A root, or root word, is a word that does
not have a prefix or a suffix.
The root word is the primary lexical unit
of a word, and of a word family, which carries
the most significant aspects of semantic content
and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents.
Content words in nearly all languages contain,
and may consist only of root morphemes.
However, sometimes the term "root" is also
used to describe the word minus its inflectional
endings, but with its lexical endings in place.
For example, chatters has the inflectional
root or lemma chatter, but the lexical root
chat.
Inflectional roots are often called stems,
and a root in the stricter sense may be thought
of as a monomorphemic stem.
The traditional definition allows roots to
be either free morphemes or bound morphemes.
Root morphemes are essential for affixation
and compounds.
However, in polysynthetic languages with very
high levels of inflectional morphology, the
term "root" is generally synonymous with "free
morpheme".
Many such languages have a very restricted
number of morphemes that can stand alone as
a word: Yup'ik, for instance, has no more
than two thousand.
The root of a word is a unit of meaning and,
as such, it is an abstraction, though it can
usually be represented in writing as a word
would be.
For example, it can be said that the root
of the English verb form running is run, or
the root of the Spanish superlative adjective
amplísimo is ampl-, since those words are
clearly derived from the root forms by simple
suffixes that do not alter the roots in any
way.
In particular, English has very little inflection,
and hence a tendency to have words that are
identical to their roots.
But more complicated inflection, as well as
other processes, can obscure the root; for
example, the root of mice is mouse, and the
root of interrupt is, arguably, rupt, which
is not a word in English and only appears
in derivational forms.
The root rupt is written as if it were a word,
but it's not.
This distinction between the word as a unit
of speech and the root as a unit of meaning
is even more important in the case of languages
where roots have many different forms when
used in actual words, as is the case in Semitic
languages.
In these, roots are formed by consonants alone,
and different words are derived from the same
root by inserting vowels.
For example, in Hebrew, the root gdl represents
the idea of largeness, and from it we have
gadol and gdola, gadal "he grew", higdil "he
magnified" and magdelet "magnifier", along
with many other words such as godel "size"
and migdal "tower".
Secondary roots
Consider the Arabic language:
مركز [mrkz] or [markaza] meaning ‘centralized’,
from [markaz] ‘centre’, from [rakaza]
‘plant into the earth, stick up’.
أرجح [rjh] or [ta'arjaħa] meaning ‘oscillated’,
from ['urju:ħa] ‘swing’, from [rajaħa]
‘weighed down, preponderated’.
محور [mhwr] or [tamaħwara] meaning ‘centred,
focused’, from [mihwar] meaning ‘axis’,
from [ħa:ra] ‘turned’.
مسخر [msxr], تمسخر [tamasxara] meaning
‘mocked, made fun', from مسخرة [masxara]
meaning ‘mockery’, from سخر [saxira]
‘mocked’."
Similar cases may be found in other Semitic
languages such as Hebrew, Syriac, Aramaic,
Maltese language and to a lesser extent Amharic.
Similar cases occur in Hebrew, e.om Israeli
Hebrew מקמ √mqm ‘locate’, which derives
from Biblical Hebrew מקום måqom ‘place’,
whose root is קומ √qwm ‘stand’.
A recent example introduced by the Academy
of the Hebrew Language is מדרוג midrúg
‘rating’, from מדרג midrág, whose
root is דרג √drg ‘grade’."
According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, "this process
is morphologically similar to the production
of frequentative verbs in Latin, for example:
iactito ‘to toss about’ derives from iacto
‘to boast of, keep bringing up, harass,
disturb, throw, cast, fling away’, which
in turn derives from iacio ‘to throw, cast’.
scriptito ‘to write often, compose’ is
based on scribo ‘to write’.
dicto ‘to say often, repeat’ is from dico
‘to indicate, say, speak, tell’.
clamito ‘to cry loudly/often, shout violently’
derives from clammo ‘call, shout’.".
"Consider also Rabbinic Hebrew תרמ √trm
‘donate, contribute’, which derives from
Biblical Hebrew תרומה t'rūmå ‘contribution’,
whose root is רומ √rwm ‘raise’; cf.
Rabbinic Hebrew תרע √tr` ‘sound the
trummpet, blow the horn’, from Biblical
Hebrew תרועה t'rū`å ‘shout, cry,
loud sound, trumpet-call’, in turn from
רוע √rw`." and it describes the suffix.
See also
Lemma
Lexeme
Morphological typology
Morphology
Phono-semantic matching
Principal parts
Proto-Indo-European root
Radical
Semitic root
Word family
Word stem
References
External links
Virtual Salt Root words and prefixes
American Heritage Dictionary list of Indo-European
roots
Espindle - Greek and Latin Root Words
