COLOUR AND KINSHIP

COLOUR AND KINSHIP

1. Semantics Universals

   • Formal Universal
     • General Characteristics or rules of language construction
     • Universal rules of logical structure
   • Substantive Universal
     • Strong Version
       • All languages have a category X
       • All language contain X
     • Weak Version
       • There exists a universal set of semantics features, of which every language possesses a subset.
       • X is a member of universal set
     • Universal characteristics of human language or components a language contains
     • Universal categories of conceptual content
   • There are two distinction made by Chomsky

2. Colour terminology

   • It is a study of Berlin and Kay based on a comparison of almost a hundred languages
   • Berlin and Kay arrived at the hypothesis "there is a universal set of exactly eleven colour categories
   • eleven basic Colour categories
     • white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange and grey

3. Kinship Semantics

   • F.G. Lounsbury developed this method of analysis, involving rules of reduction
   • Kinship terminology is presented in a set of symbols
     • Father=F, mother=M, brother=B, sister=S, son=s, daughter=d, husband=H, and wife=W
     • Distinctions
       • Lineal Kin
         • Fathers, daughters, grandparents, grandchildrens
       • Collateral Kin
         • Brothers, aunts, nephews, cousins
     • Generations
       • Senior generation
         • "> GENERATION"
           • father, mother, ancle, aunt
       • Same Generation
         • " = GENERATION"
           • elder brother, younger brother, elder sister, younger sister, cousin
       • Junior Generation
         • "< GENERATION"
           • Son, daughter, nephew, niece

4. A predication-Componential Analysis of Kinship Semantics

   • Relation of parenthood / Childhood
     • --> PARENT = X is parent of Y
     • <-- PARENT = Y is child of X
     • boy's mother: -MALE. --->PARENT. HUMAN - ADULT + MALE
   • Relation of siblings
     • <---> SIBLING
     • X. <--PARENT.. -->PARENT. Y entails X. <--> SIBLING. Y
     • Sibling are two different people who share the same parent(s)