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CLAIM-019: Lévi-Straussian transformational analysis, as Descola reads it and as it has been modelled computationally, is direct prior art for structural transport, not only a philosophical precursor

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Properties9
StatusActive
Version2
Rolegranted
Warrantinterpretive
Tagslinguistics, social-science
Linepragmatic-transport
GroundsLIT-822 — Transformation transformed, LIT-804 — Computational challenges to test and revitalize Claude Lévi-Strauss transformational methodology, LIT-807 — A Discrete-Event Simulation of Claude Lévi-Strauss’ Structural Analysis of Myths Based on Symmetry and Double Twist Transformations
SupportsCLAIM-145 — Trope analysis of the kind A155 proposes is Propp's and Lévi-Strauss's transformational analysis, whom the manuscript should cite as precursors
ComplementsCLAIM-146 — Recovering latent relational structure from an interaction matrix, with no privileged latent coordinates, is decades-old prior art, so the manuscript's contribution cannot be that recovery

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The claim

A102 §2: “Lévi-Strauss already treated variants of myths as related through transformational structures. Recent computational work has explicitly modeled his analysis using discrete-event systems and simulations of narrative transformation. That is much closer prior art than merely invoking structuralism as a philosophical precursor.” A102 named Descola (2016) and Doja, Capocchi and Santucci (2021).

Where it went

Manuscript §2: “Lévi-Strauss extended relational and transformational analysis to myths: variants reveal their structures through changes of elements and positions. This is a productive antecedent”. That is the precursor framing A102 warned against. Neither Descola nor Doja et al. is cited there; the record now reads both (below). It holds Structural Anthropology (LIT-775) unread, and cites it only as the work they read. Granted, because it is a point about priority that the manuscript’s own §1 disclaimer of novelty (CLAIM-023) commits it to.

What the two works show, read

  • Descola (LIT-822) supports transformation as the keystone of the method: “a structure is not a system”. He also cites Lévi-Strauss saying that in myth the analyst makes the cuts and chooses the path between variants.
  • Doja, Capocchi and Santucci (LIT-804) give only a software framework for transformations the analyst supplies, with a mapping of one folktale’s mythemes. No hypothesis about myth is tested.

So “has been modelled computationally” should be qualified. The actual transformation model was said to be in Santucci, Doja and Capocchi 2020 (Symmetry 12(10):1706), now registered and read (see below).

The 2020 model, read

Santucci, Doja and Capocchi 2020 (LIT-807, NOTE-632) contain no richer model than the 2021 paper summarised. The software has three kinds of operation:

  • Substituting one term for another, chosen by the user, in every mytheme. Homology, inversion, opposition and symmetry are all this one operation.
  • Adding a mytheme.
  • Removing a mytheme.

The canonical formula is illustrated but never computed, and the authors concede that the relation values “are not obtained from the software system”. The validation generates 70 myths from the Mythologiques and 28 Corsican tales by choosing transformations that produce them, with no measure, so it cannot fail.

So “modelled computationally” should read: the software encodes and runs an analyst’s transformations; it does not find or test them.

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