Diskuse:Analogy

2) Explain the relationship between the operation of sound change and analogy.

Both analogy and sound change creates new forms in the language. The basic difference between them is that sound changes are often regular, but create irregular patterns, whereas analogy is irregular and unpredictable but leads to regularity

sound change : it is possible to create rules that applies for any instance; it can change one form within a paradigm creating irregularity:

Singular: brother Plural: brother + en > brethren because of the regular sound change called umlaut – it is different from its singular, it can be considered an irregular plural

analogy: it is not possible to create rules since it doesn't occur in some specific conditions; it changes a form in a paradigm to make it similar to another one, creating regularity

Singular: brother Plural: brethren > brothers because of the analogy, on the basis of the forms sister/sisters – it is possible to see that analogy made the plural form regular (-s ending)