Certain nouns might so often appear in collocations with 'other', that a grammaticalization process might create some derived nouns. In this situation, for noun X, X.affix simply signifies 'a/the other X', the referent of which of course depends strongly on context. Most nouns in the language do not have this form, but rather form 'other' with a separate particle, not with an affixed morpheme.
However, meanwhile maybe some former synonyms also come to work as such 'other'-nouns, and you get pairs of words that historically basically meant the same, but now one of them simply signifies "the other X", in a context where a primary X has been established. Basically, some nouns get a suppletive other-form, now that other-forms as a thing exist.
Of course, this seems most likely with nouns whose referents often appear in small groups and where distinguishing one from another is important.
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