterns, specifically implicational universals. We dispute published s...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cross-cultural research 1999-05, Vol.33 (2), p.162-174
Main Authors: Valdés-Pérez, Raúl E., Pericliev, Vladimir
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ancient languages
Computer Assisted Research
Computers
Cross cultural studies
Cultural Universals
Datasets
Families & family life
Hypotheses
Kinship
Language
Linguistics
Methodology (Data Analysis)
Murdock, George Peter
Sanskrit
Social Anthropology
Sociology
Sociology of communication and mass media. Sociolinguistics
Sociology of knowledge and sociology of culture
Terminology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The discovery of general patterns and their subsequent explanation is a familiar method in linguistics and other cross-cultural research. This article addresses the computerized enumeration of significant cultural and linguistic patterns, specifically implicational universals. We dispute published suggestions that the mechanical generation of universals is inadvisable by arguing that such claims do not distinguish clearly the noticing of a pattern with its explanation. We make use of a simple, principled method that uses permutation tests to estimate whether the discovered universals are significant. Finally, these methods are used to mine the rich kinship data set contributed by G. P. Murdock in 1970 and to report 15 universals found therein.
ISSN:1069-3971
1552-3578
DOI:10.1177/106939719903300202