Frontmatter -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- List of Maps -- List of Schemes -- List of Tables -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Formal relations of SI and SDD paradigms -- 3 The qualitative side of syncretism -- 4 The quantitative side of syncretism -- 5 Complexity -- 6 Further qualitative aspects of SIs and SDDs -- 7 Conclusions -- References -- Appendix I: Africa -- Appendix II: The Americas -- Appendix III: Asia -- Appendix IV: Europe -- Appendix V: Oceania -- Appendix VI: Overview of the distribution of patterns over the five macro areas -- Appendix VII: Calculation on how often languages employ the same pattern in the SDDs as in the SIs -- Index of Authors -- Index of Languages -- Index of Subjects