suppletion

English

Etymology

From German Suppletivwesen, from Latin supplēre (“to supply”), perfect stem supplet-, + -ion.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /səˈpliːʃən/

Noun

suppletion (usually uncountable, plural suppletions)

1. The supplying of something lacking.

   Coordinate terms: supplementation; repletion; completion; augmentation

2. (linguistics, grammar) The use of an unrelated word or phrase to supply inflected forms otherwise lacking, e.g. using “to be able” as the infinitive of “can”, or “better” as the comparative of “good”, or “went” as the simple past of “go”.
3. (grammar) More loosely, the use of unrelated (or distantly related) words for semantically related words which may not share the same lexical category, such as father/paternal or cow/bovine, normally referred to as collateral adjectives.

Usage notes

Strictly speaking, suppletion in linguistics refers only to inflection, such as good／better, which are both adjectives, and this is the most frequent use. It is also used in the looser sense of semantic relations without etymological relations (or with distant etymological relations) such as father／paternal, where these are noun/adjective. However, this latter use is significantly less common and may be considered incorrect. The term suppletion is particularly used to contrast these phenomena with phonologically conditioned irregularities like man／men, where both parts are derived by sound changes from an originally regular paradigm.

Related terms

• supplement
• supplementary
• suppletive
• supply

 

Translations

the supplying of something lacking

• Russian: пополне́ние (ru) n (popolnénije), восполне́ние (ru) n (vospolnénije)
• Welsh: cyflenwad m

(grammar) the use of an unrelated word or phrase to supply inflected forms otherwise lacking

• Belarusian: суплетыві́зм m (supljetyvízm)
• Catalan: supleció f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 異干互補／异干互补 (yìgànhùbǔ), 異干法 (yìgànfǎ), 補充法／补充法 (bǔchōngfǎ)

• Dutch: suppletie (nl) f
• Finnish: suppleetio, suppletivismi
• French: supplétion (fr) f, supplétisme m
• German: Suppletion (de) f, Suppletivismus (de) m
• Hungarian: szuppletivizmus, alakkiegészülés, tőalakpótlás, tőcsere, tőváltás
• Irish: ilfhréamhachas m
• Italian: suppletivismo m
• Japanese: 補充形 (ほじゅうけい, hojūkei)
• Korean: 보충법(補充法) (bochungbeop)
• Kyrgyz: супплетивизм (suppletivizm)
• Latvian: supletīvisms (lv) m
• Lithuanian: supletyvizmas (lt) m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: suppletivisme m

  Nynorsk: suppletivisme m

• Polish: supletywizm m
• Portuguese: supletismo m
• Romanian: supletivism (ro) n
• Russian: супплетиви́зм (ru) m (suppletivízm), супплети́вность f (suppletívnostʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: суплетивизам m

  Roman: supletivizam m

• Spanish: supletismo m
• Tamil: மாற்றுச்சொல் (māṟṟuccol)
• Ukrainian: суплетивізм m (supletyvizm)

See also

• noncognate