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Does kinship terminology provide evidence for or against universal grammar?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2010

Christina Behme
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4P9, Canada. Christina.Behme@dal.ca

Abstract

Jones introduces an intricate machinery of kin classification that overcomes limitations of previous accounts. I question whether such a machinery is plausible. Because individuals never need to learn the entire spectrum of kin terminology, they could rely on data-driven learning. The complexity of Jones's machinery for kin classification casts doubt on the existence of innate structures that cover the complete linguistic domain.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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