Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

542 Chapter 18
TABLE 18.5
A Componential Analysis of Four Things with Two Features
Feature 1 Feature 2
Thing 1
Thing 2
Thing 3
Thing 4
, and thing 4 can be . Each bundle of features is different and defines
each of the four things. With three binary features, you can distinguish 8
things; with four, 16; with five, 32; and so on.
When componential analysis was introduced into cultural anthropology, it
was applied to the set of English kinship terms (Goodenough 1956) and it
continues to be used for understanding kinship systems (Rushforth 1982; Kendall
1983; Hedican 1986; Pericliev and Valdez-Perez 1998). A ‘‘daughter’’ in
English, for example, is a consanguineal, female, descending generation person.
So is a niece, but a niece is through a sibling or a spouse.
Table 18.6 shows the distinctive feature principle applied to a list of 22
barnyard animals. Stallions are adult male horses and foals are baby horses.
Notice that there is no column in table 18.6 labeled ‘‘male’’ and no column
labeled ‘‘juvenile.’’ A parsimonious set of features for distinguishing among
these animals does not require all that information. A stallion is a nonfemale,
gendered (that is, not neutered), adult horse. Any horse that is not female and
gendered and not an adult must be a colt. A barrow is a neutered, adult hog,
and a wether is a neutered, adult sheep.
Actually, if we wanted the most parsimonious set of features we would drop
one of the last four columns in table 18.6. Those columns identify the general
class of animals—horses, cattle, sheep, and swine—to which each named animal
belongs. If the domain of barnyard animals comprised just those four
classes, then a not-horse, not-cattle, not-sheep animal must be a swine. I’ve
left all four animal classes in table 18.6 because there are other classes of
barnyard animals not yet represented (chickens, rabbits, goats, etc.).
Componential analysis can be applied to any domain of a language where
you are interested in understanding the semantic features that make up the
domain. Table 18.7 shows a componential analysis of seven cars, using three
features elicited from Jack (he of the taxonomy shown in figure 18.6). A Corvette
is an expensive car, not very practical, and not foreign; a Mercedes is an
expensive, practical, foreign car; and so on. Each of the seven cars is uniquely
defined by the three features Jack mentioned.