article de périodique

Marking theory and kinship analysis : Cross-cultural and historical applications Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Anthropological Theory

Vol.1, n°2

Hage, Per

15

2001

197-211

Linguistique cognitive Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Parenté Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Marque (linguistique) Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

ang

1463-4996

The concept of marking was discovered in phonology by Trubetzkoy and generalized to morphology and grammar by Jakobson. In a fundamental application to anthropology, Greenberg integrated a generalized concept of marking into a cognitivelinguistic theory of kinship universals. Greenberg's theory is important for three reasons: (1) it leads to the discovery and explanation of cross-cultural universals in kinship classification; (2) it predicts the order in which kin terms evolve and establishes, thereby, criteria for evaluating alternative, competing reconstructions of kinship systems; (3) it provides a means for inferring features of prehistoric social organization. This paper illustrates these applications and points out the typological and cognitive implications of marking effects in kinship systems. The analysis demonstrates that a formal deductive approach to kinship can yield results not obtainable by more usual informal and inductive methods.