[Lingtyp] What is the opposite of syncretism?

Tue Aug 15 10:47:38 UTC 2023

Dear Cat,

As Guillaume kindly noted, the syncretism pattern you mentioned is present
in Teanu, Lovono and Tanema - the three languages of Vanikoro (Solomon
islands), from the Temotu subgroup of Oceanic (Austronesian).
The system of (non-singular) subject prefixes shows a syncretic pattern
{1exc = 2};  and another pattern {1inc = 3 = 4}   (where "4" is a generic,
impersonal subject, similar to German *man*).

I dedicated a conference paper to that syncretism:

   - François, Alexandre. 2014. “Person syncretism and impersonal reference
   in Vanikoro languages” – presentation given at SWL6 conference (Syntax of
   the World's Languages), Università di Pavia.

You can view the slides of that talk online
<https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_SWL6_Vanikoro-impersonal_Sept2014.pdf>;
see especially the prefix paradigm on slide 14
<https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_SWL6_Vanikoro-impersonal_Sept2014.pdf#page=14>.
On slide 19
<https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_SWL6_Vanikoro-impersonal_Sept2014.pdf#page=19>
I
propose an interpretation of those patterns:

   - In order to describe the {1inc =3 =4} pattern in an emic way, I coined
   the term *collocutive*, referring to a situation where the two speech
   act participants (speaker & addressee) are equally involved in the action,
   either positively (1inc, 4) or negatively (3rd person).
   - Likewise, to account for the {1exc = 2} pattern, I proposed the term
   *dislocutive*, where the two SAPs behave disjointly in the action: the
   subject includes the speaker but not the addressee, or vice versa.

Here are two examples in the dual:
[image: image.png]
__________
Before I saw Guillaume's reply, I was going to reply to your more general
question:

> *It exhibits both some very weird syncretism (same marking of 1EX and 2nd
person) and the opposite of that (e.g. plural being marked differently in
all four persons). What do we call that?  Just differential marking?*

In the domain of the lexicon, I've been calling the former configuration
“colexification” (similar to syncretism);  and the opposite,
“dislexification”  (cf. the contrast *con-junct */* dis-junct*, etc).
Martin Haspelmath has recently
<https://twitter.com/haspelmath/status/1688937593403060224> proposed to
extend this sort of contrast to grammatical morphemes, using
“cogrammification” (including cases of *morphological syncretism*), and
“coexpression” in general.  For the opposite, one could propose
“disgrammification” and “disexpression”, but I don't see those terms in
Martin's handout <https://zenodo.org/record/8223665>.  Otherwise, the
standard terms, I guess, are simply “formal distinction” or “formal
contrast”. (Maybe other people on the list will think of different terms.)

best
Alex
------------------------------

Alex François
LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/> — CNRS–
<http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html>ENS
<https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
–Sorbonne nouvelle
<http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
Australian National University
<https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a>
Personal homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
_________________________________________

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 at 11:37
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] What is the opposite of syncretism?
To: Cat Butz <Cat.Butz at hhu.de>
Cc: Lingtyp <Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>

Concerning the weird pattern 1pl.excl=2pl (distinct from pl.incl), Alex
François reports the same in the languages of Vanikoro, see Table 8 in the
following chapter:

Alex Francois – The languages of Vanikoro (2009) (huma-num.fr)
<https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2009_Vanikoro-languages.pdf>

Le mar. 15 août 2023 à 11:32, Cat Butz <Cat.Butz at hhu.de> a écrit :

> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm presenting a pronoun paradigm of Dalkalaen this week at the Affixes
> symposium in Turku. It exhibits both some very weird syncretism (same
> marking of 1EX and 2nd person) and the opposite of that (e.g. plural
> being marked differently in all four persons). What do we call that?
> Just differential marking?
>
> Thank you, and hopefully see you on Thursday/Friday,
> --
> Cat Butz (she)
> HHU Düsseldorf
> General Linguistics
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>

-- 
Guillaume Jacques

Directeur de recherches
CNRS (CRLAO) - EPHE- INALCO
https://scholar.google.fr/citations?user=1XCp2-oAAAAJ&hl=fr
https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295
<http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques>
http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
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