F=PL syncretism and default gender in Shughni
This paper discusses an F=PL syncretism in Shughni. In Shughni, intransitive verbs have syncretic forms in past and perfect tenses when agreeing with a feminine singular, feminine plural, or masculine plural subject. The form when agreeing with a masculine singular subject is different. Unlike other languages with such syncretism, the default gender in Shughni is masculine. The paper suggests an analysis in the spirit of Distributed Morphology and discusses the problems that Shughni raises for more restrictive morphosyntactic theories, such as Nanosyntax.