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In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. [2] [3] The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family (this root is then called the base word), which carries aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents.
The English language uses many Greek and Latin roots, stems, and prefixes. These roots are listed alphabetically on three pages: Greek and Latin roots from A to G; Greek and Latin roots from H to O; Greek and Latin roots from P to Z. Some of those used in medicine and medical technology are listed in the List of medical roots, suffixes and ...
The following is an alphabetical list of Greek and Latin roots, stems, and prefixes commonly used in the English language from P to Z. See also the lists from A to G and from H to O . Some of those used in medicine and medical technology are not listed here but instead in the entry for List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes .
The term "word" has no well-defined meaning. [6] Instead, two related terms are used in morphology: lexeme and word-form [definition needed]. Generally, a lexeme is a set of inflected word-forms that is often represented with the citation form in small capitals. [7] For instance, the lexeme eat contains the word-forms eat, eats, eaten, and ate.
A word is a basic element of language that carries meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. [1] Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. [2]
Thus, the word do, consisting of a single morpheme, is a verb, as is the word redo, which consists of the prefix re-and the base root do. However, there are a few prefixes in English that are class-changing in that the word resulting after prefixation belongs to a lexical category that is different from the lexical category of the base.
In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. Typically, a stem remains unmodified during inflection with few exceptions due to apophony (for example in Polish, miast-o ("city") and w mieść-e ("in the city"); in English, sing, sang, and sung, where it can be modified according to morphological rules or peculiarities, such as sandhi).
For example, one interpratation of the word root is the morphological root, the stem upon which grammatical inflected endings attach. By this definition, EQU- is the root meaning "horse." e.g. (EQU + US, I = equus, equi - horse; EQU + ES, ITIS = eques, equitis - horseman)