PRODUCTIVE SYNCRETISM IN SAAMI INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY

• Main Author: Gunnar Ólafur Hansson
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Finnmark; saami
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.119.4987; http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/gohansson/pdf/gh_saamisyncretism.pdf

Syncretism, whereby a single form represents several ‘paradigm cells’, is a topic of controversy in current morphological theory. A key question is whether such form-to-form identity relations constitute grammatical facts in their own right (represented by ‘rules of referral ’ or analogous devices). I argue for the importance of diachronic evidence in this context, bringing data from Saami to bear on the debate. Two developments are examined: (a) the conflation of the previously separate inessive and ablative into a unified ‘locative ’ case; (b) the identity between comitative singular and locative plural forms. I demonstrate how the com.sg.=loc.pl. syncretism was extended from polysyllabic to monosyllabic stems in eastern Finnmark dialects of North Saami, indicating that the identity pattern constituted a productive aspect of the inflectional system. The non-contiguity of the paradigm cells involved argues in favour of ‘referrals’; the Saami facts are simply incompatible with more restrictive theories. 1.