An Attempt at Formal Semantic Analysis of Kinship Terminology by Computer

Abstract

In 1971, H. W. Scheffler and F. G. Lounsbury developed a formal semantic analysis of kinship terminology. It had many merits, but it was difficult to deploy manually its vast procedures, and it was not widely used. Now I have wrote a computer program to perform Formal Semantic Analysis automatically. By this program, I would like to reevaluate the merits and possibilities of formal semantic analysis, especially in cross-cultural understanding and kinship studies.departmental bulletin pape