ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to the words and categories applied to Nuaulu kinship relationships from the perspective of the social cognition of relationality more generally. This universe of words and categories includes pronouns (the least specified in terms of individual reference), kinship terms in the strict sense, generational terms, developmental terms and personal names (the most specified in terms of individual reference). Particular attention is paid to the acquisition and use of personal names and teknonymy. Kinship terms are described in the following order: words for parents and children, reciprocal generational terms, lateral terms within and between patrilineal clans, lateral terms for relationships between adjacent generations and affinal terms. Emphasis is placed on the pragmatics of using names and relationship terms rather than on ideal types, and the chapter concludes by reviewing kinship terms in relation to social classifiers more widely, and how these change in the course of language histories.
