Variations in expressing tenses in the English language

[IzzyR]

This is a question about the origins of the idiosyncracies in tenses of words in the English language. I think the subject has been commented on a lot.

The plural of mouse is mice, and of louse, lice. But the plurals of house and spouse are not hice and spice.

The singular of words that end in "us" is sometimes "i", sometimes not.

The past tense of fall is fell, not falled. But call is not celled, nor pall pelled.

Three possiblities:

1. The various words entered the English language from different languages, which had various ways of pronouncing the same tenses. So that mouse and louse came from a language that used an "-ice" suffix, and house and spouse from a language that used an "-ouses" one.

2. There was no uniformity in different areas of the country on how to express them. But within each area there was consistency. Eventually different versions won out for different words, giving rise to our present system of uniformity without consistency.

3. The words weren't originally pronounced the same, the way they are today. So that mouse and louse might have had a pronunciation that called for an "-ice" plural, and house and spouse a pronunciation that called for an "-ouses" suffix. Over time they all came to be pronounced the same.

This issue has probably been dealt with a lot, so much of the above is probably complete nonsense. So what's up?