The Punjabi Kinship Terminology as a Semantic System1

In: American anthropologist: AA, Band 73, Heft 3, S. 545-554

Abstract

Analysis of kinship terminologies as semantic systems has been imbedded in two opposing theoretical frameworks, a "componential" framework that connects terminological sets to "biology" but divorces them from social structure, and a structuralist framework that integrates terms with structure but divorces them from biology. It is suggested that both difficulties are generated by considerations internal to the theories but exogenous to kinship terminologies as semantic systems. A simple operational elicitation procedure is presented that avoids assumptions not directly related to a clear conception of a semantic system. On the basis of the Punjabi terminology, a simple reformulation of the relationship between structures, terminologies, and "biology" is offered.