Suppletion

In linguistics and etymology, suppletion is traditionally understood as the use of one word as the inflected form of another word when the two words are not cognate. 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 items 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 plural of man is men. Language learners are often most aware of irregular verbs, but any part of speech with inflections can be irregular. For most synchronic purposes—first-language acquisition studies, psycholinguistics, language-teaching theory—it suffices 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 (in this case, Germanic umlaut). In such cases, the historical antecedents of the current forms once constituted a regular paradigm. Historical linguistics uses the term "suppletion"[1] to distinguish irregularities like person:people or cow:cattle that cannot be so explained because the parts of the paradigm have not evolved out of a single form. Hermann Osthoff coined the term "suppletion" in German in an 1899 study of the phenomenon in Indo-European languages.[2][3][4]

Suppletion exists in more than 71 languages around the world.[5] These languages are from various language families : Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Arabic, Romance, etc. For example, in Georgian, the paradigm for the verb "to come" is composed of four different roots (di-, -val-, -vid-, and -sul-).[6] 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. Nonetheless, some of the more archaic Indo-European languages are particularly known for suppletion. Ancient Greek, for example, has some twenty verbs with suppletive paradigms, many with three separate roots. (See Ancient Greek verbs § Suppletive verbs.)

Example words

To go

In English, 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).

The Romance languages have a variety of suppletive forms in conjugating the verb "to go", as these first-person singular forms illustrate:

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

The sources of these forms, numbered in the table, are four different Latin verbs:

1. vadere ("to go, proceed"),[7]
2. ire ("to go")
3. ambulare ("to walk"), or perhaps ambitare ("to go around"),[8] itself a likely source for Spanish and Portuguese andar ("to walk");
4. fui suppletive perfective of esse ("to be"). (The preterites 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 itis second-person plural of ire, is the only form for "you (plural) go" 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"). Irish téigh ("to go") also has suppletive forms: dul ("going") and rachaidh ("will go").

In Estonian, the inflected forms of the verb minna ("to go") were originally those of a verb cognate with the Finnish lähteä ("to leave").

Good and bad

• In Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Slavic, and Indo-Iranian languages, the comparative and superlative of the adjective "good" is suppletive; in many of these languages the adjective "bad" is also suppletive.

Language	Adjective	Etymology	Comparative	Superlative	Etymology
English	good	Proto-Germanic *gōdaz (Old English: gōd, OHG guot, Old Dutch *guot, and ON góðr),[9] cognate to Sanskrit: gadhya "what one clings to"	better	best	Proto-Germanic *batizô,[9] of which Old English: betera, cognate to Old English: bōt "remedy" and Sanskrit: bhadra "fortunate"
Danish	god		bedre	bedst
German	gut		besser	besten
Faroese	góður		betri	bestur
Icelandic	góður		betri	bestur
Dutch	goed		beter	best
Norwegian	god		bedre	best
Swedish	god		bättre	bäst
French	bon	Latin: bonus, from OL duenos, cognate to Sanskrit: duva "reverence"	meilleur		Latin: melior, cognate to multus "many", Greek: μαλα, romanized: mala "very"
Portuguese	bom		melhor
Spanish	bueno		mejor
Catalan	bo		millor
Italian	buono		migliore
Scottish Gaelic	math	Proto-Celtic *matis < PIE *meh₂- ("ripen, mature")	feàrr		Proto-Celtic *werros < PIE *wers- ("peak")
Irish	maith		fearr
Welsh	da	Proto-Celtic *dagos ("good, well")	gwell^1	gorau^2	Proto-Celtic *u̯el-no-^1 ; Proto-Celtic *u̯or-gous-on^2
Polish	dobry	Proto-Slavic *dobrъ	lepszy	najlepszy	PIE *lep- / *lēp- ("behoof", "boot", "good" )
Czech	dobrý		lepší	nejlepší
Slovak	dobrý		lepší	najlepší
Ukrainian	добрий		ліпший	найліпший
Russian	хороший, khoroshiy	probably from Proto-Slavic *xorb[10]	лучше, luchshe	(наи)лучший, (nai)luchshiy	Old Russian лучии, neut. луче, Old Church Slavonic лоучии "more suitable, appropriate"[10]
Serbo-Croatian	dobar	Proto-Slavic *dobrъ	bolji	najbolji	Proto-Slavic *bolьjь ("bigger")
Slovene	dober		boljši	najboljši
Persian	خوب‎, khūb [xʊb][lower-alpha 1]	probably cognate of Proto-Slavic *xorb (above). Not a satisfactory etymology for beh; but see comparative and superlative forms in comparison to Germanic	خوبتر‎, xūb-tar or بِهْتَر‎, beh-tar[lower-alpha 2]	خوبترین‎, xūb-tarīn or بِهْتَرين‎, beh-tarīn	Not clear if cognate of Germanic "better" (above)[lower-alpha 3]

1. Poetic به‎, beh
2. The superlative of beh- 'good' in Ancient Persian is beh-ist which has evolved to بهشت‎, behešt "paradise" in Modern Persian.
3. cf. Pers behist and English best

• The comparison of "good" is also suppletive in Finnish: hyvä → parempi.

bad, worse, worst

Language	Adjective	Etymology	Comparative/superlative	Etymology
English	bad	Uncertain, possibly from OE bæddel ("effeminate man, hermaphrodite, pederast"), related to OE bædan ("to defile") < Proto-Germanic *baidijaną ("constrain, cause to stay") In OE yfel was more common, cf Proto-Germanic *ubilaz, Gothic ubils (bad), German übel (evil / bad) Eng evil	worse / worst	OE wyrsa, cognate to OHG wirsiro
Old Norse Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Swedish	(illr, vándr) (illur, vondur, slæmur) (illur, óndur, ringur) (ond, vond) (dålig, ond)		verri / verstr verri / verstur verri / verstur verre / verst(e) sämre, värre / sämst, värst
French Portuguese Spanish Catalan Italian	mal† mau malo mal* male†	Latin malus	pire pior peor pitjor peggiore	Latin peior, cognate to Sanskrit padyate "he falls"
Scottish Gaelic Irish Welsh	droch droch drwg	Proto-Celtic *drukos ("bad") < (possibly) PIE *dʰrewgʰ- ("to deceive")	miosa measa gwaeth/gwaethaf	Proto-Celtic *missos < PIE *mey- ("to change") Proto-Celtic *waxtisamos ("worst")
Polish Czech Slovak Ukrainian Serbo-Croatian	zły zlý (špatný) zlý archaic злий zao	Proto-Slavic *zel	gorszy / najgorszy horší / nejhorší horší / najhorší гірший/ найгірший gori / najgori	cf. Polish gorszyć (to disgust, scandalise)
Russian	плохой (plokhoy)	probably Proto-Slavic *polx[10]	хуже / (наи)худший (khuzhe, (nai)khudshiy)	Old Church Slavonic хоудъ, Proto-Slavic *хudъ ("bad", "small")[10]

† These are adverbial forms ("badly"); the Italian adjective is itself suppletive (cattivo, from the same root as "captive", respectively) whereas the French mauvais is compound (latin malifātius < malus+fatum).

* Mal is used in Catalan before nouns, the form after nouns (dolent) is also suppletive (< Latin dolente "painful").

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".

Great and small

Celtic languages:

small, smaller, smallest

Language	Adjective	Comparative / superlative
Irish	beag (Old Irish bec < Proto-Celtic *bikkos)	níos lú / is lú (< Old Irish laigiu < Proto-Celtic *lagyūs < PIE *h₁lengʷʰ- ("lightweight"))
Welsh	bach (< Brythonic *bɨx < Proto-Celtic *bikkos)	llai / lleiaf (< PIE *h₁lengʷʰ- (“lightweight”))

great, greater, greatest

Language	Adjective	Comparative / superlative
Irish	mór (< Proto-Celtic *māros < PIE *moh₁ros)	mó < Proto-Celtic *māyos < PIE *meh₁-)
Welsh	mawr (< Proto-Celtic *māros < PIE *moh₁ros)	mwy / mwyaf < Proto-Celtic *māyos < PIE *meh₁-)

In many Slavic languages, great and small are suppletive:

small, smaller, smallest

Language	Adjective	Comparative / superlative
Polish	mały	mniejszy / najmniejszy
Czech	malý	menší / nejmenší
Slovak	malý	menší / najmenší
Ukrainian	малий, маленький	менший / найменший
Russian	маленький (malen'kiy)	меньший / наименьший (men'she / naimen'shiy)

great, greater, greatest

Language	Adjective	Comparative / superlative
Polish	duży	większy / największy
Czech	velký	větší / největší
Slovak	veľký	väčší / najväčší
Ukrainian	великий	більший / найбільший

Examples in languages

Albanian

In Albanian there are 14 irregular verbs divided into suppletive and non-suppletive:

Verb	Meaning	Present	Preterite	Imperfect
qenë	to be	jam	qeshë	isha
pasur	to have	kam	pata	kisha
ngrënë	to eat	ha	hëngra	haja
ardhur	to come	vij	erdha	vija
dhënë	to give	jap	dhashë	jepja
parë	to see	shoh	pashë	shihja
rënë	to fall, strike	bie	rashë	bija
prurë	to bring	bie	prura	bija
ndenjur	to stay	rri	ndenja	rrija

Ancient Greek

Main article: Ancient Greek verbs

Ancient Greek had a large number of suppletive verbs. A few examples, listed by principal parts:

• 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".

Bulgarian

In Bulgarian, 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 (the special form for masculine nouns, used after numerals) is suppletive as well: души, dushi (with the accent on the first syllable). For example, 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.)

English

In English, the complicated irregular verb to be has forms from several different roots:

• be, been, being—from Old English bēon ("to be, become"), from Proto-Germanic *beuną ("to be, exist, come to be, become"), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰúHt (“to grow, become, come into being, appear”), from the root *bʰuH- ("to become, grow, appear").
• am, is, are—from Middle English am, em, is, aren, from Old English eam, eom, is, earun, earon, from Proto-Germanic *immi, *izmi, *isti, *arun, all forms of the verb *wesaną ("to be; dwell"), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ésmi ("I am, I exist"), from the root *h₁es- ("to be").
• was, were—from Old English wæs, wǣre, from Proto-Germanic *was, *wēz, from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₂wes- ("to dwell, reside")

This verb is suppletive in most Indo-European languages, as well as in some non-Indo-European languages such as Finnish.

An incomplete suppletion in English exists with the plural of person (from the Latin 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; for example, "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.

Irish

Several irregular Irish verbs are suppletive:

• abair (to say): derived from Old Irish as·beir, from Proto-Indo-European roots *h₁eǵʰs- ("out") and *bʰer- ("bear, carry"). However, the verbal noun rá is derived from Old Irish rád, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *reh₂dʰ- ("perform successfully").
• bí (to be): derived from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- ("grow, become, come into being, appear"). However, the present tense form tá is derived from Old Irish at·tá, from Proto-Celtic *ad-tāyeti, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- ("stand").
• beir (to catch): derived from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- ("bear, carry"). However, the past tense form rug is derived from Old Irish rouic, which is from Proto-Celtic *ɸro-ōnkeyo-, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European roots *pro- ("forth, forward") and *h₂neḱ- ("reach").
• feic (to see): derived from Old Irish aicci, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷey- ("observe"). However, the past tense form chonaic is derived from Old Irish ad·condairc, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *derḱ₂- ("see").
• téigh (to go): derived from Old Irish téit, from Proto-Indo-European *stéygʰeti- ("to be walking, to be climbing"). However, the future form rachaidh is derived from Old Irish regae, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁r̥gʰ- ("go, move"), while the verbal noun dul is from *h₁ludʰét ("arrive").

Latin

Main article: Latin conjugation

Latin has several suppletive verbs. A few examples, listed by principal parts:

• sum, esse, fuī, futūrus - "be".
• ferō, ferre, tulī or tetulī, lātus - "carry, bear".
• fīō, fierī, factus sum (suppletive and semi-deponent) - "become, be made, happen"
• tollō, tollere, sustulī, sublātus - "raise, lift, elevate".

Polish

In some Slavic languages, a few verbs have imperfective and perfective forms arising from different roots. For example, in Polish:

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 go in/to go out (on foot)	wchodzić, wychodzić	wejść, wyjść
to ride in/to ride out (by car)	wjeżdżać, wyjeżdżać	wjechać, wyjechać

Note that z—, przy—, w—, and wy— are prefixes and are not part of the root

In Polish, the plural form of rok ("year") is lata which comes from the plural of lato ("summer"). A similar suppletion occurs in Russian: год, romanized: god ("year") > лет, let (genitive of "years").

Romanian

The Romanian verb a fi ("to be") is suppletive and irregular, with the infinitive coming from Latin fieri, but conjugated forms from forms of Latin sum. For example, eu sunt ("I am"), tu ești ("you are"), eu am fost ("I have been"), eu eram ("I used to be"), eu fusei/fui ("I was"); while the subjunctive, also used to form the future in o să fiu ("I will be/am going to be"), is linked to the infinitive.

Russian

In Russian, 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 (człowiek > ludzie), Czech (člověk > lidé), Serbo-Croatian (čovjek > ljudi),[11] and Slovene (človek > ljudje).

Generalizations

Strictly speaking, suppletion occurs when different inflections of a lexeme (i.e., with the same lexical category) 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, such as noun/verb.[12][13]

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 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, 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

• Collateral adjective—denominal adjectives based on a suppletive root, such as arm ~ brachial
• Irregular verb

References

1. "suppletion". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. Osthoff, Hermann (1900). Vom Suppletivwesen der indogermanischen Sprachen : erweiterte akademische Rede ; akademische Rede zur Feier des Geburtsfestes des höchstseligen Grossherzogs Karl Friedrich am 22. November 1899 (in German). Heidelberg: Wolff.
3. Bobaljik, Jonathan David (2012-10-05). Universals in Comparative Morphology: Suppletion, Superlatives, and the Structure of Words. MIT Press. p. 27. ISBN 9780262304597. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
4. Liberman, Anatoly (9 Jan 2013). "How come the past of 'go' is 'went?'". Oxford Etymologist. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
5. Greville G, Corbett (2009). Suppletion: Typology, markedness, complexity. Berlin: On Inflection. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 25–40.
6. Andrew Hippisley, Marina Chumakina, Greville G. Corbett and Dunstan Brown. Suppletion: frequency, categories and distribution of stems. University of Surrey.
7. Vadere is related to English wade (PIE root *weh₂dʰ-).
8. Late Lat. *ambitāre is a frequentative form of classical ambio ("to go around").
9. Wiktionary, Proto-Germanic root *gōdaz
10. Max Vasmer, Russisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch
11. Kordić, Snježana (2005). "Gramatička kategorija broja" [Grammatical category of number] (PDF). In Tatarin, Milovan (ed.). Zavičajnik: zbornik Stanislava Marijanovića: povodom sedamdesetogodišnjice života i četrdesetpetogodišnjice znanstvenoga rada (in Serbo-Croatian). Osijek: Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera, Filozofski fakultet. p. 191. ISBN 953-6456-54-0. OCLC 68777865. SSRN 3438755. CROSBI 426600. Archived from the original on 24 August 2012. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
12. Paul Georg Meyer (1997) Coming to know: studies in the lexical semantics and pragmatics of academic English, p. 130: "Although many linguists have referred to [collateral adjectives] (paternal, vernal) as 'suppletive' adjectives with respect to their base nouns (father, spring), the nature of ..."
13. Aspects of the theory of morphology, by Igor Mel’čuk, p. 461

External links

• Surrey Suppletion Database – examples of suppletion in different languages