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The paper focuses on a distinction between two types of contact-influenced change in the area of morphosyntax. The first, for which I use the term ’convergence’, is defined as the adaptation of an internal element to match the scope and distribution of an external element which is perceived as its functional counterpart. The second, for which I choose the term ’fusion’, is the wholesale adoption of a class of external elements, including both forms and functions, to express a morphosyntactic category or ’super-category’.
As examples, I discuss two lesser-known cases from the Balkans – Romani and the Macedonian dialect of Turkish, as well as Northwestern Neo-Aramaic and Kurmanji (Kurdish), representing a convergent area in the Near East. A case for convergence in the Balkans are the internal grammaticalisation processes that lead to the emergence of a formal distinction between factual and non-factual complementation, coinciding with the famous loss of the infinitive. In the Near Eastern convergent area, our case for convergence concerns the distinction in agreement patterns in the past tense between transitive and intransitive verbs (ergativity and pseudo-ergativity). Fusion on the other hand is best represented in both areas in the system of discourse markers, discourse particles, and focus particles, for which I use ’utterance modifiers’ as a tentative cover label. Links with cognitive functions are explored towards an explanation of the two phenomena and their distribution among categories.
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