Syncretism and metamorphomes in the diachrony of Lemosin varieties

International audienceBy detailed comparative study of data from historical and descriptive grammars, this chapter traces the source of pervasive syncretism patterns in Occitan varieties of the Limousin region ('Lemosin varieties'). The majority of these patterns are shown to result from regular sound change causing mergers of previously distinct forms; subsequently, speakers are able to infer a morphological generalisation that the forms realising a given pair of cells are identical, and exploit the patterns as productive templates for morphological analogy. The behaviour of these patterns, and their interaction with established 'metamorphomes' (abstract templates for the paradigmatic distribution of inflectional exponents), is captured by treating the rise of syncretism as an example of ordinary change to metamorphomes, in which paradigm cells are reassigned from one metamorphomic template to another: this approach facilitates principled predictions about the susceptibility of metamorphomes to change in diachrony