MORPHOLOGY: a term which is not uniquely defined. Some linguists consider the root to be the basic free morpheme in a derived form.
EXAMPLE: if we take the form disagreement, this word contains
the basic free morpheme agree and the two bound morphemes (or affixes)
dis- and -ment. Some linguists
(e.g. Spencer (1991)) call
agree the root. Others
(e.g. Halle (1973)) assume that
agree is the stem, and reserve the notion 'root' for bounded morphemes
which cannot be considered as affixes. For example, if we take the words
receive, conceive and deceive, we can isolate the prefixes
re-, con- and de- and the bound morpheme ceive.
Only Halle (1973) calls ceive the root.
|LIT.||Halle, M. (1973)|
Spencer, A. (1991)