Word stems and meanings

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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)

Another
essential feature of affixes that should not be overlooked is
their combining power or valenсу
and
the derivational
patterns
in which they regularly occur.

We
have already seen that not all combinations of existing morphemes are
actually used. Thus, unhappy,
untrue and
unattractive
are
quite regular combinations, while seemingly analogous *unsad,
*UN-FALSE, *unpretty do
not exist. The possibility of a particular stem taking a particular
affix depends on phono-morphological, morphological and semantic
factors. The suffix -ance/-ence,¹
for
instance, occurs only after b,
t, d, dz, v, l,
r,
m, n:
disturbance,
insistence, independence, but
not after s
or
z:
condensation,
organisation.

¹
These
are allomorphs. See §
5.7.

90

It
is of course impossible to describe the whole system. To make our
point clear we shall take adjective-forming suffixes as an example.
They are mostly attached to noun stems. They are: ~ed
(barbed), -en (golden), -ful (careful), -less (careless), -ly
(soldierly), -like (childlike), -y (hearty) and
some others. The highly productive suffix -able
can
be combined with noun stems and verbal stems alike (clubbable,
bearable). It
is especially frequent in the pattern un-
+
verbal
stem + -able
(unbearable). Sometimes
it is even attached to phrases in which composition and affixation
are simultaneous producing compound-derivatives (unbrushoffable,
ungetatable). These
characteristics are of great importance both structurally and
semantically.

Their
structural significance is clear if we realise that to describe the
system of a given vocabulary one must know the typical patterns on
which its words are coined. To achieve this it is necessary not only
to know the morphemes of which they consist but also to reveal their
recurrent regular combinations and the relationship existing between
them. This approach ensures a rigorously linguistic basis for the
identification of lexico-grammatical classes within each part of
speech. In the English language these classes are little studied so
far, although an inquiry into this problem seems very promising.¹

It
is also worthy of note that from the information theory viewpoint the
fact that not every affix is capable of combining with any given stem
makes the code more reliable, protects it from noise,²
mistakes, and misunderstanding.

The
valency of stems is not therefore unlimited. Noun stems can be
followed by the noun-forming suffixes: -age
(bondage), -dom (serfdom),
-eer/-ier (profiteer, collier), -ess (waitress), -ful (spoonful),
-hood (childhood),
-ian (physician), -ics (linguistics), -iel-y (daddy), -ing
(flooring),
-ism (heroism), -ist (violinist), -let (cloudlet), -ship
(friendship)-, by
the adjective-forming suffixes: -al/-ial
(doctoral), -an (African), -ary (revolutionary),
-ed (wooded), -ful (hopeful), -ic/-ical (historic, historical),
-ish (childish), -like (businesslike), -ly (friendly),
-ous/-ious/-eous (spacious),
-some (handsome), -y (cloudy)’, verb-forming
suffixes: -ate
(aerate),
-en (hearten), -fy/-ify (speechify), -ise (sympathise).

Verbal
stems are almost equal to noun stems in valency. They combine
with the following noun-forming suffixes: -age
(breakage), -al (betrayal),
-ance/-ence (guidance, reference), -ant/-ent (assistant, student),
-ee
(employee), -er/-or (painter, editor), -ing (uprising),
-ion/-tion/-ation (action,
information), -ment (government). The
adjective-forming suffixes
used with verbal stems are: -able/-ible
(agreeable, comprehensible), -ive/-sive/-tive
(talkative), -some (meddlesome).

Adjective
stems furnish a shorter list: -dom
(freedom), -ism (realism), -ity/-ty
(reality, cruelty), -ness (brightness), -ish (reddish), -ly (firmly),
•ate (differentiate), -en (sharpen), -fy/-ify (solidify).

¹See
the works by I.V. Arnold, T.M. Belyaeva, S.S. Khidekel, E.S.
Koobryakova, O.D. Meshkov, I.K. Arhipov and others.

² Noise
as a term of the theory of information is used to denote any kind of
interference with the process of communication.

91

The
combining possibilities (or valency) are very important semantically
because the meaning of the derivative depends not only on the
morphemes of which it is composed but also on combinations of stems
and affixes that can be contrasted with it. Contrast is to be looked
for in the use of the same morpheme in different environment and also
in the use of different morphemes in environments otherwise the same.

The
difference between the suffixes -ity
and
-ism,
for
instance, will become clear if we compare them as combined with
identical stems in the
following oppositions: formality
:
: formalism
: : humanity : : humanism; reality
:
: realism.
Roughly,
the words in -ity
mean
the quality of being what the corresponding adjective describes, or
an instance of this quality. The resulting nouns are countable. The
suffix -ism
forms
nouns naming a disposition to what the adjective describes, or a
corresponding type of ideology. Being uncountable they belong to a
different lexico-grammatical class.

The
similarity on which an opposition is based may consist, for the
material under consideration in the present paragraph, in the
sameness of suffix. A description of suffixes according to the stem
with which they are combined and the lexico-grammatical classes they
serve to differentiate may be helpful in the analysis of the meanings
they are used to render.

A
good example is furnished by the suffix -ish,
as
a suffix of adjectives. The combining possibilities of the suffix
-ish
are
vast but not unlimited. Boyish
and
waspish
are
used, whereas *enemish
and
*aspish
are
not. The constraints here are of semantic nature. It is regularly
present in the names of nationalities, as for example: British,
Irish, Spanish.¹
When
added to noun stems, it forms adjectives of the type ‘having the
nature of with a moderately derogatory colouring: bookish,
churlish, monkeyish, sheepish, swinish. Childish has a
derogatory twist of meaning, the adjective with a good sense is
childlike.
A
man may be said to behave with a
childish petulance, but
with a
childlike simplicity. Compare
also womanly
‘having
the qualities befitting a woman’, as in womanly
compassion, womanly grace, womanly tact, with
the derogatory womanish
‘effeminate’,
as in: womanish
fears, traitors to love and duty (Coleridge).

With
adjective stems the meaning is not derogatory, the adjective renders
a moderate degree of the quality named: greenish
‘somewhat
green’, stiffish
‘somewhat
stiff, thinnish
‘somewhat
thin’. The model is especially frequent with colours: blackish,
brownish, reddish. A similar
but stylistically peculiar meaning is observed in combinations with
numeral stems: eightyish,
fortyish and
the like are equivalent to ‘round about eighty’, ‘round about
forty’. E. g.: “What’s
she like, Min?”
“Sixtyish.
Stout. Grey hair. Tweeds. Red face.” (McCrone)

In
colloquial speech the suffix -ish
is
added to words denoting the time of
the day: four-o’clockish
or
more often fourish
means
‘round about four o’clock’. E. g.: Robert
and I went to a cocktail party at Annette’s. (It was called “drinks
at six thirty’ish” —
the
word “cocktail” was going
out.) (W.
Cooper).

¹
But not all nationalities. E. g. Russian,
Italian, Chinese, Japanese. 92

The
study of correlations of derivatives and stems is also helpful in
bringing into relief the meaning of the affix. The lexico-grammatical
meaning of the suffix -ness
that
forms nouns of quality from adjective stems becomes clear from the
study of correlations of the derivative and the underlying stem. A
few examples picked up at random will be sufficient proof: good
:
: goodness;
kind : : kindness; lonely : : loneliness; ready
: : readiness; righteous : : righteousness; slow : : slowness.

The
suffixes -ion
(and
its allomorphs -sion
and
-tion)
and
-or
are
noun-forming suffixes combined with verbal stems. The opposition
between them
serves to distinguish between two subclasses of nouns: abstract
nouns
and agent
nouns, e. g. accumulation
: : accumulator; action : : actor; election : : elector; liberation :
: liberator;
oppression : : oppressor; vibration : : vibrator, etc.
The abstract noun in this case may mean action, state or result of
action remaining within the same subclass. Thus, cultivation
denotes
the process of cultivating (most often of cultivating the soil) and
the state of being cultivated. Things may be somewhat different with
the suffix -or,
because
a
cultivator is
‘a person who cultivates¹
and ‘a machine for breaking up ground, loosening the earth round
growing plants and destroying weeds’. Thus two different subclasses
are involved: one of animate beings, the other of inanimate things.
They differ not only semantically but grammatically too; there exists
a regular opposition between animate and inanimate nouns in English:
the first group is substituted by
he or
she,
and
the second by the pronoun it.
In
derivation this opposition of animate personal nouns to all other
nouns is in some cases sustained by such suffixes as -ard/-art
(braggart), -ist (novelist) and
a few others, but most often neutralised. The term neutralisation
may be defined as a temporary suspension of an otherwise functioning
opposition. Neutralisation, as in the word cultivator,
is
also observed with such suffixes as -ant,
-er that
also occur in agent nouns, both animate and inanimate. Cf. accountant
‘a
person who keeps accounts’ and coolant
‘a
cooling substance’; fitter
‘mechanic
who fits up all kinds of metalwork’ and shutter
(in
photography) ‘a device regulating the exposure to light of a plate
of film’; runner
‘a
messenger’ and ‘a blade of a skate’.

Structural
observations such as these show that an analysis of suffixes in the
light of their valency and the lexico-grammatical subclasses that
they serve to differentiate may be useful in the analysis of their
semantic properties. The notions of opposition, correlation and
neutralisation introduced into linguistics by N. Trubetzkoy prove
relevant and helpful in morphological analysis as well.

The
term word-building or derivational
pattern
is used to denote a meaningful combination of stems and affixes that
occur regularly enough to indicate the part of speech, the
lexico-semantic category and semantic peculiarities common to most
words with this particular arrangement of morphemes.¹
Every type of word-building (affixation, composition, conversion,
compositional derivation, shortening, etc.) as well as every part of
speech have a characteristic set of

¹
See also: Ginzburg
R.S. et
al.
A
Course in Modern English Lexicology. P. 103.

93

patterns.
Some of these, especially those with the derivational suffix -ish,
have
already been described within this paragraph. It is also clear from
the previous description that the grouping of patterns is possible
according to the type of stem, according to the affix or starting
with some semantic grouping.¹

The
grouping of patterns, their description and study may be based on the
same principle of explanatory transformations that we have used for
componential analysis in Chapter 3
(see
§3.6).

Let
us turn again to affixation and see how the dictionary defines words
with the prefix un-:

unaccented
a
—without
an accent or stress

unbolt
v
—
to
remove the bolt of, to unlock

unconcern
n
—
lack
of concern

undo
v
—
to
reverse the effect of doing

unfailing
a
—
not
failing, constant

These
few examples show that the negative prefix un-
may
be used in the following patterns:

I. un- + an adjective stem un- + Part. I stem un- + Part. II stem

}

with the meaning ‘not’, ‘without’, ‘the opposite of’

II. un-
+
a
verbal
stem
—
with
the meaning of ‘to reverse the action as

the effect of…’

III. un-
+
a
verbal stem which
is derived from a noun stem —
with
the

reversative meaning ‘to
release from’

IV. un-
+
a
noun stem shows
the lack of the quality denoted

The
examples for pattern I are: uncertain,
unfair, unbelievable, unconscious, unbalanced, unknown, unborn,
unbecoming’, for
pattern II:
unbend,
unbind, unpack, unwrap; for
pattern III:
unhook,
unpack, unlock, unearth.

With
noun stems (pattern IV) un-
is
used very rarely. E. g. unpeople
‘people
lacking the semblance of humanity’, unperson
‘a
public figure who has lost his influence’.

These
cases of semantic overlapping show that the meaning or rather the
variety of meanings of each derivational affix can be established
only when we collect many cases of its use and then observe its
functioning within the structure of the word-building patterns
deduced from the examples collected. It would be also wrong to say
that there exists a definite meaning associated with this or that
pattern, as they are often polysemantic, and the affixes homonymous.
This may be also seen from the following examples. A very productive
pattern is out-+
V = Vt. The meaning is ‘to do something faster, better, longer than
somebody or something’. E. g. outdo,
out-grow, out-live, outnumber,

¹
As
for instance, a
numeral stem +
-ish
with
ages has the meaning ‘approximately so many years old’: fiftyish,
sixtyish, seventyish, and
has a colloquial connotation.

94

outplay.
The
number of possible combinations is practically unlimited. The
spelling, whether hyphenated, solid or separate is in many cases
optional. When formed not on verbs but on names of persons it means
‘to surpass this person in something that is known as his special
property’.
The classical example is “to
out-Herod Herod” (Shakespeare)
‘to
outdo sb in cruelty’.¹

On
the other hand, the same formal pattern out-+V
may
occur with the locative out-
and
produce nouns, such as outbreak
or
outburst.
The
second element here is actually a deverbal noun of action.

The
above examples do not exhaust the possibilities of patterns with out-
as
their first element. Out-
may
be used with verbal stems and their derivatives (outstanding),
with
substantives (outfield),
with
adjectives (outbound)
and
adverbs (outright).

The
more productive an affix is the more probable the existence alongside
the usual pattern of some semantic variation. Thus, -ee
is
freely added to verbal stems to form nouns meaning ‘One who is
V-ed’, as addressee,
divorcee, employee, evacuee, examinee, often
paralleling agent nouns
in -er,
as
employer,
examiner. Sometimes,
however, it is added to intransitive
verbs; in these cases the pattern V+-ee
means
‘One who V-s’ or ‘One who has V-ed’, as in escapee,
retiree. In
the case of bargee
‘a
man in charge of a barge’ the stem is a noun.

It
may also happen that due to the homonymy of affixes words that look
like antonyms are in fact synonyms. A good example is analysed by
V.K. Tarasova. The adjectives inflammable
and
flammable
are
not
antonyms as might be supposed from their morphological appearance
(cf. informal
: : formal, inhospitable : : hospitable) but
synonyms, because inflammable
is
‘easily set on fire’. They are also interchangeable in
non-technical texts. Inflammable
may
be used figuratively as ‘easily excited’. Flammable
is
preferred in technical writing.

The
fact is that there are two prefixes in-.
One
is a negative prefix and the other may indicate an inward motion, an
intensive action or as in the case of inflame,
inflammable and
inflammation
have
a causative function.²

It
is impossible to draw a sharp line between the elements of form
expressing only lexical and those expressing only grammatical meaning
and the difficulty is not solved by introducing alongside the term
motivation
the
term word-formation
meaning.

To
sum up: the word-building pattern is a structural and semantic
formula more or less regularly reproduced, it reveals the
morphological motivation of the word, the grammatical part-of-speech
meaning and in most cases helps to refer the word to some
lexico-grammatical class, the components of the lexical meaning are
mostly supplied by the stem.

¹Herod
— the ruler of Judea, at the time of Christ’s birth was noted for
his despotic nature and cruelty.

² V.K.
Tarasova studies the possibilities of this homonymy of the word
inflammable
when
she comments on the poem by Ogden Nash entitled “Philology,
Etymology, You Owe Me an Apology”.

95

Glossary of Terms and Terminology Relating to Determining the Meaning of Words by Analyzing Word Parts

• The root of a word: Also referred to as the base of a word and the stem of a word, is the main part of a word without any syllables before the root of the word, which is a prefix, or after the root of the word, which is a suffix.
• Prefixes: The part of a word that is connected to and before the stem or root of a word
• Suffixes: The part of a word that is connected to and after the stem of the word. Some suffixes, like «s», «es», «d» and «ed» which make words plural or of the past tense, are quite simple but others are more complex.

Word Stems

Vocabulary can be acquired and somewhat mastered knowing about the meanings of word stems, word prefixes and word suffixes.

As mentioned previously, the stem of a word, which is also referred to as the base of a word and the root of a word, is the main part of a word without any syllables before the stem of the word, which is a prefix, or after the stem of the word, which is a suffix.

For example, examine the word «reinstatement». The root of the word is «instate»; the prefix for the word reinstatement is «re» and the suffix for the word «reinstatement» is «ment». The meaning of the root of the word is to place or put into a position ; the meaning of the prefix is to redo or do again ; and the meaning of the suffix is the result of some action or occurrence. Based on these definitions, you should now be able to discover and determine the meaning of the word «reinstatement» as the placing something again in a position or place.

As you can see in the word above, word roots or stems are typically entire words. For example, here is a list of word stems or roots with an added prefix and/or suffix:

• Word stem: Engage

Word stem with a prefix: Reengage

Word stem with a suffix: Engagement

• Word stem: Tangle

Word stem with a prefix: Entangle:

Word stem with a suffix: Entanglement

• Word stem: Sweet

Word stem with a prefix: Hypersweet

Word stem with a suffix: Sweetener

Word stem with a suffix: Sweeter

Word stem with a suffix: Sweetest

• Word stem: Mystery

Word stem with a suffix: Mysterious

• Word stem: Discover

Word stem with a prefix: Rediscover

Word stem with a suffix: Rediscovery

• Word stem: Ceremony

Word stem with a suffix: Ceremonial

• Word stem: Festive

Word stem with a prefix: Unfestive

Word stem with a suffix: Festival

• Word stem: Section

Word stem with a prefix: Dissection

Word stem with a suffix: Sectional

• Word stem: Thermal

Word stem with a prefix: Hypothermal

Word stem with a suffix: Hypothermia

• Word stem: Political

Word stem with a prefix: Apolitical

Word stem with a suffix: Politicism

• Word stem: Establish

Word stem with a prefix : Disestablish

Word stem with a suffix: Disestablishment

• Word stem: Call

Word stem with a prefix : Recall

Word stem with a suffix: Caller

• Word stem: Large

Word stem with a prefix : Enlarge

Word stem with a suffix: Larger

Word stem with a suffix: Largest

• Word stem: Establish

Word stem with a prefix : Disestablish

Word stem with a prefix : Disestablishment

Word Prefixes

As previously stated, vocabulary can be acquired and somewhat mastered knowing about the meanings of prefixes and suffixes which are attached to the beginning of a word stem and after a word stem, respectively.

Some of the most commonly used prefixes, examples of words with these prefixes and the meaning of these words are listed below.

Mono: One or singular

Example: Monopoly which means under the control and possession of one individual or one group

A and an: Not or without

Example: Apathetic meaning without emotion and anemic meaning without blood or a component of blood

Anti: Against or before

Example: Antiseptic meaning an agent that fights against germs

Auto: Self

Example: Autobiographical meaning a story about self or one self

Co, com and con: With and together

Example: Concurrent meaning together and at the same time, conjoined meaning joined together and communicate meaning to convey a message with others

Uni: One

Example: Unicycle meaning a one wheeled cycle and unicellular meaning one celled

Bi: Two

Example: Bifocals meaning two lenses for eye glasses and bicycle meaning a two wheeled cycle

Tri: Three

Example: Triples meaning three infants born at the same time by the same mother and tricycle meaning a three wheeled cycle

Quad: Four

Example: Quadruplets meaning four infants born at the same time by the same mother and quadrilateral meaning a four sided figure

Circum: Around

Example: Circumcision meaning the surgery that a new born baby boy gets around the tip of the penis and circumference which is the measurement around a circle

Contra: Against

Example: Contraindicated meaning against indications and not appropriate

De: Undo

Example: Decrease meaning to lower and undo

Hyper: More than normal

Example: Hyperglycemia meaning more than normal blood sugar and hyperactive meaning more active than normal

Inter: Between

Example: Intersection meaning the spot between two streets or other things

Inter: Between

Example: Interaction meaning an action, such as a conversation, between two people of things

In: Into and not

Example: Internal meaning inner and inactive meaning not active

Peri: Around

Example: Perimeter meaning the length around a geometric figure like a square, triangle or rectangle and perioral meaning around the mouth

Ex: Out of

Example: External meaning outside and exit meaning a way to leave an area

Homo: The same

Example: Homogeneous meaning a group of people or things that are the same in terms of gender, age, or shape for example

Hetero: Different

Example: Heterogeneous meaning a group of people or things that are different in terms of a characteristic such as gender, age, or shape for example

Micro: Small

Example: Microscopic meaning very small and microscope meaning a scientific instrument that is used to see verify small things

Macro: Large

Example: Macroeconomics meaning the study of economics on a large scale, such as global economics

Pre: Before

Example: Prenuptial meaning before marriage

Sub: Under

Example: Subway meaning a means of transportation that is underground and substandard meaning not up to and less than the standard

Word Suffixes

As stated previously, suffixes are connected to and after the stem of the word. Some suffixes, like «s», «es», «d» and «ed» which make words plural or of the past tense, are quite simple but others are more complex.

Unlike prefixes, many suffixes do not have a specific meaning; instead many suffixes change a part of speech to another part of speech. For example, the suffix «ish» often changes a noun into an adjective and the suffix «ly» often changes an adjective into an adverb. The word child is a noun but when «ish» is added to the end of the word child, it becomes childish which is an adjective that means like a child; and when «ly» is added to the end of an adjective like generous, the word is now an adverb as generously.

Like prefixes and word stems or roots, knowing the meaning of suffixes can improve one’s vocabulary acquisition and vocabulary mastery.

Below is a list of suffixes, their meanings and examples of each:

Er: More than

Example: Sweeter meaning more sweet than something else. This suffix is used with comparative adjectives which compare two things.

Est: Most

Example: Sweetest meaning the most sweet of more than two things. This suffix is used with superlative adjectives that compare more than two things.

Ing: Continuing or continuous

Example: Running meaning that the person or thing is continuing to run.

Ish: Like or similar to

Example: Childish meaning like a child and foolish meaning like a fool

Less: Without

Example: Childless meaning without children

Ful: With or full of

Example: Beautiful meaning full of beauty

Ible and Able: Can or able to

Example: Enjoyable meaning that something can be enjoyed. These suffixes often changed a word that is a verb into an adjective.

Ness: With

Example: Kindness meaning with being kin. This suffix usually changes adjectives like kind into a noun like kindness.

Ment: State of

Example: Sentiment meaning in the state of feeling. This suffix typically changes a verb into a noun.

Al: Like

Example: Capable meaning able to do something in the correct manner or with competency

Pulling it All Together to Decipher the Meaning of Difficult Words

In this final section of your English and Language TEAS examination review, we have listed some sentences with difficult vocabulary words. Read each of the sentences and try to determine the meanings of these difficult vocabulary words.

If you have difficulty with these sentences, look the words up in a dictionary. You may also prepare yourself for these types of TEAS examination questions by flipping through a dictionary, looking for difficult words and then trying to determine its meaning while you cover and hide the definition with your finger .

As the detectives investigated the mass murder and arson case, it was determined that one of the chief suspects had an alibi about their whereabouts the night of these crimes that was corroborated by several people and the suspect’s time card at his place of employment.

What does the word corroborated mean?

One of the chief witnesses for the suspect’s defense told confusing and illogical stories; therefore, the jurors felt that the witness was capricious and not predictable.

What does the word capricious mean?

Nancy, who has known Karen for over 20 years, recently learned that Karen was the antithesis of selflessness which was quite a surprise to Nancy.

What does the word antithesis mean?

An example of synergism is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

What does the word synergism mean?

Throughout the ages, there have been many people who have been shunned and even persecuted for thinking differently and coming forward with a new paradigm. For example, Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher, was rejected when he said that the earth was round and not flat.

What does the word paradigm mean?

Mary was far less loquacious than her gregarious friends were.

What does the word gregarious mean?

Mary was far less loquacious than her talkative friends were.

What does the word loquacious mean?

Although many people go to college after high school to learn about and major in theoretical subjects that they are not able to apply immediately, there are others that choose to go to a vocational school to learn pragmatic skills that they are able to use immediately in the real world.

What does the word pragmatic mean?

During a conversation with my friend, she stated, «Judy must be very wealthy; she lives in Beverly Hills.» I told my friend that that statement was a nonsequitur.

What does the word nonsequitur mean?

One of the primary reasons that authors should know who their target audience of readers will be prior to beginning the piece of writing because a failure to know the target audience and their characteristics may lead to the author’s use of esoteric terms and terminology that the readers are not able to understand and comprehend. For example, the words and abbreviations of NPO, a definitive diagnosis and immunoassay are usually incomprehensible to general population.

What does the word esoteric mean?

When Suzie’s children wanted a puppy for Christmas, Suzie was ambivalanet about getting one because she thought it would be nice to have the children learn about caring for a pet but she did not want to have to house break and train a puppy at this time.

What does the word ambivalent mean?

Many professional authors experience writer’s block which makes them less prolific than they want to be.

What does the word prolific mean?

Angina, a disease of the heart, is characterized with intermittent chest pain.

What does the word intermittent mean?

Despite the fact that the Jones family donated to the new church building fund, their small donation was not nearly as magnanimous as many thought it would be.

What does the word magnanimous mean?

One of the cruelest characteristics of a bully is their belligerence.

What does the word belligerence mean?

RELATED TEAS VOCABULARY ACQUISITION CONTENT:

• Using Context Clues to Determine the Meaning of Words or Phrases 
• Determine the Meaning of Words by Analyzing Word Parts (Currently here)

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)

WORD STRUCTURE IN MODERN ENGLISH

  I.   The morphological structure of a word. Morphemes. Types of morphemes. Allomorphs.

II.   Structural types of words.

III.   Principles of morphemic analysis.

  IV.   Derivational level of analysis. Stems. Types of stems. Derivational types of words.

I.   The morphological structure of a word. Morphemes. Types of Morphemes.  Allomorphs.

There are two levels of approach to the study of word- structure: the level of morphemic analysis and the level of derivational or word-formation analysis.

Word is the principal and basic unit of the language system, the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis.

It has been universally acknowledged that a great many words have a composite nature and are made up of morphemes, the basic units on the morphemic level, which are defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language units.

The term morpheme is derived from Greek morphe “form ”+ -eme. The Greek suffix –eme has been adopted by linguistic to denote the smallest unit or the minimum distinctive feature.

The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases a recurring discrete unit of speech. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of single morpheme. Even a cursory examination of the morphemic structure of English words reveals that they are composed of morphemes of different types: root-morphemes and affixational morphemes. Words that consist of a root and an affix are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word building known as affixation (or derivation).

The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of the word; it has a very general and abstract lexical meaning common to a set of semantically related words constituting one word-cluster, e.g. (to) teach, teacher, teaching. Besides the lexical meaning root-morphemes possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots.

Affixational morphemes include inflectional affixes or inflections and derivational affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms. Derivational affixes are relevant for building various types of words. They are lexically always dependent on the root which they modify. They possess the same types of meaning as found in roots, but unlike root-morphemes most of them have the part-of-speech meaning which makes them structurally the important part of the word as they condition the lexico-grammatical class the word belongs to. Due to this component of their meaning the derivational affixes are classified into affixes building different parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs.

Roots and derivational affixes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the root-morphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, fill-, are understood as the lexical centers of the words, and –less, -y,      -ness, -er, re- are felt as morphemes dependent on these roots.

 Distinction is also made of free and bound morphemes.

Free morphemes coincide with word-forms of independently functioning words. It is obvious that free morphemes can be found only among roots, so the morpheme boy- in the word boy is a free morpheme; in the word undesirable there is only one free morpheme desire-; the word pen-holder has two free morphemes  pen- and hold-. It follows that bound morphemes are those that do not coincide with separate word- forms, consequently all derivational morphemes, such as –ness, -able, -er are bound. Root-morphemes may be both free and bound. The morphemes theor- in the words theory, theoretical, or horr- in the words horror, horrible, horrify; Angl- in  Anglo-Saxon; Afr- in Afro-Asian are all bound roots as there are no identical word-forms.

It should also be noted that morphemes may have different phonemic shapes. In the word-cluster please , pleasing , pleasure , pleasant the phonemic shapes of the word stand in complementary distribution or in alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme, that manifest alternation are called allomorphs/or morphemic variants/ of that morpheme.

The combining form allo- from Greek allos “other” is used in linguistic terminology to denote elements of a group whose members together consistute a structural unit of the language (allophones, allomorphs). Thus, for example, -ion/ -tion/ -sion/ -ation are the positional variants of the same suffix, they do not differ in meaning or function but show a slight difference in sound form depending on the final phoneme of the preceding stem. They are considered as variants of one and the same morpheme and called its allomorphs.

Allomorph is defined as a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and so characterized by complementary description.

Complementary distribution is said to take place, when two linguistic variants cannot appear in the same environment.

Different morphemes are characterized by contrastive distribution, i.e. if they occur in the same environment they signal different meanings. The suffixes –able and –ed, for instance, are different morphemes, not allomorphs, because adjectives in –able mean “ capable of beings”.

Allomorphs will also occur among prefixes. Their form then depends on the initials of the stem with which they will assimilate.

Two or more sound forms of a stem existing under conditions of complementary distribution may also be regarded as allomorphs, as, for instance, in long a: length n.

II. Structural types of words.

The morphological analysis of word- structure on the morphemic level aims at splitting the word into its constituent morphemes – the basic units at this level of analysis – and at determining their number and types. The four types (root words, derived words, compound, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition the most productive ways of word building.

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. small, dog, make, give, etc. All polymorphic word fall into two subgroups:  derived words and compound words – according to the number of root-morphemes they have. Derived words are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes, e.g. acceptable, outdo, disagreeable, etc. Compound words are those which contain at least two root-morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant. There can be both root- and derivational morphemes in compounds as in pen-holder, light-mindedness, or only root-morphemes as in lamp-shade, eye-ball, etc.

These structural types are not of equal importance. The clue to the correct understanding of their comparative value lies in a careful consideration of: 1)the importance of each type in the existing wordstock, and 2) their frequency value in actual speech. Frequency is by far the most important factor. According to the available word counts made in different parts of speech, we find that derived words numerically constitute the largest class of words in the existing wordstock; derived nouns comprise approximately 67% of the total number, adjectives about 86%, whereas compound nouns make about 15% and adjectives about 4%. Root words come to 18% in nouns, i.e. a trifle more than the number of compound words; adjectives root words come to approximately 12%.

But we cannot fail to perceive that root-words occupy a predominant place. In English, according to the recent frequency counts, about 60% of the total number of nouns and 62% of the total number of adjectives in current use are root-words. Of the total number of adjectives and nouns, derived words comprise about 38% and 37% respectively while compound words comprise an insignificant 2% in nouns and 0.2% in adjectives. Thus it is the root-words that constitute the foundation and the backbone of the vocabulary and that are of paramount importance in speech. It should also be mentioned that root words are characterized by a high degree of collocability and a complex variety of meanings in contrast with words of other structural types whose semantic structures are much poorer. Root- words also serve as parent forms for all types of derived and compound words.

III. Principles of morphemic analysis.

In most cases the morphemic structure of words is transparent enough and individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word. The segmentation of words is generally carried out according to the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. This method is based on the binary principle, i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate Constituents. Each Immediate Constituent at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes. These are referred to Ultimate Constituents.

A synchronic morphological analysis is most effectively accomplished by the procedure known as the analysis into Immediate Constituents. ICs are the two meaningful parts forming a large linguistic unity.

The method is based on the fact that a word characterized by morphological divisibility is involved in certain structural correlations. To sum up: as we break the word we obtain at any level only ICs one of which is the stem of the given word. All the time the analysis is based on the patterns characteristic of the English vocabulary. As a pattern showing the interdependence of all the constituents segregated at various stages, we obtain the following formula:

un+ { [ ( gent- + -le ) + -man ] + -ly}

Breaking a word into its Immediate Constituents we observe in each cut the structural order of the constituents.

A  diagram presenting the four cuts described looks as follows:

1. un- / gentlemanly

2.   un- / gentleman / — ly

3.   un- / gentle / — man / — ly

4.   un- / gentl / — e / — man / — ly

A similar analysis on the word-formation level showing not only the morphemic constituents of the word but also the structural pattern on which it is built.

The analysis of word-structure at the morphemic level must proceed to the stage of Ultimate Constituents. For example, the noun friendliness is first segmented into the ICs: [frendlı-] recurring in the adjectives friendly-looking and friendly and [-nıs] found in a countless number  of nouns, such as unhappiness, blackness, sameness, etc. the IC [-nıs] is at the same time an UC of the word, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. Any further division of –ness would give individual speech-sounds which denote nothing by themselves. The IC [frendlı-] is next broken into the ICs [-lı] and [frend-] which are both UCs of the word.

Morphemic analysis under the method of Ultimate Constituents may be carried out on the basis of two principles: the so-called root-principle and affix principle.

According to the affix principle the splitting of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of the affix within a set of words, e.g. the identification of the suffix –er leads to the segmentation of words singer, teacher, swimmer into the derivational morpheme – er  and the roots teach- , sing-, drive-.

According to the root-principle, the segmentation of the word is based on the identification of the root-morpheme in a word-cluster, for example the identification of the root-morpheme agree-  in the words agreeable, agreement, disagree.

As a rule, the application of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words.

However, the morphemic structure of words in a number of cases defies such analysis, as it is not always so transparent and simple as in the cases mentioned above. Sometimes not only the segmentation of words into morphemes, but the recognition of certain sound-clusters as morphemes become doubtful which naturally affects the classification of words. In words like retain, detain, contain or  receive, deceive, conceive, perceive the sound-clusters [rı-], [dı-] seem to be singled quite easily, on the other hand, they undoubtedly have nothing in common with the phonetically identical prefixes  re-, de- as found in words re-write, re-organize, de-organize, de-code. Moreover, neither the sound-cluster [rı-] or [dı-], nor the [-teın] or [-sı:v] possess any lexical or functional meaning of their own. Yet, these sound-clusters are felt as having a certain meaning because [rı-] distinguishes retain from detain and [-teın] distinguishes retain from receive.

It follows that all these sound-clusters have a differential and a certain distributional meaning as their order arrangement point to the affixal status of re-, de-, con-, per- and makes one understand —tain and –ceive as roots. The differential and distributional meanings seem to give sufficient ground to recognize these sound-clusters as morphemes, but as they lack lexical meaning of their own, they are set apart from all other types of morphemes and are known in linguistic literature as pseudo- morphemes. Pseudo- morphemes of the same kind  are also encountered in words like rusty-fusty.

IV.   Derivational level of analysis. Stems. Types of Stems. Derivational types of word.

The morphemic analysis of words only defines the constituent morphemes, determining their types and their meaning but does not reveal the hierarchy of the morphemes comprising the word. Words are no mere sum totals of morpheme, the latter reveal a definite, sometimes very complex interrelation. Morphemes are arranged according to certain rules, the arrangement differing in various types of words and particular groups within the same types. The pattern of morpheme arrangement underlies the classification of words into different types and enables one to understand how new words appear in the language. These relations within the word and the interrelations between different types and classes of words are known as derivative or word- formation relations.

The analysis of derivative relations aims at establishing a correlation between different types and the structural patterns words are built on. The basic unit at the derivational level is the stem.

The stem is defined as that part of the word which remains unchanged throughout its paradigm, thus the stem which appears in the paradigm (to) ask ( ), asks, asked, asking is ask-; thestem of the word singer ( ), singer’s, singers, singers’ is singer-. It is the stem of the word that takes the inflections which shape the word grammatically as one or another part of speech.

The structure of stems should be described in terms of IC’s analysis, which at this level aims at establishing the patterns of typical derivative relations within the stem and the derivative correlation between stems of different types.

There are three types of stems: simple, derived and compound.

Simple stems are semantically non-motivated and do not constitute a pattern on analogy with which new stems may be modeled. Simple stems are generally monomorphic and phonetically identical with the root morpheme. The derivational structure of stems does not always coincide with the result of morphemic analysis. Comparison proves that not all morphemes relevant at the morphemic level are relevant at the derivational level of analysis. It follows that bound morphemes and all types of pseudo- morphemes are irrelevant to the derivational structure of stems as they do not meet requirements of double opposition and derivative interrelations. So the stem of such words as retain, receive, horrible, pocket, motion, etc. should be regarded as simple, non- motivated stems.

Derived stems are built on stems of various structures though which they are motivated, i.e. derived stems are understood on the basis  of the derivative relations between their IC’s and the correlated stems. The derived stems are mostly polymorphic in which case the segmentation results only in one IC that is itself a stem, the other IC being necessarily a derivational affix.

Derived stems are not necessarily polymorphic.

Compound stems are made up of two IC’s, both of which are themselves stems, for example match-box, driving-suit, pen-holder, etc. It is built by joining of two stems, one of which is simple, the other derived.

In more complex cases the result of the analysis at the two levels sometimes seems even to contracted one another.

The derivational types of words are classified according to the structure of their stems into simple, derived and compound words.

Derived words are those composed of one root- morpheme and one or more derivational morpheme.

Compound words contain at least two root- morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant.

Derivational compound is a word formed by a simultaneous process of composition and derivational.

Compound words proper are formed by joining together stems of word already available in the language.

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