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BMO Posted 22 years ago
Vocabulary

Prefix, stem, suffix

a word is made of three parts, prefix; root, stem, or base; and suffix.

precisely is pre + cise + ly (all three, prefix, root and suffix)
concise is con + cise (prefix and root)
scissors - cise (root)

so a word MAY be made of three elements. correct?
are root, stem and base all the same?
  

Top answer

I quote Trask: 'A root is the simplest form of a lexical morpheme, from which all other forms are built up. ' To me, that suggests that a base is a vaguer word including the other two-- it seems a more useful word to refer to what is actually being used as a stem or root in a particular case.

— Mister Micawber

  • I quote Trask: 'A root is the simplest form of a lexical morpheme, from which all other forms are built up.
  • ' To me, that suggests that a base is a vaguer word including the other two-- it seems a more useful word to refer to what is actually being used as a stem or root in a particular case.
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28 Answers
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I quote Trask:

'A root is the simplest form of a lexical morpheme, from which all other forms are built up. For example, the Latin verb meaning love has the root 'am-'; from this are formed the various stems, such as present 'ama-' and perfect 'amav-', from which in turn are constructed complete word-forms.'

'Base - the item to which an affix is added.'
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A word is made of three parts, prefix; root, stem, or base; and suffix.

Not really. For example, the and banana.


(1)precisely is pre + cise + ly (all three, prefix, root and suffix)
(2)concise is con + cise (prefix and root)
(3)scissors - cise (root)


(1)Correct. 'Cise' is a bound base or you say bound base
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thanks.

let's take underling for example, under- is a prefix, -ling is a suffix, so where is the root, base, or stem?
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Interesting supposition, BMO, but according to my sources, the root is 'under' (adv for 'in a state of subjection) + '-ling' (suffix for 'person concerned with'). '-Ling' has been added to nouns ('nestling'), verbs ('changeling', and adjectives ('darling' -- from 'dear') as well as adverbs.
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All words can be base, but not all words can be root. So, a word which is attached one or more prefixes or suffixes is a root, while a base word does contain already at least one, but it can be added more (pref or suf). By the way stem words are words that cannot be added more affixes and which contains or not some of them.
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0Agreed. Take for example irritable ' ir ' is a prefix when used in irresponsible, but in the case of irritable, it is used as an affix. And -able is the suffix. ^_^05000 Prefix and Suffix are able to be 'heard' and 'see' whether it is accurate. (this is used for last resort) {my name is not anonymous, thank you 05100}010id2511id5
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1i00Affix = prefix02i00 or 01i00suffix02i00. 01i00Ir02i00 of 01i00irritable02i00 appears to be neither, at least in English, as it comes from L. 01i00irritatus02i00,00 from pp. stem of 01i00irritare02i00 'excite, provoke.'0-
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Interesting, but what if I have a situation where I intend to combine two noun roots to develop another noun?

For example, boat is as much a root as swain. When combining them, how are we to decipher whether boat is the prefix or swain is the suffix?
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I believe this is just a compound word, though I could be wrong.
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Julielai12cite10I believe this is just a compound word, though I could be wrong.12blockquote
11b01i00²02i02b00o[op[op[po[o[iioioo[0-
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