Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2010 - Volume 33, Issue 05  

Open Peer Commentary

Conceptual structure is constrained functionally, not formally

Richard Hudsona1

a1 University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom. dick@ling.ucl.ac.uk www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm

Abstract

Kinship systems are best explained functionally, in terms of the conflicting needs of the society concerned, rather than in terms of universal constraints, whether Optimality Theory or other; but OT is particularly unsuitable as it rules out taxonomies. A conceptual analysis of kinship terminology shows, not that “grammar” extends to kinship, but that general cognition has the formal power to handle grammar.

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