What is a word stem example

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In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics, for example, a verb stem is a root that cannot appear on its own and that carries the tone of the word.

In most cases, a word stem is not modified during its declension, while in some languages it can be modified (apophony) according to certain morphological rules or peculiarities, such as sandhi. For example in Polish: miast-o («city»), but w mieść-e («in the city»). In English: «sing», «sang», «sung».

Uncovering and analyzing cognation between word stems and roots within and across languages has allowed comparative philology and comparative linguistics to determine the history of languages and language families.^[1]

Usage[edit]

In one usage, a word stem is a form to which affixes can be attached.^[2] Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the word stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new stem friendship, to which the inflectional suffix -s is attached. In a variant of this usage, the root of the word (in the example, friend) is not counted as a stem (in the example, the variant contains the stem friendship, where -s is attached).

In a slightly different usage, which is adopted in the remainder of this article, a word has a single stem, namely the part of the word that is common to all its inflected variants.^[3] Thus, in this usage, all derivational affixes are part of the stem. For example, the stem of friendships is friendship, to which the inflectional suffix -s is attached.

Word stems may be a root, e.g. run, or they may be morphologically complex, as in compound words (e.g. the compound nouns meatball or bottleneck) or words with derivational morphemes (e.g. the derived verbs black-en or standard-ize). Hence, the stem of the complex English noun photographer is photo·graph·er, but not photo. For another example, the root of the English verb form destabilized is stabil-, a form of stable that does not occur alone; the stem is de·stabil·ize, which includes the derivational affixes de- and -ize, but not the inflectional past tense suffix -(e)d. That is, a stem is that part of a word that inflectional affixes attach to.

For example, the stem of the verb wait is wait: it is the part that is common to all its inflected variants.

1. wait (infinitive)
2. wait (imperative)
3. waits (present, 3rd people, singular)
4. wait (present, other persons and/or plural)
5. waited (simple past)
6. waited (past participle)
7. waiting (progressive)

Citation forms and bound morphemes[edit]

In languages with very little inflection, such as English and Chinese, the stem is usually not distinct from the «normal» form of the word (the lemma, citation or dictionary form). However, in other languages, word stems may rarely or never occur on their own. For example, the English verb stem run is indistinguishable from its present tense form (except in the third person singular). However, the equivalent Spanish verb stem corr- never appears as such because it is cited with the infinitive inflection (correr) and always appears in actual speech as a non-finite (infinitive or participle) or conjugated form. Such morphemes that cannot occur on their own in this way are usually referred to as bound morphemes.

In computational linguistics, the term «stem» is used for the part of the word that never changes, even morphologically, when inflected, and a lemma is the base form of the word.^{[citation needed]} For example, given the word «produced», its lemma (linguistics) is «produce», but the stem is «produc» because of the inflected form «producing».

Paradigms and suppletion[edit]

A list of all the inflected forms of a word stem is called its inflectional paradigm. The paradigm of the adjective tall is given below, and the stem of this adjective is tall.

• tall (positive); taller (comparative); tallest (superlative)

Some paradigms do not make use of the same stem throughout; this phenomenon is called suppletion. An example of a suppletive paradigm is the paradigm for the adjective good: its stem changes from good to the bound morpheme bet-.

• good (positive); better (comparative); best (superlative)

Oblique stem [edit]

Both in Latin and in Greek, the declension (inflection) of some nouns uses a different stem in the oblique cases than in the nominative and vocative singular cases. Such words belong to, respectively, the so-called third declension of the Latin grammar and the so-called third declension of the Ancient Greek grammar. For example, the genitive singular is formed by adding -is (Latin) or -ος (Greek) to the oblique stem, and the genitive singular is conventionally listed in Greek and Latin dictionaries to illustrate the oblique.

Examples[edit]

English words derived from Latin or Greek often involve the oblique stem: adipose, altitudinal, android, mathematics.

Historically, the difference in stems arose due to sound change in the nominative. In the Latin third declension, for example, the nominative singular suffix -s combined with a stem-final consonant. If that consonant was c, the result was x (a mere orthographic change), while if it was g, the -s caused it to devoice, again resulting in x. If the stem-final consonant was another alveolar consonant (t, d, r), it elided before the -s. In a later era, n before the nominative ending was also lost, producing pairs like atlas, atlant- (for English Atlas, Atlantic).

See also[edit]

• Lemma (morphology)
• Lexeme
• Morphological typology
• Morphology (linguistics)
• Principal parts
• Root (linguistics)
• Stemming algorithms (computer science)
• Thematic vowel

References[edit]

• What is a stem? — SIL International, Glossary of Linguistic Terms.
• Bauer, Laurie (2003) Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Georgetown University Press; 2nd edition.
• Williams, Edwin and Anna-Maria DiScullio (1987) On the definition of a word. Cambridge MA, MIT Press.

External links[edit]

• Searchable reference for word stems including affixes (prefixes and suffixes)

In English grammar and morphology, a stem is the form of a word before any inflectional affixes are added. In English, most stems also qualify as words.

The term base is commonly used by linguists to refer to any stem (or root) to which an affix is attached.

Identifying a Stem

«A stem may consist of a single root, of two roots forming a compound stem, or of a root (or stem) and one or more derivational affixes forming a derived stem.»
(R. M. W. Dixon, The Languages of Australia. Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Combining Stems

«The three main morphological processes are compounding, affixation, and conversion. Compounding involves adding two stems together, as in the above window-sill — or blackbird, daydream, and so on. … For the most part, affixes attach to free stems, i.e., stems that can stand alone as a word. Examples are to be found, however, where an affix is added to a bound stem — compare perishable, where perish is free, with durable, where dur is bound, or unkind, where kind is free, with unbeknown, where beknown is bound.»
(Rodney D. Huddleston, English Grammar: An Outline. Cambridge University Press, 1988)

Stem Conversion

«Conversion is where a stem is derived without any change in form from one belonging to a different class. For example, the verb bottle (I must bottle some plums) is derived by conversion from the noun bottle, while the noun catch (That was a fine catch) is converted from the verb.»
(Rodney D. Huddleston, English Grammar: An Outline. Cambridge University Press, 1988)

The Difference Between a Base and a Stem

«Base is the core of a word, that part of the word which is essential for looking up its meaning in the dictionary; stem is either the base by itself or the base plus another morpheme to which other morphemes can be added. [For example,] vary is both a base and a stem; when an affix is attached the base/stem is called a stem only. Other affixes can now be attached.»
(Bernard O’Dwyer, Modern English Structures: Form, Function, and Position. Broadview, 2000)

The Difference Between a Root and a Stem

«The terms root and stem are sometimes used interchangeably. However, there is a subtle difference between them: a root is a morpheme that expresses the basic meaning of a word and cannot be further divided into smaller morphemes. Yet a root does not necessarily constitute a fully understandable word in and of itself. Another morpheme may be required. For example, the form struct in English is a root because it cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts, yet neither can it be used in discourse without a prefix or a suffix being added to it (construct, structural, destruction, etc.) »

«A stem may consist of just a root. However, it may also be analyzed into a root plus derivational morphemes … Like a root, a stem may or may not be a fully understandable word. For example, in English, the forms reduce and deduce are stems because they act like any other regular verb—they can take the past-tense suffix. However, they are not roots, because they can be analyzed into two parts, -duce, plus a derivational prefix re- or de-.»

«So some roots are stems, and some stems are roots. ., but roots and stems are not the same thing. There are roots that are not stems (-duce), and there are stems that are not roots (reduce). In fact, this rather subtle distinction is not extremely important conceptually, and some theories do away with it entirely.»
(Thomas Payne, Exploring Language Structure: A Student’s Guide. Cambridge University Press, 2006)

​Irregular Plurals

«Once there was a song about a purple-people-eater, but it would be ungrammatical to sing about a purple-babies-eater. Since the licit irregular plurals and the illicit regular plurals have similar meanings, it must be the grammar of irregularity that makes the difference.»

«The theory of word structure explains the effect easily. Irregular plurals, because they are quirky, have to be stored in the mental dictionary as roots or stems; they cannot be generated by a rule. Because of this storage, they can be fed into the compounding rule that joins an existing stem to another existing stem to yield a new stem. But regular plurals are not stems stored in the mental dictionary; they are complex words that are assembled on the fly by inflectional rules whenever they are needed. They are put together too late in the root-to-stem-to-word assembly process to be available to the compounding rule, whose inputs can only come out of the dictionary.»
(Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. William Morrow, 1994)

Examples
The stem of the verb wait is wait: it is the part that is common to all its inflected variants. wait (infinitive) wait (imperative) waits (present, 3rd person, singluar) wait (present, other persons and/or plural) waited (simple past) waited (past participle) waiting (progressive)

In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.

In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached.^[1] Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new stem friendship, to which the inflectional suffix -s is attached. In a variant of this usage, the root of the word (in the example, friend) is not counted as a stem.

In a slightly different usage, which is adopted in the remainder of this article, a word has a single stem, namely the part of the word that is common to all its inflected variants.^[2] Thus, in this usage, all derivational affixes are part of the stem. For example, the stem of friendships is friendship, to which the inflectional suffix -s is attached.

Stems may be roots, e.g. run, or they may be morphologically complex, as in compound words (cf. the compound nouns meat ball or bottle opener) or words with derivational morphemes (cf. the derived verbs black-en or standard-ize). Thus, the stem of the complex English noun photographer is photo·graph·er, but not photo. For another example, the root of the English verb form destabilized is stabil-, a form of stable that does not occur alone; the stem is de·stabil·ize, which includes the derivational affixes de- and -ize, but not the inflectional past tense suffix -(e)d. That is, a stem is that part of a word that inflectional affixes attach to.

The exact use of the word ‘stem’ depends on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics, for example, a verb stem is a root that cannot appear on its own, and that carries the tone of the word. Athabaskan verbs typically have two stems in this analysis, each preceded by prefixes.

Citation forms and bound morphemes

In languages with very little inflection, such as English and Chinese, the stem is usually not distinct from the «normal» form of the word (the lemma, citation or dictionary form). However, in other languages, stems may rarely or never occur on their own. For example, the English verb stem run is indistinguishable from its present tense form (except in the third person singular); but the equivalent Spanish verb stem corr- never appears as such, since it is cited with the infinitive inflection (correr) and always appears in actual speech as a non-finite (infinitive or participle) or conjugated form. Morphemes like Spanish corr- which can’t occur on their own in this way, are usually referred to as bound morphemes.

In computational linguistics, a stem is the part of the word that never changes even when morphologically inflected, whilst a lemma is the base form of the verb. For example, given the word «produced», its lemma (linguistics) is «produce», however the stem is «produc»: this is because there are words such as production. ^[3]

Paradigms and suppletion

A list of all the inflected forms of a stem is called its inflectional paradigm. The paradigm of the adjective tall is given below, and the stem of this adjective is tall.

• tall (positive); taller (comparative); tallest (superlative)

Some paradigms do not make use of the same stem throughout; this phenomenon is called suppletion. An example of a suppletive paradigm is the paradigm for the adjective good: its stem changes from good to the bound morpheme bet-.

• good (positive); better (comparative); best (superlative)

See also

• Lemma (morphology)
• Lexeme
• Morphological typology
• Morphology (linguistics)
• Principal parts
• Root (linguistics)
• Stemming algorithms (Computer science)
• Vowel stems

References

• What is a stem? — SIL International, Glossary of Linguistics Terms.
• Bauer, Laurie (2003) Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Georgetown University Press; 2nd edition.
• Williams, Edwin and Anna-Maria DiScullio (1987) On the definition of a word. Cambridge MA, MIT Press.

External links

• Searchable reference for word stems including affixes (prefixes and suffixes)

In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics, for example, a verb stem is a root that cannot appear on its own and that carries the tone of the word. Athabaskan verbs typically have two stems in this analysis, each preceded by prefixes.

In most cases, a word stem is not modified during its declension, while in some languages it can be modified (apophony) according to certain morphological rules or peculiarities, such as sandhi. For example in Polish: miast-o («city»), but w mieść-e («in the city»). In English: «sing», «sang», «sung».

Uncovering and analyzing cognation between word stems and roots within and across languages has allowed comparative philology and comparative linguistics to determine the history of languages and language families.^[1]

Usage

In one usage, a word stem is a form to which affixes can be attached.^[2] Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the word stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new stem friendship, to which the inflectional suffix -s is attached. In a variant of this usage, the root of the word (in the example, friend) is not counted as a stem (in the example, the variant contains the stem friendship, where -s is attached).

In a slightly different usage, which is adopted in the remainder of this article, a word has a single stem, namely the part of the word that is common to all its inflected variants.^[3] Thus, in this usage, all derivational affixes are part of the stem. For example, the stem of friendships is friendship, to which the inflectional suffix -s is attached.

Word stems may be a root, e.g. run, or they may be morphologically complex, as in compound words (e.g. the compound nouns meatball or bottleneck) or words with derivational morphemes (e.g. the derived verbs black-en or standard-ize). Hence, the stem of the complex English noun photographer is photo·graph·er, but not photo. For another example, the root of the English verb form destabilized is stabil-, a form of stable that does not occur alone; the stem is de·stabil·ize, which includes the derivational affixes de- and -ize, but not the inflectional past tense suffix -(e)d. That is, a stem is that part of a word that inflectional affixes attach to.

For example, the stem of the verb wait is wait: it is the part that is common to all its inflected variants.

1. wait (infinitive)
2. wait (imperative)
3. waits (present, 3rd people, singular)
4. wait (present, other persons and/or plural)
5. waited (simple past)
6. waited (past participle)
7. waiting (progressive)

Citation forms and bound morphemes

Main page: Social:Lemma (morphology)

In languages with very little inflection, such as English and Chinese, the stem is usually not distinct from the «normal» form of the word (the lemma, citation or dictionary form). However, in other languages, word stems may rarely or never occur on their own. For example, the English verb stem run is indistinguishable from its present tense form (except in the third person singular). However, the equivalent Spanish verb stem corr- never appears as such because it is cited with the infinitive inflection (correr) and always appears in actual speech as a non-finite (infinitive or participle) or conjugated form. Such morphemes that cannot occur on their own in this way are usually referred to as bound morphemes.

In computational linguistics, the term «stem» is used for the part of the word that never changes, even morphologically, when inflected, and a lemma is the base form of the word. For example, given the word «produced», its lemma (linguistics) is «produce», but the stem is «produc» because of the inflected form «producing».

Paradigms and suppletion

A list of all the inflected forms of a word stem is called its inflectional paradigm. The paradigm of the adjective tall is given below, and the stem of this adjective is tall.

• tall (positive); taller (comparative); tallest (superlative)

Some paradigms do not make use of the same stem throughout; this phenomenon is called suppletion. An example of a suppletive paradigm is the paradigm for the adjective good: its stem changes from good to the bound morpheme bet-.

• good (positive); better (comparative); best (superlative)

Oblique stem

Both in Latin and in Greek, the declension (inflection) of some nouns uses a different stem in the oblique cases than in the nominative and vocative singular cases. Such words belong to, respectively, the so-called third declension of the Latin grammar and the so-called third declension of the Ancient Greek grammar. For example, the genitive singular is formed by adding -is (Latin) or -ος (Greek) to the oblique stem, and the genitive singular is conventionally listed in Greek and Latin dictionaries to illustrate the oblique.

Examples

English words derived from Latin or Greek often involve the oblique stem: adipose, altitudinal, android, mathematics.

Historically, the difference in stems arose due to sound change in the nominative. In the Latin third declension, for example, the nominative singular suffix -s combined with a stem-final consonant. If that consonant was c, the result was x (a mere orthographic change), while if it was g, the -s caused it to devoice, again resulting in x. If the stem-final consonant was another alveolar consonant (t, d, r), it elided before the -s. In a later era, n before the nominative ending was also lost, producing pairs like atlas, atlant- (for English Atlas, Atlantic).

See also

• Lemma (morphology)
• Lexeme
• Morphological typology
• Morphology (linguistics)
• Principal parts
• Root (linguistics)
• Stemming algorithms (computer science)
• Thematic vowel

References

• What is a stem? — SIL International, Glossary of Linguistic Terms.
• Bauer, Laurie (2003) Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Georgetown University Press; 2nd edition.
• Williams, Edwin and Anna-Maria DiScullio (1987) On the definition of a word. Cambridge MA, MIT Press.

External links

• Searchable reference for word stems including affixes (prefixes and suffixes)

eo:Radiko#Lingvo

Stems may be a root, e.g. run, or they may be morphologically complex, as in compound words (e.g. the compound nouns meatball or bottleneck) or words with derivational morphemes (e.g. the derived verbs black-en or standard-ize). Hence, the stem of the complex English noun photographer is photo·graph·er, but not photo.

What is the difference between a root and a stem?

Stems are the parts of plants that bear branches, leaves, and fruits. Roots are the underground parts of plants that bear root hairs. Their primary function is to supply minerals, water, and food to all plant parts. Roots provide anchorage to the plant, it facilitates the absorption of water and minerals from the soil.

What is the difference between root and base?

A root word is the basic linguistic unit, and it is the original form of a word while a base word is a word in its simplest form.

What are meant by the root and stem of words?

A root is a form which is not further analysable, either in terms of derivational or inflectional morphology. It is that part of word-form that remains when all inflectional and derivational affixes have been removed. A stem is of concern only when dealing with inflectional morphology.

What is a female stem?

Stem – A person whose gender expression falls somewhere between a stud and a femme. (See also ‘Femme’ and ‘Stud’.) (See also ‘Butch’ and ‘Femme’).

What root means see?

Quick Summary. The Latin root words vis and its variant vid both mean “see.” These Latin roots are the word origin of a good number of English vocabulary words, including visual, invisible, provide, and evidence.

What does the root Greg mean?

-greg- , root. -greg- comes from Latin, where it has the meaning “group; flock. ” This meaning is found in such words as: aggregate, congregate, desegregate, gregarious, segregate.

What does Segerated mean?

1 : to separate or set apart from others or from the general mass : isolate. 2 : to cause or force the separation of (as from the rest of society) intransitive verb. 1 : separate, withdraw. 2 : to practice or enforce a policy of segregation.

What does the root Jur mean?

-jur-, root. -jur- comes from Latin, where it has the meaning “swear. ” This meaning is found in such words as: abjure, conjure, injure, juridical, jurisdiction, jury, perjure.

Which root means bad or evil?

mal

What do you call a unhappy person?

1 sorrowful, downcast, cheerless, distressed. 2 hapless.

What words have the root mal?

Words Based on the Mal Root Word

• Mala fide: Doing something in bad faith, in an attempt to deceive someone.
• Malabsorption: Bad absorption of food.
• Maladjusted: A bad ability to adjust to a social environment.
• Malaise: A general state of feeling badly; sickness.
• Malign: Evil-natured.
• Malefactor: Evildoer.
• Malady: Bad disease.

What root means change?

meta-

What was the first word for water?

The Old English word íȝland is a compound of íeȝ and land; the first of these two elements means ‘water’ and is in fact cognate with Latin aqua.

What are the three types of morphemes?

There are three ways of classifying morphemes:

• free vs. bound.
• root vs. affixation.
• lexical vs. grammatical.

The part of the plant which is present above the surface of the soil is called Stems, while Roots is the part of the plant which is present below the soil surface. Secondly stems arises from the plumule and roots from the radical of the embryo. Most importantly stems possess leaves, but roots do not.

How many type of root are there?

Plants have three types of root systems: 1.) taproot, with a main taproot that is larger and grows faster than the branch roots; 2.) fibrous, with all roots about the same size; 3.) adventitious, roots that form on any plant part other than the roots.

What vegetable is an example of a root?

Yams, beets, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, yuca, kohlrabi, onions, garlic, celery root (or celeriac), horseradish, daikon, turmeric, jicama, Jerusalem artichokes, radishes, and ginger are all considered roots. Because root vegetables grow underground, they absorb a great amount of nutrients from the soil.

Is Sugarcane a stem or root?

sugarcane is a stem .

Do we eat stem of potato?

The edible portion is a rhizome (an underground stem) that is also a tuber. The “eyes” of the potato are lateral buds. Potatoes come in white, yellow, orange, or purple-colored varieties. In addition to its edible stem, the leaves and rhizomes of the plant are edible.

Why do we say potato is a stem and sweet potato is a root?

Answer: Potato and sweet potato are underground. Both are fleshy due to storage of food material but the presence of nodes and internodes, scale leaves and axillary buds shows that potato is a stem. On the other hand, sweet potato does not show these characters, hence it is a root.

Why potato is a stem and sweet potato is a root?

Yes potato is a stem which grows on underground stems which are called stolons. Potato tubers have buds that sprout leaves and stems from them while roots do not posses these properties. While sweet potato is root filled with food.

Is Chinese potato an underground stem?

Many plants have underground modified stems that may be mistaken for roots. Examples of underground stems include corms, such as taro (left); rhizomes, such as ginger (center); and tubers, such as potatoes (right).

What contains an underground stem?

A geophyte (earth+plant) is a plant with an underground storage organ including true bulbs, corms, tubers, tuberous roots, enlarged hypocotyls, and rhizomes. Most plants with underground stems are geophytes but not all plants that are geophytes have underground stems.

Is turmeric an underground stem?

The rhizome is the underground stem of turmeric, which can be divided into two parts, the central pear-shaped “mother rhizome” and its lateral axillary branches known as “fingers.” Normally, there is only one main axis.

Is Carrot an underground stem?

Potato – This is a stem, an underground storage stem called a tuber. Carrot – This is a modified tap root, for storage. The potatoes grow on underground stems, called stolons. You can know potato tubers are actually thickened stems because they have buds that sprout stems and leaves.

Teachers frequently debate this question: What’s the difference between a root, base word, and stem? The reason teachers are forced to debate this question is that their textbooks present a model that quickly falls apart in the real world.

If teachers are confused, their students will also be confused. By the end of this page, you won’t be confused. To end this confusion, we will look at two systems:

1. The Traditional Root and Base-Word System for Kids
2. A Modern System of Morphemes, Roots, Bases, and Stems from Linguistics

Are you an elementary or middle school teacher? Have you taken a look at Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage?

Modern Linguistics

I looked at a few current student textbooks from major publishers, and most of them don’t mention the terms base or base word. They only use the term root in their basic word studies. I suspect that this is because modern linguistics has created a new meaning for the term base.

In case you are not aware, modern linguistics and modern grammar fix many of the broken models from centuries past—i.e., models and definitions that quickly fall apart when you question them. These days, most books on linguistics and morphology present a somewhat standardized model. In English Word-Formation (1983), Laurie Bauer explains this model succinctly and definitively. Let’s take a look.

This model holds up across the curriculum. This model is the foundation of what I teach my students.

My Perfect Model: Roots, Stems, and Bases

I always like to have a complete model in mind that holds up across the curriculum. This lets me find teaching moments and ensures that I can answer my students’ questions clearly and consistently. Although I may not teach my students the entire model, at least the concepts are straight in my mind.

For this reason, I created this “Perfect Model of Roots, Stems, and Bases.” To be clear, this model is an interpretation and fuller explanation of what you might find in a linguistics book. Let me explain it to you. It all begins with morphemes.

Keep in mind that teachers don’t need to teach their students this entire model. In fact, most teachers will want to keep their morphology lessons simple and focus on roots, prefixes, and suffixes. But all teachers will want to understand this entire model.

Do you teach beginning writers or struggling writers? If you do, be sure to check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage! It is the fastest, most effective way to teach students organized multi-paragraph writing… Guaranteed!

Morphemes

The term morpheme unifies the concepts of roots, prefixes, and suffixes, and therefore, it is an extremely valuable word. In short, words are composed of parts called morphemes, and each morpheme contributes meaning to the word. Morphemes are the smallest unit of language that contains meaning. Roots, prefixes, and suffixes all have one thing in common—they are all single morphemes. In contrast, stems and bases can be composed of one or many morphemes.

Root / Root Morpheme

When I use the term root, I always mean the root morpheme. The root is always the main morpheme that carries the main meaning of a word. Since a morpheme is the smallest unit of language that contains meaning, we can’t divide or analyze the root morpheme any further. Although a root can be a stand-alone word, to avoid confusion, I never use the term “root word.” I use the term root, and I use the term root morpheme to reinforce what a root is.

We have two types of root morphemes:

1. Dependent (bound) Roots: These roots cannot stand alone as words. These roots are usually Greek and Latin roots. Here are a few examples:

• • liberty          root: liber (free)
  • interrupt         root: rupt (break)
  • similar         root: sim (like)

2. Independent (free) Roots: These roots are stand-alone words. Practically speaking, these roots are almost always single-syllable words. You know the ones. It seems to me that most multi-syllable words can be further divided and further analyzed. With a little research, one finds that an ancient prefix or suffix has merged with a root. In short, most multi-syllable words are not root morphemes.

Here is what they thought 150 years ago. Although modern linguistics does not agree with these statements, it’s still food for thought. My point is that most of the independent roots that we deal with inside of the classroom are single-syllable words.

Q “All languages are formed from roots of one syllable.” – New Englander Magazine (1862)

Q “All words of all languages can be reduced to one-syllable roots.” – New Jerusalem Magazine (1853)

Here are a few examples:

• • replaced          root: place
  • mindfulness         root: mind
  • carefully         root: care

The Terms: Dependent Root and Independent Root

Modern linguistics use the term bound (for dependent) and free (for independent) to classify morphemes. Since teachers spend so much time teaching students about dependent clauses and independent clauses, I transfer this knowledge and terminology over to morphemes. Put simply: independent morphemes CAN stand alone; dependent morphemes CAN’T stand alone.

Q PREFIXES and SUFFIXES are almost always dependent morphemes—i.e., they can’t stand alone as words.

Q ROOTS are either dependent or independent morphemes.

Now, we will examine words that contain one root and words that contain two roots. As you examine these words, pay special attention to the dependent root and independent root aspect.

Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay! Put simply, it works.

Stem

I use the term stem just as Bauer does. To find the stem, simply remove the inflectional suffixes. It’s that simple.

When to Use the Term Stem: The term stem is quite unnecessary in many classrooms, as all stems are bases. For this reason, teachers can always use the term base instead of stem. However, the concept of stems is helpful in teaching students about inflectional suffixes. Inflectional suffixes are different from derivational affixes (derivational prefixes and derivational suffixes).

Q Word: reddest    Stem: red

Q Word: girls’    Stem: girl

Q Word: boats    Stem: boat

Q Word: preapproved    Stem: preapprove

Q Word: justifying    Stem: justify

Q Word: responded   Stem: respond

Q Word: unjustifiable    Stem: no stem

Q Word: kindness    Stem: no stem

Base / Base Word

Bauer says, “A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added. This means that any root or any stem can be termed a base.”

In the table below, I use two labels to show how base and root relate to each other. Sometimes a base is a root (marked   Q Base/Root), and sometimes it is not a root (marked   Q Base).

To be clear, we can add a prefix or suffix to every base even if it already has a prefix or suffix. Furthermore, if we can add a prefix or suffix to something, we can call it a base.

Word: reread    Q Base/Root: read

Word: unhelpful    Q Base: helpful    Q Base/Root: help

Word: justifying    Q Base: justify    Q Base/Root: jus

Word: unreliable    Q Base: reliable    Q Base/Root: rely

Word: preponderance    Q Base: ponderance (uncommon)    Q Base/Root: ponder

Word: responded    Q Base: respond    Q Base/Root: spond

Word: preapproved    Q Base: preapprove    Q Base: approve    Q Base: approved    Q Base: proved    Q Base/Root: prove

Base vs. Base Word: To keep things simple, teachers should probably strike the term “base word” from their vocabulary. However, if the base is a complete word that can stand alone, teachers may choose to (or through force of habit) refer to it as a base word. If the base can’t stand alone, be sure not to call it a base word.

When to Use the Term Base: The term base is somewhat of a generic term for when we are not interested in or concerned with the root morpheme. As an example, we may choose to use the term base when we are ADDING prefixes and suffixes. When we are adding prefixes and suffixes, we often are unconcerned with finding or discussing the root morpheme. (Remember, we often add prefixes and suffixes to words that already contain prefixes and suffixes.) We may also choose to use the term base when removing a single, specific prefix or suffix, as the word may still contain other prefixes or suffixes.

Putting It All Together

Here is a table to help get you started in your word analysis studies related to root, stem, and base.

Example Word	Stem	Root: Dependent	Root: Independent	Base
1. undeniable			deny **	deny; deniable
2. reinvented	reinvent	ven/vent		ven/vent; invent; reinvent
3. deforestation			forest ***	forest; forestation
4. interacted	interact		act *	act; interact
5. demographics	demographic	demo	graph *	demo; graph; demographic
6. responding	respond	spond		spond; respond
7. preserving	preserve	serv		serv; preserve
8. hopefully			hope	hope; hopeful

I thought to quote from two websites that aided me, but to facilitate reading, I edit slightly and eschew blockquotes (>). The first quote is written with plainer and simpler diction and so ought to be read before the second with more formal diction.

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1 of 2 quotes

Bases, stems, and roots are the main components of words, just like cells, atoms, and protons are the main components of matter.

In linguistics, the words «roots» is the core of the word. It is the morpheme that comprises the most important part of the word. It is also the primary unit of the family of the same word. Keep in mind that the root is mono-morphemic, or made of just one «chunk», or morpheme. Without the root, the word would not have any meaning. If you take the root away, all that you have left is affixes either before or after it. Such affixes do not have a lexical meaning on their own.

An example of a root is the word «act».

Now let’s look at what is a stem and a base and apply them to the root «act» so that you can see how they differ and interconnect to transform a lexical word altogether.

The stem occurs after affixes have been added to the root, for example:

Re-act ↝ Re-act-ion

Hence a stem is a form to which affixes (prefixes or suffixes) have been added. It is important to differentiate it from a root, because the root alone cannot be applied in discourse, whereas the stem exists precisely to be applied to discourse.

A base is the same as a root except that the root has no lexical meaning while the base does: «to act» is the infinitive of «act» and is structured with the base «act». In many words in our language, a word can be all three: a root, base, and stem (eg: «deer»). They differ in how they are applied during discourse (stem, base) and whether, on their own, they have any lexical meaning (stem, base) or no lexical meaning whatsoever (root).

An example of root, base and stem joined together is the word «refrigerator»:

The Latin root is frīg, which has no meaning in English on its own, and which requires a change in spelling for suffixes.

⟹ refrigerāre = Latin prefix + root + suffix, with no meaning in English of its own yet.

⟹ re- + friger + -ate + -tor = prefix + root + 2 suffixes.
The 2 suffices now produce lexical meaning = stem; spelling changes are required for suffixes.

_{[The links included with the answer contain the Glossary of Linguistic Terminology for further information.]}

_{Sources: http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsABoundRoot.htm
http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAStem.htm}

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2 of 2 quotes

Root, stem, base
Taken from: […] English [W]ord-[F]ormation […] by Laurie Bauer, 1983 (published by Cambridge University Press).

‘Root’, ‘stem’ and ‘base’ are all terms used in the literature to designate that part of a word that remains when all affixes have been removed.

A root is a form which is not further analysable, either in terms of derivational or inflectional morphology. It is that part of word-form that remains when all inflectional and derivational affixes have been removed. A root is the basic part always present in a lexeme. In the form ‘untouchables’ the root is ‘touch’, to which first the suffix ‘-able’, then the prefix ‘un-‘ and finally the suffix ‘-s’ have been added. In a compound word like ‘wheelchair’ there are two roots, ‘wheel’ and ‘chair’.

A stem is of concern only when dealing with inflectional morphology.
In the form ‘untouchables’ the stem is ‘untouchable’, although in the form ‘touched’ the stem is ‘touch’; in the form ‘wheelchairs’ the stem is ‘wheelchair’, even though the stem contains two roots.

A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added. This means that any root or any stem can be termed a base, but the set of bases is not exhausted by the union of the set of roots and the set of stems: a derivationally analysable form to which derivational affixes are added can only be referred to as a base. That is, ‘touchable’ can act as a base for prefixation to give ‘untouchable’, but in this process ‘touchable’ could not be referred to as a root because it is analysable in terms of derivational morphology, nor as a stem since it is not the adding of inflectional affixes which is in question.

Conversion

The word
is
an independent unit of language. The word is composed of morphemes of
different types: root
morphemes
and affixational
morphemes.
Morphemes are not independent. Morpheme
can be defined as the smallest indivisible meaningful two-facet
language unit. The term morpheme is derived from Greek morphe—
form + eme—
smallest unit.

Root-morpheme
is the semantic nucleus of a word with which no grammatical
properties of the word are connected. It has a very general lexical
meaning common to a set of semantically related words such as
teacher,
teach, teaching, teachable.

Affixational
morphemes
are subdivided into inflections
and derivational
affixes.
Inflections are used to form different word-forms such –s,-‘s,
-s’
in teacher, or –s,
-ed
in play. Derivational affixes are used for building new words, they
are subdivided into prefixes
and suffixes
such as –
ness,
in goodness,
-er
in teacher,
-less
in helpless,
-ment
in movement,
dis-
in discover
un-
in untidy
etc.

The
stem is
that part of the word which remains unchanged throughout its
paradigm. If we take the paradigm ask
asks asked asking,
we can find the stem ask-,
if we take the paradigm singer,
singers, singer’s singers’,
the stem will be singer-.
The stem is different from the root morpheme, because the stem always
belongs to a definite part of speech, we can speech of verb stem in
the example ask-
and we can speak of noun stem in the example singer-.
As for root morpheme in teach,
teacher, teaching, teachable
we have root morpheme teach
used in verb stem teach,
noun stems teacher
and teaching
and adjective stem teachable.
There are three structural types of stems: simple,
derived and
compound.
Simple stem consists of one root-morpheme, derived stem consists of
one stem and a derivational suffix of prefix and compound stem
consists of two stems.

According
to the number of morphemes words can be classified into monomorphic
and polymorphic.
Monomorphic
or
root-words consist of only one root-morpheme e.g. dog, give, make
small etc. All polymorphic
words fall into two groups derived words and compound words. Derived
words
are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational
morphemes e.g. cooperate,
supernatural,
retrospective,
kingdom,
freedom,
friendship,
worker,
revolution,
movement,
hopeful,
manly,
comical,
afternoon,
overlook,
undertake.
Compound
words contain
at least two root morphemes, or two stems with or without
derivational morphemes e.g. lamp-shade, eye-ball, door-step,
looking-glass, pen-holder, saleswoman, handicraft, Anglo-Saxon,
wedding-ring, aircraft-carrier.

Word-formation

Word-formation
is the process of creating new words from the material available in
the language after certain structural and semantic formulas and
patterns. For instance, the noun
driver
is formed after the pattern v+er,
i.e.
a verb-stem +
the
noun-forming suffix -er.
The meaning of the noun
driver
is related to the meanings of the stem
drive-and
the suffix —er:
‘a driver is one who drives (a carriage, motorcar, railway engine,
etc.). Likewise compounds resulting from two or more stems joined
together to form a new word are also built on quite definite
structural and semantic patterns and formulas, cf., for instance,
adjectives of the snow-white
type built according to the formula n—adj.,
i.e. a noun-stem+an
adjective stem:
coal-black, age-long, care­free,
etc. It can easily be observed that the meaning of the whole compound
is also related to the meanings of the component parts.

As
a subject of study, word-formation is that branch of lexicology,
which studies the patterns on which a language, in this case the
English language, builds new words. It is self-evident that
word-formation can deal only with words which are analyzable both
structurally and semantically. The study of the simple word has no
place in it. Therefore,
writer, displease, atom-free,
etc. are relevant to word-formation, but
to write, to please, atom, free
are not.

Like any
other linguistic phenomenon word-formation may be studied from two
angles—synchronically and diachronically. It is necessary to
distinguish between these two approaches, for synchronically the
linguist investigates the present-day system of the types of
word-formation while diachronically he is concerned with the history
of word-building. To illustrate the difference of approach we shall
consider affixation. Synchronically a derived word
is
structurally and semantically
more complex
than a simple one, while diachronically it
was formed
from some other word.
Those are cases of the process called backformation
(or
back-derivation),
cf. beggar
—to beg; editor —-to edit; chauffeur —to chauff,
and some others. The fact that historically the verbs to
beg, to edit,
etc. were derived from the corresponding agent-nouns is of no
synchronous relevance. For the present-day speaker no such
relationship exists, therefore they are all simple words in Modern
English.

In
conformity with the basic structural types of stems and words
described above the following two types of word-formation may be
distinguished: word-derivation
and
word-composition
(or compounding).
Words created by word-derivation have only one primary stem and one
derivational affix in terms of word-formation analysis. We can speak
of affixation
e.g.
cleanness
(from
clean),
chairmanship
(from
chairman), waterproof ness
(from
waterproof), openhandedness (from
open-handed) (suffixal
derivatives),
to
overestimate
(from
to estimate)
(prefixal derivative) etc.
Some derived words have no affixes, because derivation is achieved
through conversion,
e.g.
to paper
(from
paper), a fall
(from
to fall),
etc. Words created by word-composition
have at least two primary
stems,
e.g. coal-black,
ice-cold, looking-glass, daydream, hotbed, speedometer,(compounds)
etc. Besides, there are words built by a simultaneous application of
composition and derivation (suffixation or conversion)—(derivational
compounds),
e.g.
long-legged, open-minded, a breakdown,
etc.

The
shortening
of
words stands apart from the above two-fold division of
word-formation. It cannot be regarded as part of either
word-derivation or word-composition for the simple reason that
neither the root-morpheme nor the derivational affix can be singled
out from the shortened word (cf.
lab, exam,
V-day,
etc.). Consequently, the shortening of words should be treated
separately as a specific type of word-formation.

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As covered in our English classes, a really good way to increase your word power in English is to learn common prefixes, stems, and suffixes.

Prefixes are the part of a word that comes at the beginning before its stem or root.

For example, most students know that “re” means “again.” This helps them when they learn new words that begin with “re,” such as:

• reply
• replay
• restore
• review
• revisit
• regain

They know the prefixes “com” and “con” mean “together.” This helps when they see words like:

• combine
• communicate
• compress
• confirm
• convene

(Spelling Hint: We use com before “b,” “p,” and “m” and con before all other letters.)

The prefix “e” means “out of” or “away.” This makes it easier to understand words like:

• erase
• evict
• evoke
• evade

A stem is the core or heart of a word.

For example, the stem “voc” means voice. If you know this, it becomes easier to predict what a word like vocal means—talking a lot.

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Once we start combining our knowledge of prefixes with our knowledge of stems, we can really show off. Look at the three prefixes we learned in combination with this stem “voc.”

• When we revoke something, like a license, we take it back, essentially taking away your voice.
• A convocation is a gathering where people come together to discuss something important.
• We notice an evocative thing. It calls out to us about something.

A suffix is the part of the word that comes at the end. Suffixes often tell us about the part of speech of a word.

For example, “tion” and “sion” are suffixes that tell us something is a noun. Think of words like:

• pollution
• ambition
• evolution
• passion
• session
• depression

There are many lists of these word parts on-line (see below). They are a necessary resource for anyone planning on attending an American university. They will help you succeed on the TOEFL test and in the classroom.

On-Line Resource List

Scholastic: List of Most Common Prefixes & Suffixes

English Club: HUGE List of Prefixes

PrefixSuffix.com: Chart of English Language Roots

My English Teacher: A BIG List of Prefixes & Suffixes

Video from BBC that includes a leveled set of quizzes on this topic

BBC: VIDEO Explaining Prefixes & Suffixes