A root (or root word) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In
morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the Word stem, stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy'' ...
or a
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
can attach. 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
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
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 without its
inflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place. For example, ''chatters'' has the inflectional root or
lemma
Lemma may refer to:
Language and linguistics
* Lemma (morphology), the canonical, dictionary or citation form of a word
* Lemma (psycholinguistics), a mental abstraction of a word about to be uttered
Science and mathematics
* Lemma (botany), a ...
''chatter'', but the lexical root ''chat''. Inflectional roots are often called
stems, and a root in the stricter sense, a root morpheme, may be thought of as a monomorphemic stem.
The traditional definition allows roots to be either
free morphemes or
bound morpheme
In linguistics, a bound morpheme is a morpheme (the elementary unit of morphosyntax) that can appear only as part of a larger expression; a free morpheme (or unbound morpheme) is one that can stand alone. A bound morpheme is a type of bound form, ...
s. Root morphemes are the building blocks 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 is conventionally indicated using the mathematical symbol √; for instance, the Sanskrit root "" means the root "".
Examples
The root of a word is a unit of meaning (
morpheme) and, as such, it is an abstraction, though it can usually be represented alphabetically as a word. 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 ''ampli-'', since those words are 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 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
A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
'' (still a valid word), and the root of ''interrupt'' is, arguably, ''rupt'', which is not a word in English and only appears in derivational forms (such as ''disrupt'', ''corrupt'', ''rupture'', etc.). The root ''rupt'' can be written as if it were a word, but it is 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 (
semitic roots
The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...
) are formed by
consonants alone, and speakers elaborate different words (belonging potentially to different parts of speech) from the root by inserting different
vowels. For example, in
Hebrew, the root ג-ד-ל ''g-d-l'' represents the idea of largeness, and from it we have ''gadol'' and ''gdola'' (masculine and feminine forms of the adjective "big"), ''gadal'' "he grew", ''higdil'' "he magnified" and ''magdelet'' "magnifier", along with many other words such as ''godel'' "size" and ''migdal'' "tower".
Roots and
reconstructed roots can become the tools of
etymology.
Secondary roots
Secondary roots are roots with changes in them, producing a new word with a slightly different meaning. In English, a rough equivalent would be to see ''conductor'' as a secondary root formed from the root ''to conduct''. In
abjad languages, the most familiar of which are
Arabic and
Hebrew, in which families of secondary roots are fundamental to the language, secondary roots are created by changes in the roots' vowels, by adding or removing the long vowels ''a'', ''i'', ''u'', ''e'' and ''o''. (Notice that Arabic does not have the vowels ''e'' and ''o''.) In addition, secondary roots can be created by prefixing (''m−'', ''t−''), infixing (''−t−''), or suffixing (''−i'', and several others). There is no rule in these languages on how many secondary roots can be derived from a single root; some roots have few, but other roots have many, not all of which are necessarily in current use.
Consider the
Arabic language:
* مركز
rkzor
arkazameaning ‘centralized (masculine, singular)’, from
arkaz‘centre’, from
akaza‘plant into the earth, stick up (a lance)’ ( ر-ك-ز , r-k-z). This in turn has derived words
arkaziy meaning 'central',
arkaziy:ah meaning 'centralism' or 'centralization', and ,
a:markaziy:ah'decentralization'
* أرجح
jhor
a'arjaħameaning ‘oscillated (masculine, singular)’, from
urju:ħa‘swing (n)’, from
ajaħa‘weighed down, preponderated (masculine, singular)’ ( ر-ج-ح , r-j-ħ).
* محور
hwror
amaħwarameaning ‘centred, focused (masculine, singular)’, from
ihwarmeaning ‘axis’, from
�a:ra‘turned (masculine, singular)’ (ح-و-ر , h-w-r).
* مسخر
sxr تمسخر
amasxarameaning ‘mocked, made fun (masculine, singular)', from مسخرة
asxarameaning ‘mockery’, from سخر
axira‘mocked (masculine, singular)’ (derived from س-خ-ر
-x-r."
[ Zuckermann, Ghil'ad 2003]
''Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew''
Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. . pp 65–66. Similar cases may be found in other
Semitic languages such as
Hebrew,
Syriac,
Aramaic,
Maltese language and to a lesser extent
Amharic
Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...
.
Similar cases occur in
Hebrew, for example
Israeli Hebrew √m-q-m ‘locate’, which derives from
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of ...
''måqom'' ‘place’, whose root is √q-w-m ‘stand’. A recent example introduced by the
Academy of the Hebrew Language
The Academy of the Hebrew Language ( he, הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית, ''ha-akademyah la-lashon ha-ivrit'') was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on t ...
is ''midrúg'' ‘rating’, from ''midrág'', whose root is √d-r-g ‘grade’."
According to
Ghil'ad Zuckermann
Ghil'ad Zuckermann ( he, גלעד צוקרמן, ; ) is an Israeli-born language revivalist and linguist who works in contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity. Zuckermann is Professor of Linguistics and Ch ...
, "this process is morphologically similar to the production of
frequentative (iterative) 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’ (from its past participle ''iactum'').
Consider also
Rabbinic Hebrew
Mishnaic Hebrew is the Hebrew of Talmudic texts. Mishnaic Hebrew can be sub-divided into Mishnaic Hebrew proper (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which was a spoken language, and Amoraic Hebrew (al ...
√t-r-m ‘donate, contribute’ (Mishnah: T’rumoth 1:2: ‘separate priestly dues’), which derives from Biblical Hebrew ''t'rūmå'' ‘contribution’, whose root is √r-w-m ‘raise’; cf. Rabbinic Hebrew √t-r-' ‘sound the trumpet, blow the horn’, from Biblical Hebrew ''t'rū`å'' ‘shout, cry, loud sound, trumpet-call’, in turn from √r-w-`."
and it describes the suffix.
Category-neutral roots
Decompositional generative frameworks suggest that roots hold little grammatical information and can be considered "category-neutral".
Category-neutral roots are roots without any inherent lexical category but with some conceptual content that becomes evident depending on the syntactic environment.
The ways in which these roots gain lexical category are discussed in
Distributed Morphology and the
Exoskeletal Model
The Exoskeletal Model in linguistics, or XSM, is a generative framework in morphology and morphosyntax, introduced in the work of Hagit Borer, professor of linguistics at the Queen Mary University of London and previously professor of linguisti ...
.
Theories adopting a category-neutral approach have not, as of 2020, reached a consensus about whether these roots contain a semantic type but no argument structure, neither semantic type nor argument structure, or both semantic type and argument structure.
In support of the category-neutral approach, data from
English indicates that the same underlying root appears as a noun and a verb - with or without overt morphology.
In
Hebrew, the majority of roots consist of segmental consonants √CCC. Arad (2003) describes that the consonantal root is turned into a word due to pattern morphology. Thereby, the root is turned into a verb when put into a verbal environment where the head bears the "v" feature (the pattern).
Consider the root √š-m-n (ש-מ-נ).
Although all words vary semantically, the general meaning of a greasy, fatty material can be attributed to the root.
Furthermore, Arad states that there are two types of languages in terms of root interpretation. In languages like English, the root is assigned one interpretation whereas in languages like Hebrew, the root can form multiple interpretations depending on its environment. This occurrence suggests a difference in
language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to ...
between these two languages. English speakers would need to learn two roots in order to understand two different words whereas Hebrew speakers would learn one root for two or more words.
Alexiadou and Lohndal (2017) advance the claim that languages have a typological scale when it comes to roots and their meanings and state that Greek lies in between Hebrew and English.
See also
*
Lemma (morphology)
*
Lexeme
A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken ...
*
Morphological typology
*
Morphology (linguistics)
*
Phono-semantic matching
*
Principal parts
*
Proto-Indo-European root
*
Radical (Chinese character) (this is more based upon a writing system than a spoken language)
*
Semitic root
*
Word family
*
Word stem
References
External links
Virtual Salt Root words and prefixes
{{Authority control
Lexical units
Linguistics terminology