Syncretism

Abstract

This entry presents and discusses various patterns of syncretism, understood to be morphological markers that have a common form but serve different functions. The delineation of different syncretisms will largely be based on the theoretical concepts that have been employed to describe them. In this vein, we distinguish elsewhere syncretisms, natural‐class syncretisms based on cross‐classification and subclassification, directional syncretisms, and morphomic syncretisms. The entry concludes with a brief discussion of the broader impact that the research on syncretism has on our conception of grammar.