regular (adj.)

A term referring to LINGUISTIC FORMS when they are in conformity with the general RULES of a LANGUAGE, i.e. they are predictable. In English, for example, NOUNS such as boy, girl, dog are regular, in that they follow the rules governing the majority of nouns (e.g. take plurals in -s); nouns such as mouse and sheep are irregular, or ‘exceptions’. In TRADITIONAL GRAMMARS, the notion was interpreted MORPHOLOGICALLY, e.g. ‘regular verbs’ were those whose VARIANT forms were in the majority, for a given CLASS. In linguistics, the notion includes both SYNTACTIC and morphological predictability. In HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS, regularity is a major explanatory principle, in that one attempts to show systematic CORRESPONDENCES between languages and STATES of a language, which can be formulated in general terms. COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGISTS called such general correspondences SOUND LAWS, and much controversy took place in the late nineteenth century, when it was argued (by the NEOGRAMMARIANS) that sound laws admitted no exceptions which could not be explained by reference to other laws. The attempt to deal with exceptions by seeing them as variants of a general rule (conditioned by regional, social or other factors) is a major preoccupation of contemporary linguistics.