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Human Complex Systems

UCLA

Kinship Terminologies, Hypothetical or Extant, Are Optimal Solutions

Abstract

The claim that extant terminologies are optimal solutions in a space of all possible terminologies depends on invalidly assuming any partition of a set of genealogical relations is a possible kinship terminology.  Instead, kinship terminologies have a particular type of logical/formal structure that is generative with categories providing for classification that is reciprocal.  As a consequence, all terminologies, extant or hypothetical, are optimal solutions in the sense this term is used in the claim made about kinship terminologies. 

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