Constraints On Kin Term Semantics Are Driven By Efficient Communication - Info and Reading Options

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Kin terms, the set of words that denote family members, map variably to meanings cross-linguistically. But are there common semantic cues to kin category membership? In a previous study, we measured the extent to which kin terms reliably map semantic features to wordforms cross-linguistically, finding that some semantic features are more reliable cues to category membership than others. Two individuals are most likely to share part of their form if they belong to the same generation (Generation), followed by if they are the same gender (Gender), followed by whether both individuals are in Ego's direct lineage or not (Lineality), and finally whether they are connected to Ego via a male or female relative (Gender of Connecting Relative; GCR). In our upcoming experiment, we will test whether people's intuitions about which pairs of kin are more similar follow the same hierarchical patterning that we observed in the cross-linguistic data: Generation > Gender > Lineality > GCR. Following the cross-linguistic pattern, we expect that participants will prefer to co-lexify kin who share features further up the hierarchy, preferring higher-ranked features as a cue to shared category membership. Participants will be shown an artificial kin term for a single individual in a family tree, e.g. 'dax' for mother's sister. We will then show them two more individuals in the tree, and ask them to choose which of two labels they would prefer to assign to these kin. They can choose to label one as 'dax', indicating that this new individual belongs in the same category as the first individual, or to label them as 'fep', putting them in a new category. Crucially, the two target individuals differ from the first individual along a pair of feature dimensions. So, after seeing the label for mother's sister, participants could be asked to label mother's brother, who shares Generation but differs on Gender, and mother's sister's daughter, who shares Gender but differs on Generation. Each participant will have to choose labels for kin who exemplify all possible combinations of our four features: Generation vs Gender, Generation vs Lineality, Generation vs GCR, Gender vs Lineality, Gender vs GCR, and Lineality vs GCR. We expect that participants will more often use the 'dax' label for the target individual who shares a higher-ranked feature with the first individual: in the example above, they will co-lexify mother's sister with mother's brother. In doing so, they would indicate that they perceive two individuals who share a higher ranked feature to be more similar to one another than to an individual who shares a lower ranked feature. In turn, this would suggest that the hierarchy of features we perceive in the cross-linguistic data stems from an underlying bias about what semantic features form a better basis for a kinship category. In other words, we expect that the higher ranked features are more robust indicators of category membership because people are predisposed to perceive kin relations who share that feature as being more similar.

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