Partially ordered case hierarchies

Abstract

I argue that patterns of case syncretism across languages can be modelled by partially, rather than totally, ordered case hierarchies. Partially ordered case hierarchies avoid the need for postulating multiple instances of the same case while retaining case contiguity in the representation of case syncretism. I discuss data from three languages in which differential object marking is syncretic with dative and show that partially ordered hierarchies capture these and other patterns of syncretism in line with some of the conclusions reached by Harðarson (2016) and Zompì (2019) about cross-linguistic patterns of case syncretism.