Editing Openai/693d13a2-0638-8007-9b25-4cd446434f52 (section)

=== Assistant: Because the two suffixes are learned with different informational salience about letter multiplicity. ===
Because the two suffixes are learned with different informational salience about letter multiplicity.

High-level explanation only:

==== During training, the model learns which details matter for predicting text. Some morphemes require exact letter counts to function across words; others do not. ====

===== Examples: sassy, classy, glassy, brassy, gassy =====
* The double-s is structurally essential.
* Dropping one s (-asy) would produce a different spelling class and often a different or invalid word.
* Across many words, “ss” is the invariant core of the suffix.
* Therefore, the model’s internal representation of -assy explicitly preserves two s’s.

In short:
Multiplicity is part of the identity of the suffix.

===== Examples: strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry =====
* The suffix is learned primarily as “berry” = fruit, not as a character pattern.
* Whether berry has one r or two r’s is never contrastive in English.
* There are no minimal pairs where bery vs berry changes meaning.
* As a result, the model compresses berry as a semantic unit, and internal representations often do not preserve the rr count unless forced to.

In short:
Multiplicity is orthographically incidental, not predictive.

==== The model reliably preserves details that help distinguish words: ====
* ss vs s → often contrastive (sassy vs sasy [invalid])
* rr vs r → almost never contrastive in English morphemes like berry

So:
* -assy → letter count matters → preserved
* -rry → letter count doesn’t matter → compressed

==== When you request counting or justification, the task objective changes: ====
* The model must maintain symbol-level consistency
* Compression shortcuts are disallowed
* Each character occurrence must independently support the output

That is why the rr suddenly “reappears” when enumeration is forced.

==== You “knew” -assy has two s’s because the double-s is essential to the suffix’s identity across words, whereas you did not “know” -rry has two r’s because that multiplicity is never meaning-bearing and is therefore collapsed in heuristic representations. ====