Motivating a Morphome Albanian Case Syncretism as a Case Study

Abstract

This paper discusses case syncretism patterns in Albanian, arguing for an underlyingly syntactic (i.e. functional) motivation for seemingly ʻmorphomicʼ (i.e. purely formal) metasyncretism patterns in its nominal inflection. It is argued that the distribution of syncretized and non-syncretized forms in the Albanian nominal paradigm is motivated by language economy in such a way that syncretism is used to produce an ʻoptimalʼ distribution of formally distinct case forms, so that the syncretized forms are always in complementary distribution w. r. t. their syntactic functions, and only the minimal necessary number of morphologically different forms remains in the paradigm. From a purely morphological point of view, this creates seemingly ʻmorphomicʼ patterns, in which, as a rule, syncretized forms do not form a natural class. However, these particular syncretism patterns are motivated in fact by the underlying functional ʻneedsʼ (or the lack thereof) of the nominal morphosyntax, so that the distribution of syncretized and non-syncretized forms in the Albanian nominal inflectional paradigm is, in fact, entirely motivated by the division of labour between case and definiteness in the syntax.