§04 ROOTS (MORPHOLOGY Part 1)
R. David Zorc
McNeil Tech., LRC

root – meaningful form that can stand alone; contrast with stem

base – any root that is commonly used with affixes [see also: root]

stem – a small word-part that usually cannot be used alone, but which occurs in word-formation; the main or primary morpheme, the one that carries the main meaning [contrast: root]

radical – an alternate term used by some linguists to stand for a root, base, or stem

word – a form that makes sense if uttered alone; in writing, a form separated by spaces

word bit – a non-technical term for a morph or morpheme

simple form –  a root form without affixes or compound parts

complex form – a root that is difficult to isolate (e.g., feast)

compound – two or more roots or stems put together into a single word (e.g., headache, girlfriend)

morpheme – any of the smallest individually meaningful elements in a language; they may be big (Antarctica = four syllables) or small (go = 1 syllable); not the same as words.
1. Does the portion recur in various utterances with approximately the same meaning?
	Exercise: how many –ship morphs are there in English
	Exercise: how many words with en- and –en can you think of in English?
2. Can the portion or form be broken into smaller pieces? If not it is a single morpheme.

form – any linguistically isolatable unit

WORD-BUILDING
	There are two ways to view the process of word-building in any language: forms that grow within the same part of speech (sing – sings – singing – sang) or those that move from one part of speech to another (sing – song – singer – songster). Linguists call the first inflection (the grammatically-appropriate forms needed to fit into certain sentence contexts, such as: I – me – my – mine) and the latter derivation (run – the verb – can be transformed to runner – a noun).

derivation – the process of going from one part of speech to another (e.g., sing > singer ~ singing) [contrast with inflection; English prefixes always signal derivation; English suffixes usually signal inflection, but can also mark derivation]

inflection – moving about within a given part of speech, like declining a noun for case or number and conjugating a verb for tense or voice) [contrast with derivation]

declension – the inflection of a noun through all its forms (subject = nominative, possessive = genitive, object = accusative, etc.)

conjugation – the inflection of a verb through all its forms (past, present, future, passive, etc.)

affix – any morph added to a root [see: prefix, circumfix (simulfix), infix, and suffix]

circumfix – the combination of two or more affix types that co-occur with a single root in a language [e.g., prefix + suffix, infix + suffix; also called: simulfix, English unfriendly, Tagalog kasulatan 'writings' = sulat + ka- -an]

first order (suffix ~ prefix) – when two or more affixes occur on a word, the first of the series, e.g., uncooperative

infix – small word part that breaks up a word, i.e., it is inserted after the first part of the word, e.g., English abso-bloody-lutley, Tagalog sulat 'write,' sinulat 'was written,' sumulat 'wrote'

inner-layer suffix or pre-suffix – an affix that comes after the root, but before any other suffixes are added

prefix – small word part or morpheme that comes before or in front of a root or stem, e.g., English un-, pre-, co-, etc.

pre-suffix – See: inner-layer suffix

second order (suffix ~ prefix) – when two or more affixes occur onn a word, the second of the series, e.g., uncooperative

simulfix [see: circumfix]

suffix – small word part or morpheme that comes after a root or stem, as English -ed or -ing