diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml
index 8867da6c693..7d944f1ffe1 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml
@@ -376,18 +376,19 @@ WITH ( MODULUS <replaceable class="parameter">numeric_literal</replaceable>, REM
       <literal>n_distinct_inherited</literal>, which override the
       number-of-distinct-values estimates made by subsequent
       <link linkend="sql-analyze"><command>ANALYZE</command></link>
-      operations.  <literal>n_distinct</literal> affects the statistics for the table
-      itself, while <literal>n_distinct_inherited</literal> affects the statistics
-      gathered for the table plus its inheritance children.  When set to a
-      positive value, <command>ANALYZE</command> will assume that the column contains
-      exactly the specified number of distinct nonnull values.  When set to a
-      negative value, which must be greater
-      than or equal to -1, <command>ANALYZE</command> will assume that the number of
-      distinct nonnull values in the column is linear in the size of the
-      table; the exact count is to be computed by multiplying the estimated
-      table size by the absolute value of the given number.  For example,
+      operations.  Ordinarily <literal>n_distinct</literal> is used.
+      <literal>n_distinct_inherited</literal> exists to allow the distinct
+      estimate to be overwritten for the statistics gathered for inheritance
+      parent tables and for partitioned tables.  When these are set to a
+      positive value, the query planner will assume that
+      the column contains exactly the specified number of distinct nonnull
+      values.  When set to a negative value, which must be greater
+      than or equal to -1, the query planner will assume that the number of
+      distinct nonnull values in the column is linear with the estimated number
+      of rows in the table; the exact count is to be computed by multiplying the estimated
+      rows in the table by the absolute value of the given number.  For example,
       a value of -1 implies that all values in the column are distinct, while
-      a value of -0.5 implies that each value appears twice on the average.
+      a value of -0.5 implies that each value appears twice on average.
       This can be useful when the size of the table changes over time, since
       the multiplication by the number of rows in the table is not performed
       until query planning time.  Specify a value of 0 to revert to estimating