1. Chapter 4
Roots, bases, stems & other
structural things
Morphology
Lane 333

2. Roots
 Some elements of the word are more
central than others
 Root: the central morpheme, or the key
element to which others are added
 Roots have a lexical (dictionary) meaning,
but some (lingu, arrog) have a full
meaning only when joined to other
elements

3. Exercise
4.1 identify the roots of the following words.
hymns breakage insane majority
outbreak linked renew boarder
knowingly actions rediscover untainted

4. Exercise
4.3 identify the morphemes which are used to
form derived lexemes
warmth passage accountable endanger
neutralize hearty consultant preschool

5. Affixes & the base
 Affixes
- not independent
- added to other elements
- not all affixes are lexical (also grammatical)

6. The base
 Base: whatever you can add affixes to
- All roots are bases (but not vice versa)
- can be a plain root (e.g. switch)
- or more than one plain root (e.g. window-
seat)
- or a root + one or more affixes (e.g. ex-
husband)

7. The stem
 Stem: what you add grammatical affixes to
 a special kind of base
 All stems are bases, but not all bases can be
stems in English because some lexical
categories (e.g. prepositions) don’t take
grammatical affixes

8. Summary
 Root: morpheme in which the rest of the word is built
 Base: any structure to which an affix may be added
 Stem: any base to which a grammatical affix may be
added
 Affix (1): lexical affixes form separate dictionary words by
being attached to bases (derivation)
 Affix (2): Grammatical affixes add grammatical meanings
to the meaning of their stems (inflection)

9. Examples
 crow base consisting of a single root
 crows base consisting of a single
root; stem+ gram. Affix
 crowbar base consisting of two roots
 crowbars stem+ gram. Affix
 minority base consisting of root+ affix
 gentlemanly base consisting of two roots+ lexical
affix
 southernmost base consisting of root+ lexical affix
 deserted base consisting of a root; also a stem
 Irish- American base consisting of two bases, each consisting
of a root+ a lexical affix

10. Exercise
4.8 which words consist entirely of roots and/or
affixes which are bound morphemes?
outgrow presently quicksilver bathrooms
agriculture reinvent bricklayer sleepyhead

11. Conversions
 Conversions:
pairs of words which belong to different
lexical categories (e.g. drink, love, review)

12. Compounds
 Head: the most important element in a compound
(e.g ‘bag’ in ‘handbag’; a kind of bag)
 The head is of the same lexical category as the
compound itself
e.g.: pathway (noun)
househunt (verb)
headstrong (adj)
 Dependant: the element in a compound word which
depends on the head (e.g. hand)

13. Compounds
 Endocentric: having the centre inside (e.g.
junkmail)
 Exocentric: having the centre outside (e.g.
Redeye)