Linking kinship terms to chains. The linkage rules of section C-2 seem adequate to characterize the relationship between the semantics of kinship chains and their symbolization. The semantic structure of the relatively simple term of grandfather is given in figure 1.
Linkage rules must also be given to relate the linguistic structures as developed in sections C-3 and C-4. Such rules would allow figure 1 to be augmented by the elements in figure 2.
One rule links “boundary” of the linguistic function to the “persona” and “ego” of the semantics. The rest of the rules for linking the conceptual space of kinship terms to their linguistic structures may be taken as a part of the lexical structure. The lexical rules are where the syntactic and morphological elements of the linguistic structure are linked to the semantic elements of kinship terms. By making use of such rules the conceptual space of the linguistic elements of the word grandfather are mapped to the more fundamental elements.
Leaving a residue of event identifiers and time comparison operator. The work of mapping the conceptual space of the linguistic elements of the all the kinship terms, however, is not complete. Consider the semantic structure of older sibling in figure 3 and that of former spouse in figure 4.
Both of these terms leave a residue of unanalyzed material in their semantics. In the case of older sibling we need to identify the context of the vital events of the two individuals within their family of orientation and compare their temporal correlates. In a similar vein, in the case of former spouse we need to identify the context of the disolution of a family of procreation and compare its temporal correlate to the present time. For these semantic elements we will investigate models for two additional semantic fields — vital events in section C-6 and time in section C-7.
