Computational Linguistics

Categories for kinship vary between languages

24 May 2012

Different languages refer to family relationships in different ways. For example, English speakers use two terms -- grandmother and grandfather -- to refer to grandparents, while Mandarin Chinese uses four terms. Many possible kinship categories, however, are never observed, which raises the question of why some kinship categories appear in the languages of the world but others do not. A new ...

Relatively Speaking: Carnegie Mellon and UC Berkeley Researchers Identify Principles That Shape Kinship Categories ...

24 May 2012

PITTSBURGH, May 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Different languages refer to family relationships in different ways. For example, English speakers use two terms — grandmother and grandfather — to refer to grandparents, ...

Relatively speaking: Researchers identify principles that shape kinship categories across languages

24 May 2012

Different languages refer to family relationships in different ways. For example, English speakers use two terms — grandmother and grandfather — to refer to grandparents, while Mandarin Chinese uses four terms. Many possible kinship categories, however, are never observed, which raises the question of why some kinship categories appear in the languages of the world but others do not.