PROPERTY SIGN EXAMINATION THROUGH ENTROPY ANALYSIS

Property signs (i.e., indicating ownership relations) of folk culture are examined. These signs can be emotionally conceived & are socially recognized as signals. Quite early ethnographers recognized the special features of property signs as used within families. As they passed from generation to generation these signs were changed, broken down into parts & redistributed, subtracted, etc. Where a formally deviating mass of signs develops among property signs within families, the 1-time guiding rules for forming the signs are often lost to individuals most intimately acquainted with them; from this point on the determining requirement in sign creation is then that each sign be different from the next. The greatest form change in the group studied brought about by literacy (the appearance of initials & monograms). Series of property signs can be distinguished & analyzed as signals in interpersonal & non-verbal communication. The maximum average information quantity, the relative frequency of symbols used, the relative information of the sign series, & redundancy are calculated after visually determining the basic sign series. It is found that the maximum information quantity of the individual sign series is determined by the number of basic signs, that quantity of information, relative information, & redundancy are related to the number of signs appearing in the sign series, in direct proportion to their growth. It was also found that those series with lower relative information values are those that use fewer sign combinations, the redundancy value is higher in series with fewer sign combinations, relative information & redundancy are in inverse relation to 1 another. Additional research must be conducted in order to find the relationship between the number of sign members in the series & the values & the combinatory interrelations between the sign members, basic signs, & total signs in the series. The methods developed are suitable for quantitatively describing other sign systems; quantitative analysis must be followed by qualitative analysis. D. Burkenroad