Gender/number syncretism in Yelmek verbal suppletion

In this paper we explore patterns in syncretism between suppletive verbal stems in the Papuan language Yelmek, in particular in light of a prediction made in Kramer (2018) concerning gender/number syncretisms. A number of Yelmek verbs supplete based on the number and gender features of the verbs object, and a number of intransitive verbs based on the number of the subject. The generalisation that we focus on in Yelmek is that if a verb with a feminine singular object is suppletive with respect to the masculine singular, then so must the plural form be suppletive (with regard to the masculine); in other words, verbs with masculine and plural objects never share the same stem to the exclusion of the feminine form. Since masculine is the default gender in Yelmek, at first glance these patterns seem to contradict the prediction in Kramer (2018) about the relation between gender/number syncretism and the default gender; however we argue that other data suggest that verbal stems associated with feminine objects are the default stems. Therefore, Yelmek does not constitute a real exception to Kramer's prediction once the notion of default gender in Yelmek is clarified.