Computer enumeration of significant implicational universals of kinship terminology

The discovery of general patterns and their subsequent explanation is a fam iliar method in linguistics and other cross-cultural research. This article addresses the computerized enumeration of significant cultural and linguis tic patterns, specifically implicational universals. We dispute published s uggestions that the mechanical generation of universals is inadvisable by a rguing that such claims do not distinguish clearly the noticing of a patter n with its explanation. We make use of a simple, principled method that use s permutation tests to estimate whether the discovered universals are signi ficant. Finally, these methods are used to mine the rich kinship data set c ontributed by G. P. Murdock in 1970 and to report 15 universals found there in.