Premium
a structural semantic analysis of Bear Lake Athapaskan kinship classification
Author(s) -
RUSHFORTH SCOTT
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1982.9.3.02a00070
Subject(s) - kinship , semantics (computer science) , sociology , genealogy , geography , linguistics , anthropology , history , computer science , philosophy , programming language
Among the Bear Lake Athapaskan‐speaking Indians of Canada's Northwest Territories, kinship principles were in the past, and continue to be, among the most important features of social organization. To understand these principles it is first necessary to analyze the Bear Lake system of kinship classification — the description of which requires use of structural semantic analysis. Such a description is productive and accounts for the ability of Bear Lakers to appropriately classify an indefinite number of individuals. [Athapaskan, kinship, structural semantics]