Syncretism

融合

A term originally used in historical linguistics (referring to the merging of forms following the loss of inflections), and now often used synchronically to refer to identity between two forms of the same lexeme, e.g. walked in I walked (where it is past tense) and I’ve walked (where it is past participle). The distinction is here syncretized, or ‘neutralized’.

原为历史语言学术语（指失去屈折形态后两个形式的合并），现常用于共时研究，指同一词位的两个形式合而为一，例如I walked“我走路”中的walked（过去时形式）和I’ve walked“我已走过”中的walked（过去分词形式）。两个形式在这里发生“融合”或“中和”。