In linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 and etymology

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

, suppletion is traditionally understood as the use of one word as the inflected

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...

 form of another word when the two words are not cognate

Cognate

In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...

. For those learning a language, suppletive forms will be seen as "irregular" or even "highly irregular". The term "suppletion" implies that a gap in the paradigm was filled by a form "supplied" by a different paradigm. Instances of suppletion are overwhelmingly restricted to the most commonly used lexical item

Lexical item

A Lexical item is a single word or chain of words that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon . Examples are "cat", "traffic light", "take care of", "by-the-way", and "it's raining cats and dogs"...

s in a language.

Irregularity and suppletion

An irregular paradigm is one in which the derived forms of a word cannot be deduced by simple rules from the base form. For example, someone who knows only a little English can deduce that the plural of girl is girls, but cannot deduce that the plurals of man and person are men and people. Language learners are often most aware of irregular verb

Irregular verb

In contrast to regular verbs, irregular verbs are those verbs that fall outside the standard patterns of conjugation in the languages in which they occur. The idea of an irregular verb is important in second language acquisition, where the verb paradigms of a foreign language are learned...

s, but any part of speech with inflections can be irregular. For most synchronic purposes — first language acquisition studies, psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were largely philosophical ventures, due mainly to a lack of cohesive data on how the...

, language teaching theory — it is enough to note that these forms are irregular. However historical linguistics seeks to explain how they came to be so and distinguishes different kinds of irregularity according to their origins. Most irregular paradigms (like man:men) can be explained by philological developments that affected one form of a word but not another. The historical antecedents of the current forms were once a regular paradigm. The term "suppletion" was coined by historical linguists to distinguish irregularities like person:people that cannot be so explained, because the parts of the paradigm have not evolved out of a single form.

Examples

Note that most of the examples below are from Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

, but suppletion is hardly restricted to these languages. For example, in Georgian

Georgian language

Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...

, the paradigm for the verb "to come" is composed of four different roots (di- / -val- / -vid- / -sul-). Similarly, in Modern Standard Arabic, the verb jāʾ "come" usually uses the form taʿāl for its imperative, and the plural of marʾah "woman" is nisāʾ (related to nās "people"). Nonetheless, some of the more archaic Indo-European languages are particularly known for suppletion. Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

, for example, has some 20 verbs with suppletive paradigms, many with 3 separate roots. (See Ancient Greek verbs#Suppletive verbs.)

• In English
  English language
  English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
  
  , the past tense of the verb go is went, which comes from the past tense of the verb wend, archaic in this sense. (The modern past tense of wend is wended.) See Go (verb)
  Go (verb)
  Go is an irregular English verb whose basic definition is "to move from one place to another". Be and go are the only English verbs with a suppletive past tense.-Principal parts:...
  
  .
• The Romance languages
  Romance languages
  The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
  
   have a variety of suppletive forms in conjugating the verb "to go", as these first-person singular forms illustrate:

  Language	Infinitive	Present	Future	Preterite
  Catalan	anar (3)	vaig (1)	aniré (3)	aní (3)
  French	aller (3)	vais (1)	irai (2)	allai (3)
  Italian	andare (3)	vado (1)	andrò (3)	andai (3)
  Portuguese	ir (2)	vou (1)	irei (2)	fui (4)
  Spanish	ir (2)	voy (1)	iré (2)	fui (4)

The sources of these are 4 different Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 verbs:

1. vadere "to advance"
2. ire "to go"
3. ambulare "to walk", or in some cases perhaps ambitare "to go around" (Spanish and Portuguese andar "to walk" have the same source)
4. fui suppletive perfective of esse "to be". (The preterite
   Preterite
   The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
   
   s of "to be" and "to go" are identical in Spanish and Portuguese. Compare the English construction "Have you been to France?" which has no simple present form.)

Many of the Romance languages use forms from different verbs in the present tense; for example, French has je vais, "I go" (from vadere) but nous allons "we go" (from ambulare). Galician-Portuguese has a similar example: imos (from ire, "to go") and vamos (from vadere), "we go", the former is somewhat disused in modern Portuguese but very alive in modern Galician, even, ides (from ire), is the only form for "you go (plural)" both in Galician and Portuguese (Spanish vais, from vadere).

• Similarly, the Welsh verb mynd (to go) has a variety of suppletive forms such as af, "I shall go" and euthum, "we went".
• In Germanic
  Germanic languages
  The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
  
  , Romance
  Romance languages
  The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
  
  , Celtic
  Celtic languages
  The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
  
  , and Slavic
  Slavic languages
  The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
  
   languages, the comparative and superlative of the adjective "good" is suppletive; in many of these languages the adjective "bad" is also suppletive.

  good, better, best

  Language	Adjective	Etymology	Comparative / superlative	Etymology
  English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria... German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.... Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... Norwegian Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language... Icelandic Icelandic language Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...	good gut goed god god góður	Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic language Proto-Germanic , or Common Germanic, as it is sometimes known, is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all the Germanic languages, such as modern English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Luxembourgish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, and Swedish.The Proto-Germanic language is...  *gōdaz (OE Old English language Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...  gōd, OHG Old High German The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...  guot, Old Dutch *guot, and ON góðr), cognate to Sanskrit Sanskrit Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...  gadhya "what one clings to"	better / best besser / am besten beter / best bättre / bäst bedre / best betri / best	Proto-Germanic *batizô, of which OE betera, cognate to bōt "remedy" and Sanskrit bhadra "fortunate"
  French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... Portuguese Portuguese language Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095... Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...	bon bom bueno buono	Latin bonus, from OL Old Latin Old Latin refers to the Latin language in the period before the age of Classical Latin; that is, all Latin before 75 BC...  duenos, cognate to Sanskrit duva "reverence"	meilleur melhor mejor migliore	Latin melior, cognate to multus "many", Gk Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...  mala "very"
  Scottish Gaelic	math	Proto-Celtic *mati-s < PIE *mē-	feàrr	Proto-Celtic *veris < PIE *upo-
  Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century... Slovak Slovak language Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...	dobry dobrý dobrý	Proto-Slavic *dobrъ	lepszy / najlepszy lepší / nejlepší lepší / najlepší	PIE *lep- / *lēp- ("behoof", "boot", "good" )
  Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...	хороший (khoroshiy)	probably from Proto-Slavic *xorb	лучший / наилучший (luchshiy, nailuchshiy)	Old Russian лучии, neut. луче, Old Church Slavonic лоучии "more suitable, appropriate"
  Croatian Croatian language Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries... Slovene	dobar dober	Proto-Slavic *dobrъ	bolji / najbolji boljši / najboljši	Proto-Slavic *bolьjь ("bigger")

  bad, worse, worst

  Language	Adjective	Etymology	Comparative/superlative	Etymology
  English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...	bad	unknown In OE yfel was more common, cf Proto-Germanic *ubilaz, Gothic Gothic language Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...  ubils (bad), German übel (evil / bad) Eng evil	worse / worst	OE wyrsa, cognate to OHG wirsiro
  French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... Portuguese Portuguese language Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095... Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...	mal† mau malo male†	Latin malus	pire pior peor peggiore	Latin peior, cognate to Sanskrit padyate "he falls"
  Scottish Gaelic	dona	Proto-Celtic *do-gna-vos	miosa	Proto-Celtic *missos < PIE *mei- (cf Scottish Gaelic and English prefixes mì- and mis- respectively)
  Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...   Slovak Slovak language Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...	zły zlý (špatný) zlý	Proto-Slavic *zel	gorszy / najgorszy horší / nejhorší horší / najhorší	cf. Polish gorszyć (to disgust)
  Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...	плохой (plokhoy)	probably Proto-Slavic *polx	худший / наихудший (khudshiy, naikhudshiy)	Old Church Slavonic хоудъ, Proto-Slavic *хudъ ("bad", "small")
  Croatian Croatian language Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...	zao	Proto-Slavic *zel	gori / najgori

† These are adverbial forms ("badly"); the French and Italian adjectives are themselves suppletive (mauvais of Germanic origin, and cattivo, from the same root as "captive", respectively).

• Similarly to the Italian noted above, the English adverb form of "good" is the unrelated word "well", from Old English wel, cognate to wyllan "to wish".
• In English, the complicated irregular verb
  Irregular verb
  In contrast to regular verbs, irregular verbs are those verbs that fall outside the standard patterns of conjugation in the languages in which they occur. The idea of an irregular verb is important in second language acquisition, where the verb paradigms of a foreign language are learned...
  
   be / is / were has forms from several different roots: be originally comes from the Proto-Indo-European language
  Proto-Indo-European language
  The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
  
   *bhu-; am, is and are from *es-, and was and were from *wes-. See Indo-European copula
  Indo-European copula
  A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb to be. Though in some languages, such as Russian, it is vestigial, it is present nonetheless in atrophied forms or derivatives.-General features:...
  
  . This verb is suppletive in most IE languages, as well as in some non-IE languages such as Finnish
  Finnish language
  Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
  
  .
• An incomplete suppletion in English exists with the plural of person (from the Latin
  Latin
  Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
  
   persona). The regular plural persons occurs mainly in legalistic use. The singular of the unrelated noun people (from Latin populus) is more commonly used in place of the plural, e.g. "two people were living on a one-person salary" (note the plural verb). In its original sense of "ethnic group", people is itself a singular noun with regular plural peoples.
• In Russian
  Russian language
  Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
  
  , the word человек chelovek (man, human being) is suppletive. The strict plural form, человеки cheloveki, is used only in Orthodox Church context. It may have originally been the unattested *человекы *cheloveky. In any case, in modern usage, it has been replaced by люди lyudi, the singular form of which is known in Russian only as a component of compound words (such as простолюдин prostolyudin). This suppletion also exists in Polish
  Polish language
  Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
  
   (człowiek > ludzie), Czech
  Czech language
  Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
  
   (člověk > lidé), and Slovene (človek > ljudje).
• In Bulgarian
  Bulgarian language
  Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
  
  , the word човек chovek (man, human being) is suppletive. The strict plural form, човеци chovetsi, is used only in Biblical context. In modern usage it has been replaced by the Greek loan хора khora. The counter form (special form for masculine nouns, used after numerals) is suppletive as well: души dushi (with the accent on the first syllable), e.g. двама, трима души dvama, trima dushi (two, three people). This form has no singular either (a related but different noun is the plural души dushi, singular душа dusha (soul), both with accent on the last syllable).

• In Polish
  Polish language
  Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
  
  , the plural form of rok ("year") is lata which comes from the plural of lato ("summer"). A similar suppletion occurs in ("year") > лет let (genitive of "years").
• In many Slavic languages, small and great are suppletive:

  small, smaller, smallest

  Language	Adjective	Comparative / superlative
  Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...	mały	mniejszy / najmniejszy
  Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...	malý	menší / nejmenší
  Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...	маленький (malen'kiy)	меньше/наименьший (men'she / naimen'shiy)

  great, greater, greatest

  Language	Adjective	Comparative / superlative
  Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...	duży	większy / największy
  Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...	velký	větší / největší

• In some Slavic languages, a few verbs have imperfective and perfective forms arising from different roots. For example, in Polish
  Polish language
  Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
  
  :

  Verb	Imperfective	Perfective
  to take	brać	wziąć
  to say	mówić	powiedzieć
  to see	widzieć	zobaczyć
  to watch	oglądać	obejrzeć
  to put	kłaść	położyć
  to find	znajdować	znaleźć
  to keep	przyjmować	przyjąć
  to go in/to go out (on foot)	wchodzić / wychodzić	wejść / wyjść
  to ride in/to ride out (by car)	wjeżdżać / wyjeżdżać	wjechać / wyjechać

^ *z, przy, w, and wy are prefix

Prefix

A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...

es and are not part of the root

• Ancient Greek
  Ancient Greek
  Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
  
   had a large number of suppletive verbs. (See Ancient Greek verbs#Suppletive verbs.) A few examples, listed by principal parts
  Principal parts
  In language learning, the principal parts of a verb are those forms that a student must memorize in order to be able to conjugate the verb through all its forms.- English :...
  
  :
• erkhomai, eîmi/eleusomai, ēlthon, elēlutha, --, -- "go, come".
• legō, eraō (erô) / leksō, eipon / eleksa, eirēka, eirēmai / lelegmai, elekhthēn / errhēthēn "say, speak".
• horaō, opsomai, eidon, heorāka / heōrāka, heōrāmai / ōmmai, ōphthēn "see".
• pherō, oisō, ēnegka / ēnegkon, enēnokha, enēnegmai, ēnekhthēn "carry".
• pōleō, apodōsomai, apedomēn, peprāka, peprāmai, eprāthēn "sell".

Generalizations

Strictly speaking, suppletion occurs when different inflections of a lexeme (i.e., with the same lexical category

Lexical category

In grammar, a part of speech is a linguistic category of words , which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others...

) have etymologically unrelated stems. The term is also used in looser senses, albeit less formally.

Semantic relations

The term "suppletion" is also used in the looser sense when there is a semantic link between words but not an etymological one; unlike the strict inflectional sense, these may be in different lexical categories

Lexical category

In grammar, a part of speech is a linguistic category of words , which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others...

, such as noun/verb.

English noun/adjective pairs such as father/paternal or cow/bovine are also referred to as collateral adjectives. In this sense of the term, father/fatherly is non-suppletive. Fatherly is derived

Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...

 from father, while father/paternal is suppletive. Likewise cow/cowy is non-suppletive, while cow/bovine is suppletive.

In these cases, father/pater- and cow/bov- are cognate via Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

, but 'paternal' and 'bovine' are borrowings into English (via Old French and Latin). The pairs are distantly etymologically related, but the words are not from a single Modern English stem.

Weak suppletion

The term "weak suppletion" is sometimes used in contemporary synchronic morphology in regard to sets of stems (or affixes) whose alternations cannot be accounted for by current phonological rules. For example, stems in the word pair oblige/obligate are related by meaning but the stem-final alternation is not related by any synchronic phonological process. This makes the pair appear to be suppletive, except that they are related etymologically. In historical linguistics "suppletion" is sometimes limited to reference to etymologically unrelated stems. Current usage of the term "weak suppletion" in synchronic morphology is not fixed.

See also

• Irregular verb
  Irregular verb
  In contrast to regular verbs, irregular verbs are those verbs that fall outside the standard patterns of conjugation in the languages in which they occur. The idea of an irregular verb is important in second language acquisition, where the verb paradigms of a foreign language are learned...
  
  
• Collateral adjective
  Collateral adjective
  A collateral adjective is an adjective with a similar meaning to a given noun, but derived from a different root. For example, lunar serves as an adjective to describe attributes of the Moon; moon comes from the Old English mōna and lunar from the Latin luna...
  
  — denominal adjectives based on a suppletive root, such as arm ~ brachial

External links

• Surrey Suppletion Database – examples of suppletion in different languages