Tongan Kinship Terminology

The algebraic analysis of Tongan kinship terminology represents a major and necessary step toward an understanding of the preferred Tongan mental representations of social relationships. During my residence in Tonga, I collected extensive data about the Tongan kinship terminology and its uses. Then, in collaboration with Dwight Read at UCLA, I conducted a thorough analyses of the data with the help of an expert system, KAES, prepared by Read and his collaborators.

The research resulted in the following publications:

• Bennardo, Giovanni and Dwight Read (2007). Cognition, Algebra, and Culture in the Tongan Kinship Terminology. Cognition and Culture.
  (to appear in February 2007)
• Bennardo, Giovanni and Dwight Read (2005). The Tongan Kinship Terminology: Insights from an Algebraic Analysis." Mathematical Anthropology and Cultural Theory, 2,1:1-51. http://www.mathematicalanthropology.org/

The results of the analyses were presented at the following conference:

• 2006 Salience of Verticality and Horizontality in American and Tongan Kinship Terminology: In Search of Empirical Evidence." Paper read at the 105th Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San José, CA, November 19
• 2005 Intersecting Conceptual Systems: The Constitutive Logic of the Tongan Kinship Terminology. Paper read at 1st Official Meeting of the Society for Anthropological Science, Santa Fe, NM, February 24.

Currently, the continuation of this research is partially funded by a NSF grant #0650458 and will soon be completed after further data collections will be conducted in the US (UCLA and NIU) and in Tonga (summer 2007).

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