Class Co-Occurrence in Navaho Gender

Description

Source: International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Oct., 1965), — pp. 326-331Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/12640417 с.A study of Navaho gender poses descriptive problems particularly for the student of semiosis. Suppose that gender be defined broadly, and that informally normative and mathematically normative models of description be considered as far as the syntax of this gender is concerned. It would be possible then, while endorsing the proposition that axiomatization is indispensiblein the scientific description of gender, to point to puristic weaknesses of formalists. This we intend to do.As we move from natural historical specimens of description to the work of O. S. Kulagina and other specialists in set theory who propose to deal with gender relations, our criticism, grounded in Athapaskan and other data, of puristic deficiencies should not be taken as criticism of important insights which transformational theorists have put forth. We shall be concerned, however, after a look at Navaho experimentation, with some semiotic problems which derivefrom these insights.