Examples
Most of the examples below are from Indo-European languages, but suppletion is hardly restricted to these languages. For example, in Georgian, 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, for example, has some 20 verbs with suppletive paradigms, many with 3 separate roots. (See Ancient Greek verbs#Suppletive verbs.)
- 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:
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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 verbs:
- vadere "to advance"
- ire "to go"
- ambulare "to walk", or in some cases perhaps ambitare "to go around" (Spanish and Portuguese andar "to walk" have the same source)
- 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 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 Albanian there are 14 irregular verbs divided into suppletive and non-suppletive:
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Verb Present Preterite Imperfect Qenë (to be) jam qeshë isha Ngrënë (to eat) Ha hëngra haja Ardhur (to come) vij erdha vija Dhënë (to give) jap dhashë jepja Parë (to see) shoh pashë shihja
- In Germanic, Romance, Celtic, and 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
German
Dutch
Swedish
Danish/Norwegian
Icelandicgood
gut
goed
god
god
góðurProto-Germanic *gōdaz (OE gōd, OHG guot, Old Dutch *guot, and ON góðr), cognate to Sanskrit gadhya "what one clings to" better / best
besser / am besten
beter / best
bättre / bäst
bedre / best
betri / besturProto-Germanic *batizô, of which OE betera, cognate to bōt "remedy" and Sanskrit bhadra "fortunate" French
Portuguese
Spanish
Catalan
Italianbon
bom
bueno
bo
buonoLatin bonus, from OL duenos, cognate to Sanskrit duva "reverence" meilleur
melhor
mejor
millor
miglioreLatin melior, cognate to multus "many", Gk mala "very" Gaelic
Irishmath
maithProto-Celtic *mati-s < PIE *mē- feàrr
fearrProto-Celtic *veris < PIE *upo- Polish
Czech
Slovakdobry
dobrý
dobrýProto-Slavic *dobrъ lepszy / najlepszy
lepší / nejlepší
lepší / najlepšíPIE *lep- / *lēp- ("behoof", "boot", "good" ) Russian хороший (khoroshiy) probably from Proto-Slavic *xorb лучше / (наи)лучший (luchshe, (nai)luchshiy) Old Russian лучии, neut. луче, Old Church Slavonic лоучии "more suitable, appropriate" Croatian
Slovenedobar
doberProto-Slavic *dobrъ bolji / najbolji
boljši / najboljšiProto-Slavic *bolьjь ("bigger")
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bad, worse, worst Language Adjective Etymology Comparative/superlative Etymology English bad unknown
worse / worst OE wyrsa, cognate to OHG wirsiro French
Portuguese
Spanish
Catalan
Italianmal†
mau
malo
mal
male†Latin malus pire
pior
peor
pitjor
peggioreLatin peior, cognate to Sanskrit padyate "he falls" Gaelic
Irishdona
donaProto-Celtic *do-gna-vos miosa
measaProto-Celtic *missos < PIE *mei- (cf Scottish Gaelic and English prefixes mì- and mis- respectively) Polish
Czech
Slovakzły
zlý (špatný)
zlýProto-Slavic *zel gorszy / najgorszy
horší / nejhorší
horší / najhoršícf. Polish gorszyć (to disgust) Russian плохой (plokhoy) probably Proto-Slavic *polx хуже / (наи)худший (khuzhe, (nai)khudshiy) Old Church Slavonic хоудъ, Proto-Slavic *хudъ ("bad", "small") Croatian zao Proto-Slavic *zel gori / najgori
- 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 be / is / were has forms from several different roots: be originally comes from the Proto-Indo-European language *bhu-; am, is and are from *es-, and was and were from *wes-. See Indo-European copula. This verb is suppletive in most IE languages, as well as in some non-IE 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, 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, 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), and Slovene (človek > ljudje).
- 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 (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, the plural form of rok ("year") is lata which comes from the plural of lato ("summer"). A similar suppletion occurs in Russian: год god ("year") > лет let (genitive of "years").
- In many Slavic languages, small and great are suppletive:
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small, smaller, smallest Language Adjective Comparative / superlative Polish mały mniejszy / najmniejszy Czech malý menší / nejmenší Russian маленький (malen'kiy) меньше/наименьший (men'she / naimen'shiy)
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great, greater, greatest Language Adjective Comparative / superlative Polish duży większy / największy Czech velký větší / největší
- 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
^ *z, przy, w, and wy are prefixes and are not part of the root
- Ancient Greek had a large number of suppletive verbs. (See Ancient Greek verbs#Suppletive verbs.) A few examples, listed by principal parts:
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- 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".
Read more about this topic: Suppletion
Famous quotes containing the word examples:
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“No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.”
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