suppletion

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Olga Meerson wrote:

> .... Herein lies the difference between what Frank studies and what
> you, Elena, teach. You teach Russian as a bunch of rules for correct
> use. Frank -- like, say, Jakobson whom he cites -- studies Russian as
> a language EMPIRICALLY used and capable of forming whole paradigms
> out of various instances of "incorrect usage" -- not what language
> ought to be but what it is, in dialects and various "illegitimate"
> but empirically existing forms and versions. Frank, I would love to
> have a clarification of what suppletion really means: everything I
> have said here is based on my surmises. based in turn on your entry.
> Perhaps you may enlighten me as to whether I am completely off the
> mark? o.m.

As /I/ understand the term, it means a process whereby unrelated words 
come to be used in a complementary arrangement to form a single 
paradigm. Thus, the plural of человек is the unrelated form люди, and 
the singular of люди is the unrelated form человек. Words like 
время/времени and child/children do not qualify as suppletives because 
they are etymologically related (even if that relationship has become 
murky over time). Similarly, говорить/сказать and брать/взять are 
suppletive, but принять/принимать are not.

As for what the speaker/learner does as he constructs his internal model 
of the language, that's an open question. Some may choose to treat 
принять/принимать as unrelated and simply memorize the two forms; others 
may try to see a pattern in this pair and several other similar pairs. I 
think it unlikely that any Russian learner could possibly see a "rule" 
or "pattern" in a pair like человек/люди; such paradigms must simply be 
memorized, like ем, ешь, ест....

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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