Genetics and Computer Languages

In the elementary structures of kinship the opposition that symmetrical exchange versus asymmetrical exchange comes to be treated as a distinctive feature. This is far from being just an exercise of academic pedantry it can yield novel insights into the causal mechanisms that lie behind human behavior on a grand scale. Incidentally Jacobson himself received very clearly that there is indeed an analogy between what he was doing in phonology and the contemporary developments in multilevel computer languages. The phonological writings in the 1950s are full of references to Norbert Venus book on cybernetics which provided the basis from modern electronic automation.