After noticing that there are no cross-cultural phylogenetic studies of grandparent terminologies, the authors use the record from 134 Pama-Nyungan languages to explore the evolution of this kinship category and to evaluate the effects of social structures in this evolution. The authors suggest that there used to be four different terms for grandparents in the proto-Pama-Nyungan language family, which was supported by the data. The results show no evidence of co-evolution between these grandparent systems with neither community marriage organization nor post-marital residence. There is not a significant correlation between grandparent and cross-cousin terms; however, there is some evidence that grand-child terms are correlated to grandparent systems.

Using phylogenetic comparative methods, the study explores the evolution of kinship terminologies within 176 societies in Austronesian, Bantu, and Uto-Aztecan language families. The authors consider 18 theories in the anthropological record that suggests that change in kinship terminologies is predicted by some social structures: marriage, residence, and descent. Only 19 of the 29 statistical hypotheses are supported, while none of the theories are supported in all three language families. This statistical irregularity means that the results are lineage-specific, instead of showing a universal driver of change in kinship terminology types.

Kinbank is a global database of 210,903 kinship terms derived from 1,229 spoken and signed languages. The authors created Kinbank as a tool to help explain recurring patterns across cultures through kinship terminology. They illustrate its usefulness by addressing two questions as an example: 1) Is there gender bias in the phonological structure of parent terms? and 2) Did bifurcate-merging terminology and cross-cousin marriage co-evolve in Bantu languages? Using a Bayesian phylogenetic approach, the authors find support for the first question, but none for the latter.

Using Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian phylogenetic comparative methods, this study aims to answer how cultural meanings and linguistic forms develop in kinship terminology focusing on sibling terminology. It tests sequential models of change of sibling terminologies among the Austronesian language family to reconstruct: the historical state and evolutionary change of relative age and relative sex; whether these distinctions have independent or dependent evolutionary trajectories; and whether opposite-sex distinctions might have developed when no such distinction previously existed. The results suggest that the trajectories are independent and that there was an initial absence of relative sex distinction. Other findings are that the transitions from absence to complex elaborated terminologies and the disruption of elaborate distinctions are very unusual.

The researchers use phylogenetic methods to map out the evolutionary trajectories of land tenure norms across 97 Austronesian societies. The analysis suggests the relevance of vertical transmission in patterning land tenure norms, rather than horizontal transmission. It also strongly supports a model along a N(none)-I(individual)-G(group)-K(kin) pathway.

This book is a comprehensive analysis of many aspects of social structure including family, clan, community, kinship terminology, social organization, regulation of sex, incest taboos, and sexual choice.

This article examines variation in kinship terminology. The authors develop a new typology of kinds of kinship terminologies, and they propose that terminologies will distinguish siblings of the same and opposite gender when there is a cultural emphasis on cross-sex relations. Empirical analysis supports that a prolonged post-partum sex taboo (rather than sibling avoidance) predicts the presence of a primary cross-parallel component in sibling terminology.

This paper presents a comprehensive list of kinship patterns for grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews, siblings, cross-cousins, and siblings-in-law. The author based these typologies on over 1000 kinship terminologies from around the world. The geographical distributions of kinship patterns are also included.

This article tests hypotheses related to kinship terms, cousin marriage, and descent rules. Omaha, Crow, Eskimo, and Iroquois systems are each significantly associated with different kinship rules. Material from Northern Ghana is also considered.

The study proposes a Bayesian modeling framework to analyze and examine the mapping between emotions and speech prosody. The models are fitted to a large collection of emotional prosody recordings, and the study reveals that the mapping varies across corpora, individuals, cultures, and sexes. The study suggests that models accounting for mapping differences across these factors outperform models assuming a global mapping.