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 phonological 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"to distinguish irregularities like person:people or cow:cattle

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