Verbs in the North Omotic language Benchnon, spoken in Ethiopia, make unusual use of gender-marking morphology, in which an alternation between feminine and masculine forms takes the place of person marking. In Rapold’s (2006) account, verbal subjects are marked by exponents of gender and number, but not person. The formatives themselves are not unique to verbs, and can also be found in the distal demonstrative, shown in (1). The stem distinguishes feminine singular (èn-), masculine singular (ùɕ-) and plural (ènd-), while the nominative case marker distinguishes two forms: feminine singular (-ā) versus masculine+plural (-ī).1

These same formatives, with slight modification, are used for subject marking in the verbal system. Final verbs (the main verb of the sentence) have a suffix which is the same as the distal demonstrative stem (usually losing the final /ɕ/ of the masculine singular), while converbs have a suffixed vowel which is segmentally identical to the nominative case marker.2 Where the verb has a third person subject, the pattern corresponds to the distal demonstrative: feminine singular -èn/-á (2), masculine singular -ù/-i̋ (3), and plural -ènd/-i̋ (4).

With non-third person subjects, these same forms are found, but they are not determined by gender. For example, if the subject is first or second person singular (5), (6), or first person exclusive plural (7), converbs take the feminine singular form, and final verbs take the masculine singular form, regardless of the sex of the subject.

This is strikingly unusual. Not so much because certain person values look as if they have a gender of their own, though that is not exactly common – it is in fact attested in a number of languages from various parts of the world (see §2). Rather, it is the fact that this gender appears to flip between verb paradigms, something which has no parallel in any other language, as far as I know.

The full paradigms are shown in Table 1. Note that converbs make a distinction between 1PL exclusive and inclusive, the former patterning with the 1SG, the latter patterning with the other plural forms. (The 1PL exclusive may alternatively take a dedicated suffix -o; see fn 10.) Final verbs have a dedicated plural form for second and third person subjects.

For third person subjects there is thus a consistent system of gender-number marking that extends beyond the verbal system, and embraces demonstratives and case markers as well. The same morphology is used for first and second person subjects, but without any obvious motivation for the choice of gender marker, and in a way which switches between paradigms. The goal of this paper is to account for this hybrid behavior. The key lies in diachrony. I argue that the use of gender-marking morphology for first and second person subjects is originally due to person-based constraints on gender agreement, which results in their being assigned to the default gender. The two verbal paradigms are the products of two different historical periods, in between which the default gender switched from feminine to masculine. Thus, even though the basic principles of the system remained the same across this span of time, two contrasting patterns were the result.

The paper is structured as follows. §2 provides cross-linguistic support for the idea that person-based asymmetries in gender agreement can bring about the covert marking of person values. §3 shows how this can be applied to the analysis of the Benchnon paradigms, and how these might have evolved. Final verbs are the more recent system, while the converb paradigm is a fossilized relict. §4 shows how the kind of reorganization of gender assignment rules posited for Benchnon may also explain certain covert paradigm splits in Tucanoan language. §5 shows that the converb paradigm might not completely fossilized, and is liable to be reconfigured on analogy with the final verb paradigm. §6 concludes, stressing the dual nature of inflectional paradigms both as the expression of morphological features and as autonomous morphological objects.

Subject agreement in Benchnon verbs can be understood as an instance where gender marking has the secondary effect of marking person, due to asymmetries in the conditions on agreement. This idea crucially rests on two assumptions, (i) the distinction between semantic gender agreement and syntactic (or grammatical) gender agreement (see e.g. Corbett 1991: 225–26), and (ii) the notion of default gender assignment. Semantic gender agreement makes direct reference to the perceived gender of the controller, as with the English pronouns she, he and it. Syntactic gender is derived from properties of the linguistic system (phonological, morphological, or lexical). For example, in Bulgarian, the general rule is that nouns that end in a such as salata ‘salad’ are feminine, and those that end in -o such as meso ‘meat’ are neuter; there is no obvious semantic motivation, it is based solely on the form of the noun. The contrast between semantic and syntactic gender assignment can be seen where the controller is human. For example, based its form bašta ‘father’ should be feminine, because it ends in -a, and čičo ‘uncle’ neuter, because it ends in -o. But here semantic gender takes precedence, and both are masculine.

Default gender constitutes a special case of syntactic gender. This is where gender is assigned by the linguistic system in cases not covered by the normal rules. An obvious instance would be subject gender agreement in subjectless sentences, where there are no controller semantics, nor any nominal whose phonological, morphological or lexical properties can be referenced. In such cases the system may fall back on one of the available genders (Corbett 1991: 205–12). In Bulgarian, for example, the neuter serves this function, as in the subjectless sentence (8).

I argue that the pattern of gender marking in the Benchnon verb paradigm reflects two principles of gender assignment. With third person subjects, agreement is semantic, according to sex. But first and second person subjects do not control semantic gender agreement. Instead, they are assigned the default gender. This is a pattern that has been observed in a number of different languages from around the world. The basic principles can be illustrated using Barasana-Eduria, an East Tucanoan language of Colombia. The language has three genders, feminine, masculine and inanimate. Feminine and masculine are reserved for animates – feminine for female people, and masculine more generally for non-sex-specific animates, which includes animals and heavenly bodies; inanimate is used for everything else (Jones & Jones 2019: 425–27). In the pronominal system, these genders are only distinguished in the third person (Table 2). Cross-linguistically, this kind of person-based gender asymmetry in pronouns is common. For example, according to Siewierska (2013), out of 124 languages in her sample where pronouns mark gender, in 106 of them (85%) gender distinctions are found in only part of the system. The split between third person and the rest is particularly common.

Verbal subject agreement shows the same distribution of gender distinctions as the pronouns (Table 3). Feminine, masculine and inanimate are distinguished only in the third person (as with pronouns, feminine and masculine are conflated in the plural, and the inanimate does not distinguish number). But first and second person subjects, somewhat counterintuitively, take the same form as inanimates. This makes more sense if one thinks of the inanimate as simply being the default gender, assigned in the absence of a recognizable gender controller.

Support for this idea comes from the behavior of subjectless sentences, which also take inanimate agreement. Contrast (9a), where the noun ‘sun’ is the subject, and the verb takes masculine singular agreement, with (9b), where there is no overt subject, and the verb takes inanimate agreement. The inanimate thus appears to serve as the default gender. If we assume that first and second person do not control gender agreement, at least for verbal targets, then the pattern in Table 3 emerges as natural.3 This is also the account that Chacon & Michael (2018) give more generally for the evolution of Eastern Tucanoan agreement paradigms.

Similar examples, in which first and second person subjects are marked by a gender form otherwise reserved for inanimates, can be found in Krongo, a Kadu language of Sudan (Reh 1985), and in various Nakh-Dagestanian languages, where this pattern is restricted to the plural; see Baerman & Corbett (2013) for a survey, and Chumakina, Kibort & Corbett (2007) for a case study of the Dagestanian language Archi.

Of course, this is not the only possible analysis. Since the result is a highly syncretic person-gender-number paradigm, one could simply stipulate the syncretic pattern and regard it as an unanalyzed morphome, or pure morphological object (see Luís & Bermúdez-Otero 2016 for extensive discussion of this notion). But further evidence in favour of treating this in terms of the distribution of gender agreement can be found in the Western Tucanoan languages, whose system is somewhat different from that of Eastern Tucanoan. Consider the suffixed copula forms in Table 4 from Ecuadorian Siona. These are attached to nouns or pronouns. There are two paradigms, assertive and non-assertive, the latter being used in questions and, with an additional suffix, in reports. The assertive paradigm resembles the verbal paradigms in Barasana-Eduria, except that there is no dedicated 3PL animate form; like first and second person, this too is subsumed under the inanimate. But the non-assertive paradigm is different. The gender-marking forms -o (feminine) and -i (masculine), instead of being restricted to third person, are used for second person as well. A further variation is seen in the copular paradigm of the northern dialect of Máíhɨ̃ki, a Western Tucanoan language of Peru (Table 5). The non-assertive paradigm matches that of Siona, with both second and third person subjects taking gender agreement. But the assertive paradigm has pure gender agreement, unconstrained by values of person. Taken together, these facts suggest that gender agreement in such a system can be separated from the values of person that condition it.

In all the examples of this type that I am aware of, the gender taken by first and second person controllers is one normally reserved for inanimates. But what happens when a language lacks such a gender? Kulina, an Arawan language of Brazil, is an example of this. There are only two genders, feminine and masculine. With human controllers, adjectives take the expected gender agreement, as do third person verbal subjects. But first and second person verbal subjects always take the feminine marker, regardless of sex: contrast the forms of the adjective ‘old’ in (10a) and (10b), where gender marking reflects the sex of the subject, with the corresponding verb forms, which have the feminine form in both cases. (Note that verbs have explicit person marking in addition to gender.)

Bond (2019) argues that this comes about because only third person subjects control gender agreement on verbs, and that in other contexts feminine gender is assigned by default.4 In §3 I argue that this is ultimately how the Benchnon paradigms should also be understood, as the product of default gender assignment in a two-gender system.

If we accept the proposition that first and second person subjects in Benchnon are assigned the default gender, that immediately raises a question: what is the default gender? Rapold (2006: 169–75) argues, based on a number of criteria, that it is masculine. This is what the final verb paradigm would seem to reflect. But the converb paradigm shows the reverse pattern. The contrast is shown in Table 6, where the two paradigms display a similar shape, but only because the order of feminine and masculine in the table rows are switched.

I argue that this has a historical explanation. Both paradigms arose from constraints on agreement with first and second person subjects, but at different periods. The converb paradigm dates from a time when the default gender was feminine. Subsequent to this the default gender changed from feminine to masculine, but the converb paradigm remained morphologically fossilized. The final verb paradigm developed after, along similar lines to the converb but reflecting the new default gender. Both paradigms have in turn been affected by analogical changes that have altered the distribution of forms used in the plural. The developments are discussed in §3.1 and §3.2, starting with final verbs, as they reflect most clearly the principles of the system. For the sake of consistency I continue to gloss the forms as masculine and feminine, though their actual role within a given paradigm is obviously harder to characterize, and subject to shifting interpretations and diachronic changes.

The sort of shift in gender-assignment rules posited in §3.2 may also account for paradigm splits found in Western Tucanoan languages, suggesting that it may not be an isolated phenomenon. Consider the contrast in Table 18 between the Siona suffixed copula and a verbal paradigm.16

Recall that in §2 it was claimed that the inanimate serves as the default gender, and is assigned to those values of person which do not control semantic gender agreement (first and second person, or just first person in the non-assertive paradigm; also all plurals). But that is true only for the copula.17 With verbs, inanimates take the same agreement as 3SG masculines (Wheeler 1987: 151; Chacon & Michael 2018: 66). This split divides West Tucanoan verbs on one hand from the West Tucanoan copula and the East Tucanoan verb on the other, as summarized in Table 19.

According to Chacon & Michael’s (2018) reconstruction, subject agreement in Tucanoan arose through the grammaticalization of masculine and feminine suffixes for the third person singular, leaving everything else to be covered by an ‘elsewhere’ form. Eastern Tucanoan languages then created an additional 3PL form for animates (Chacon & Michael 2018: 61). They do not explicitly discuss how to interpret the variant treatment of third person inanimates, but against this background, the shape of the Western Tucanoan verbal paradigm must be an innovation. The proposed evolution is sketched in (15).

The starting point will have been like the Western Tucanoan copula, with a three-way distinction between 3SG masculine, 3SG feminine, and everything else (type A). Eastern Tucanoan languages innovated a distinct 3PL animate form (type B). Western Tucanoan languages reassigned inanimate controllers to the masculine singular in the verbal paradigm (type C). This last change is clearly connected to a shift in default gender assignment, at least in Siona, in as much as subjectless constructions are also affected. Thus the Siona form in (16) has verb in the 3SG masculine form, while its correspondent in the East Tucanoan language Barasana-Eduria has the verb in the inanimate ‘elsewhere’ form (17), the one also used for first and second person subjects.

As a consequence of this shift, what used to be underspecified default agreement forms have become dedicated non-third person singular forms. In this respect Western Tucanoan verbs are like North Omotic converbs: the original motivation for the distribution of forms is gone, leaving a morphologically stipulated syncretic paradigm in its wake.

In the scenario advanced in §3.2, converbs are a fossilized relict of the time when feminine was the default gender, and now have what is simply a morphologically stipulated syncretic paradigm. But there are some indications that converb inflection in Benchnon can still be reinterpreted in accordance with the current masculine default. This happens in the prohibitive (i.e. negative imperative), a periphrastic construction which combines a converb (the lexical verb) and the imperative of the verb ‘stay’, which functions as the negative auxiliary. The converb reflects second person agreement, as expected given the referent, while the auxiliary has forms which are specific to the imperative: no suffix in the singular and -nd in the plural.

But Rapold reports that some younger speakers show the reverse pattern on the converb, with masculine marking in the singular and feminine marking in the plural:

One possible explanation for this innovation is that the converb has copied the paradigmatic structure of the final verb. In the singular this is transparent, because the masculine form is used, matching what a 2SG final verb would do. In the plural the correspondence is less straightforward, since, unlike the final verb, the converb has no dedicated plural form. What might have happened is that speakers took the one available form, the feminine, effecting a kind of polarity shift (Hetzron 1967; Baerman 2007). That is, given the formal opposition of -i ~ -a and the functional opposition of SG ~ PL, if the association of -i is switched from PL to SG, then the reassociation of -a follows by analogy. It remains unclear why this only happened in the prohibitive, though the fact that this paradigm has limited scope (second person subjects only) may play a role.

This paper has set out to explain why first person and second person singular subjects in Benchnon are expressed by feminine forms in one paradigm, and by masculine forms in another. The explanation offered here has two parts. First, the use of gender marking morphology to indicate first and second person is due to default gender assignment. In this language, semantic gender agreement according to the sex of the controller is restricted to third person subjects; first and second person controllers are assigned the default gender value. Support for this claim comes from the fact that similar patterns are attested in a small but diverse set of languages from around the world, suggesting there is a systematic principle underlying it. The second part of the explanation is the idea that the default gender switched at some point in history. This occurred after the formation of one of the paradigms (the converb), but before the formation of the other (the final verb). Since default gender appears to vary among the North Omotic languages, this is not an implausible suggestion. (Likewise, Tucanoan languages also show evidence of a historical shift in default gender assignment.)

As a result, the two Benchnon paradigms represent two variations on a theme, one reflecting a still-operating set of agreement conditions, the other a morphologically frozen echo of a similar set of conditions. But the story does not end there, because the way the prohibitive paradigm has developed indicates that the seemingly arbitrary syncretism of 2SG with 3SG feminine agreement may be reinterpreted as bona fide gender marking, and realigned to match the gender-marking pattern of the final verb. This shows a possible third stage in the historical process, where a ‘frozen’ pattern is thawed, as it were, and redeployed under a newer set of conditions. Such a development shows that the division between morphosyntactically motivated morphology and arbitrarily stipulated morphology is a fluid one.