THE CONCEPTUAL ARCHITECTURE OF KINSHIP: A COGNITIVE-LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF "SON" AND "DAUGHTER" ACROSS LANGUAGE TYPOLOGIES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17913465Abstract
This article argues that the fundamental kinship concepts "son" and "daughter" are not universal cognitive primes with stable cross-linguistic definitions, but are instead complex cultural constructs whose semantic architecture is profoundly shaped by the linguistic systems that encode them. Moving beyond a purely biological denotation, the analysis employs a cognitive-linguistic framework to examine how typologically diverse languages (e.g., Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Niger-Congo) structure these concepts through grammar, metaphor, and pragmatic use. We identify three primary axes of variation: 1) the grammaticalization of kinship and gender, where languages morphologically mark or lexically specify the concepts; 2) conceptual asymmetry and markedness, often reflecting deep-seated social valuations; and 3) the embeddedness within broader kinship taxonomies (classificatory vs. descriptive) that define the terms oppositionally. Furthermore, we trace culture-specific metaphorical extensions (e.g., "son of God," "daughter company") that reveal the concepts' integration into wider cognitive models. The findings demonstrate that understanding "son" and "daughter" requires a multidisciplinary synthesis of lexical semantics, anthropological linguistics, and cognitive science, revealing these terms as critical sites where language, thought, and culture intersect.
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