Word stems in english

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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)

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.

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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.

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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

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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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

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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