analogy (n.)

A term used in HISTORICAL and COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS, and in LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, referring to a process of regularization which affects the exceptional forms in the GRAMMAR of a language. The influence of the REGULAR pattern of plural formation in English, for example, can be heard in the treatment of irregular forms in the early UTTERANCES of children, e.g. mens, mans, mouses: the children are producing these forms ‘on analogy with’ the regular pattern. DIALECTS also often illustrate analogical processes at work, which the STANDARD language has so far resisted, e.g. goed/seed/knowed for went/saw/knew, etc., and this process is, of course, common in the ERRORS of foreign learners of the language. Processes of analogical creation are one of the main tendencies in the history of languages, as when VERBS which had an irregular past-TENSE form in Old English came to be produced with the regular -ed ending, e.g. healp becoming helped. See also EXEMPLAR, LEVELLING.